—Why don’t you go? I thought. I knew he stayed because he would not give in to the shudder that shamed him: and because he wanted to understand that shudder.
He held out his hand. I took it, cold and removed. All his body was cold. Only his eyes were warm, and in them I saw a look kin to what I had seen in the eyes of Mrs. Landsdowne. Doctor Stein and she ... how could their eyes have kinship?—They have seen one thing! Two words as different as themselves are different. But they have seen one thing!
“Will you tell me,” said my eyes, “before you go, what you have seen?”
But he had no word for it. A gray muteness spread upon his face, from which his eyes stared out.
“John Mark,” he stammered, “your will, John Mark—what is it touching?”
I looked at him in my helplessness.
—Can not you see my helplessness?
He answered my silence. He mastered himself and took my hand once more. He held it close. He was at ease and strong.
“I respect you,” he whispered. And he went away.