spoke but seldom, and then
it was merely to thank me when I wrapped the fur rug about her, or to
reply to a question of George's with a smile that had in it a touching
helplessness, a pathetic courage. And this helplessness, this courage,
brought to my memory the sound of her voice when she had called George's
name aloud in her terror. Even after we had reached home, and when she
and I stood alone, for a minute, before the fire in her room, I felt
still that something within her--something immaterial and flamelike that
was her soul--turned from me, seeking always a clearer and a diviner
air.

"Are you in pain now, Sally? What can I do for you?" I asked.

"No, I am better. Don't worry," she answered.

Then, because there seemed nothing further to say, I stood in silence,
while she moved from me, as if the burden of her weight was too much for
her, and sank down on the couch, hiding her face in the pillows.

Two days later there came down a great specialist from New York for a
consultation; and while he was upstairs in her closed bedroom, I walked
up and down the floor of the library, over the Turkish rugs, between the
black oak bookcases, as I had walked in that other house on the night of
my failure. How small a thing that seemed to me now compared with this!
What I remembered best from that night was the look in her face when she
had turned and run back to me with her arms outstretched, and the warm,
flattened braid of her hair that had brushed my cheek. I understood at
last, as I walked restlessly back and forth, waiting for the verdict
from the closed room, that I had been happy then--if I had only known
it! The warmth stifled me, and going to the window, I flung it open, and
leaned out into the mild November weather. In the street below leaves
were burning, and while the odour floated up to me I saw again her red
shoes dancing over the sunken graves in the churchyard.

The door opened above, there was the sound of a slow heavy tread on the
staircase, and I went forward to meet the great specialist as he came
into the room.

For a minute he looked at me enquiringly over a pair of black-rimmed
glasses, while I stood there neither thinking nor feeling, but waiting.
Something in my brain, which until then had seemed to tick the slow
movement of time, came suddenly to a stop like a clock that has run
down.

"In my opinion an operation is unnecessary, Mr. Starr," he said, drawing
out his watch as he spoke, "and in