“How is she?”
“The same; I can see no change.”
Catherine rose with a suggestion of effort, and leaned for a moment on her husband’s arm. The impulse seemed simultaneous with them, the impulse that drew them to the room above. They went up together, hand in hand, silent and restrained, two souls awed by the mysteries of death and life.
On the bed by the window lay Gwen, with childishly open yet sightless eyes. A flush of vivid color showed on either cheek, her golden hair falling aside like waves of light about her forehead. Her breathing was tranquil and feeble, and spaced out with a peculiar rhythm. The pupils of the eyes were markedly unequal; one lid drooped slightly, and the right angle of the red mouth was a little drawn.
It is a certain pitiful semblance of health that mocks the heart in many such cases. Children who die thus are often beautiful. They seem to sleep with open eyes. The flush on the cheeks has nothing of the gathering grayness of death.
Catherine, bending low, looked at Gwen with the long look of one who will not see the vanishing torch of hope.
“She is still asleep.”
“Yes, asleep.”
The man’s voice was a tearless echo.
“James, it can’t be. Look, what a color! And the eyes—”