CHAPTER XXIV
HOW GWEN INTRODUCED MR. TORRENS, AND MRS. PICTURE TOOK HOLD OF HIS HAND. OF MR. TORREN'S FIRM FAITH IN DEVILS, AND OLD MAISIE'S HAPPINESS THEREAT. THE DOCTOR'S MEMORY OF ADRIAN'S FIRST APPEARANCE AS A CORPSE. THE LAXITY OF GENERAL PRACTIOTIONERS. HIS WISH TO INTOXICATE MRS. PRICHARD. HOW GWEN SANG GLUCK TO ADRIAN, AND ONESIMUS BROUGHT HER A LETTER. QUITE A GOOD REPORT. HOW GWEN WASN'T ANXIOUS. OF ADRIAN'S INVISIBLE MOTHER. HER SELECTNESS, AND HIGH BREEDING. ADRIAN'S VIEWS ABOUT SUICIDES. SURVIVORS' SELFISHNESS TOWARDS THEM, HOW HE TALKED ABOUT THAT DEVIL, AND LET OUT THAT THE OLD LADY HAD FLASHED ACROSS HIS RETINA. HOW HE HAD CLOTHED EACH TWIN'S HEAD WITH THE OTHER'S HAIR
Has it not been the experience of all of us, many a time, that a few days' clear absence from an invalid has been needed, to distinguish a slow change, invisible to the watchers by the bedside? And all the while, have not the daily bulletins made out a case for indefinable slight improvements, negligible gains scarcely worth naming, whose total some mysterious flaw of calculation persistently calls loss?
There may have been very little actual change; there was room for so little. But Gwen had been building up hopes of an improvement. And now she had to see her house of cards tremble and portend collapse. She saved the structure—as one has done in real card-life—by gingerly removing a top storey, in terror of a cataclysm. She would not hope so much—indeed, indeed!—if Fate would only leave some of her structure standing. But she was at fault for a greeting, all but a disjointed word or two, when Ruth, falling back, left her to enter the bedroom alone.
It was a consolation to hear the old lady's voice. "My dear—my dear—I knew you would come. I woke in the night, and thought to myself—she will come, my lady. Then I rang, and my Ruth came. She comes so quick."
"And then that was just as good as me," said Gwen. "Wasn't it?"
"She is my child—my Ruth. And Phoebe is my Phoebe—years ago! But I have to think so much, to make it all fit. You are not like that.'
"What am I like?"
"You are the same all through. You came upstairs to me in my room—did you not?—where my little Dave and Dolly were...."
"Yes—I fetched Dolly."