rful word, and would fain have persuaded
Lucy to come out into the corridor, or to breathe the fresh air from a
balcony. But Lucy, had she been capable of leaving the child, had a dim
recollection in her mind that there was something, she could not tell
what, interposing between her and her husband, and turned away from him
with a sinking at her heart. She remembered vaguely that he had
something else--some other possessions to comfort him--not this child
alone as she had. He had something that he could perhaps love as
well--but she had nothing; and she turned away from him with an
instinctive sense of the difference, feeling it to be a wrong to her
boy. But for this they might have comforted each other, and consulted
each other over the fever and its symptoms. And she might have stolen a
few moments from her child's bed and thrown herself on her husband's
bosom and been consoled. But after all what did it matter? Could
anything have made it more easy to bear? When sorrow and pain occupy the
whole being, what room is there for consolation, what importance in the
lessening by an infinitesimal shred of sorrow!

This had gone on for--Lucy could not tell how many days (though not in
reality for very many), when there came one afternoon in which
everything seemed to draw towards the close. It is the time when the
heart fails most easily and the tide of being runs most low. The light
was beginning to wane in those dim rooms, though a great golden sunset
was being enacted in purple and flame on the other side of the house.
The child's eyes were dull and glazed; they seemed to turn inward with
that awful blank which is like the soul's withdrawal; its little powers
seemed all exhausted. The little moan, the struggle, had fallen into
quiet. The little lips were parched and dry. Those pathetic looks that
seemed to plead for help and understanding came no more. The baby was
too much worn out for such painful indications of life. The women had
drawn aside, all their talk hushed, only a faint whisper now and then of
directions from the most experienced of the two to the subordinates
aiding the solemn watch. Lucy sat by the side of the little bed on the
floor, sometimes raising herself on her knees to see better. She had
fallen into the chill and apathy of despair.

At this time a door opened, not loudly or with any breach of the decorum
of such a crisis, but with a distinct soft sound, which denoted some
one not bound by the habits