wering a question, he was aware of a subtle
change in the Squire's attitude-a relaxation of his own sense of
tension. After a minute he bent forward, peering through the darkness.
The Squire's head had fallen back, his mouth was slightly open, and the
breath came lightly, quiveringly through. The cynic of a moment ago
had dropped suddenly into a sleep of more than childish weakness and
defenselessness.

Robert remained bending forward, gazing at the man who had once meant so
much to him.

Strange white face, sunk in the great chair! Behind it glimmered the
Donatello figures and the divine Hermes, a glorious shape in the dusk,
looking scorn on human decrepitude. All round spread the dim walls of
books. The life they had nourished was dropping into the abyss out of
ken--they remained. Sixty years of effort and slavery to end so--a river
lost in the sands!

Old Meyrick stole in again, and stood looking at the sleeping Squire.

'A bad sign! a bad sign!' he said, and shook his head mournfully.

After he had made an effort to take some food which Vincent pressed upon
him, Robert, conscious of a stronger physical _malaise_ than had ever
yet tormented him, was crossing the hall again, when he suddenly saw
Mrs. Darcy at the door of a room which opened into the hall. He went up
to her with a warm greeting.

'Are you going in to the Squire? Let us go together.'

She looked at him with no surprise, as though she had seen him the day
before, and as he spoke she retreated a step into the room behind her, a
curious film, so it seemed to him, darkening her small gray eyes.

'The Squire is not here. He is gone away. Have you seen my white mice?
Oh, they are such darlings! Only, one of them is ill, and they won't let
me have the doctor.'

Her voice sank into the most pitiful plaintiveness. She stood in the
middle of the room, pointing with an elfish finger to a large cage of
white mice which stood in the window. The room seemed full besides
of other creatures. Robert stood rooted, looking at the tiny withered
figure in the black dress, its snowy hair and diminutive face swathed in
lace with a perplexity into which there slipped an involuntary
shiver. Suddenly he became aware of a woman by the fire, a decent,
strong-looking body in gray, who rose as his look turned to her. Their
eyes met; her expression and the little jerk of her head toward Mrs.
Darcy, who was now standing by the cage coaxing the mice with the
weirdest gesture