, without
thinking very much about herself. As long as she was sure he wanted her,
she would be there, where he was. He felt rather than knew that she
waited for him, and would wait for him through interminable years,
untroubled as to her peace, profoundly pure. He was not even certain
that she was aware that she was waiting and that he waited too.

* * * * *

In the spring of nineteen-ten it looked as if they would not have very
long to wait. He had measured his resources with such accuracy that by
June, if all went well, he could set about filing his petition.

And now, seeing the thing so near and yet not accomplished, Ranny's
nerve went. He began to be afraid, childishly and ridiculously afraid,
of something happening to prevent it. He had a clear and precise idea of
that something. He would die before he could file his petition, before
he could get his divorce and marry Winny. His heart to be sure was
better; but at any moment it might get worse. It might get like his
father's. It might stop altogether. He thought of it as he had never
thought of it before. He humored it. He never ran. He never jumped. He
never rode uphill on his bicycle. He thought twice before hurrying for
anything.

Against these things he could protect himself.

But who could protect him against excitement and worry and anxiety? Why,
this fear that he had was itself the worst thing for him imaginable. And
then worry. He _had_ to worry. You couldn't look on and see the poor old
Humming-bird going from bad to worse, you couldn't see everybody else
worrying about him, and not worry too. He would go away and forget about
it for a time, and when he came back again the terrible and intolerable
thing was there.

And at the heart of the trouble there was a still more terrible and
intolerable peace. It was as if Mr. Ransome had made strange terms with
the youth and joy and innocent life that had once roused him to such
profound resentment and disgust. His vindictive ubiquity had ceased.
When the spring came he could no longer drag himself up and down stairs.
His feet and legs were swollen; they were like enormous weights
attached to his pitifully weedy body. His skin had the sallow
smoothness, the waxen substance that marked the deadly, unmistakable
progress of his disease. He could not always lie down in his bed.
Sometimes he lived, day and night, motionless in his invalid's chair,
with his legs propped before him