Neal was composed enough to answer her. In low, earnest
tones, he entreated her to say no more. "I was only anxious to show you
every consideration," he said. "I am only anxious now to spare you every
distress." As he spoke, something like a glow of color rose slowly on
his sallow face. Her eyes were looking at him, softly attentive; and he
thought guiltily of his meditations at the window before she came in.

The doctor saw his opportunity. He opened the door that led into Mr.
Armadale's room, and stood by it, waiting silently. Mrs. Armadale
entered first. In a minute more the door was closed again; and Mr.
Neal stood committed to the responsibility that had been forced on
him--committed beyond recall.

The room was decorated in the gaudy continental fashion, and the warm
sunlight was shining in joyously. Cupids and flowers were painted on
the ceiling; bright ribbons looped up the white window-curtains; a smart
gilt clock ticked on a velvet-covered mantelpiece; mirrors gleamed on
the walls, and flowers in all the colors of the rainbow speckled the
carpet. In the midst of the finery, and the glitter, and the light,
lay the paralyzed man, with his wandering eyes, and his lifeless lower
face--his head propped high with many pillows; his helpless hands laid
out over the bed-clothes like the hands of a corpse. By the bed head
stood, grim, and old, and silent, the shriveled black nurse; and on the
counter-pane, between his father's outspread hands, lay the child, in
his little white frock, absorbed in the enjoyment of a new toy. When the
door opened, and Mrs. Armadale led the way in, the boy was tossing
his plaything--a soldier on horseback--backward and forward over the
helpless hands on either side of him; and the father's wandering
eyes were following the toy to and fro, with a stealthy and ceaseless
vigilance--a vigilance as of a wild animal, terrible to see.

The moment Mr. Neal appeared in the doorway, those restless eyes
stopped, looked up, and fastened on the stranger with a fierce eagerness
of inquiry. Slowly the motionless lips struggled into movement. With
thick, hesitating articulation, they put the question which the eyes
asked mutely, into words: "Are you the man?"

Mr. Neal advanced to the bedside, Mrs. Armadale drawing back from it
as he approached, and waiting with the doctor at the further end of
the room. The child looked up, toy in hand, as the stranger came near,
opened his bright brown eyes in moment