Her whole desire was to give, and to Mr. Arthur she could have
given nothing.
"What did he say?" asked Traill, quietly. A man always speaks
somewhat in awe, somewhat in deference, of another whose hopes have
been flung to the ground; speaks of him as if he were a prisoner in
a condemned cell--fool enough no doubt, but made a man again by the
meeting of his fate. "What did he say?" he repeated.
Across Sally's mind pictures were rushing in kaleidoscope. The
remembrance of Mr. Arthur as he had left her at the door and turned
away, shuffling his steps along the pathway--the sight of Janet and
herself, with heads raised from the pillow, listening to the muffled,
disordered sounds in the next room--the recollection of Mr. Arthur's
face the next morning as she had passed him in the hall, the eyes
dull--steam, as it were, upon a window-pane--and the unhealthy
shadows beneath. He had grudged her a good morning, but that was all,
and she had scarcely seen him since then. He had been out every
evening.
"He said very little," she replied, "but I know he felt it very much."
"How do you know?"
"Well, that night when he came in--" the words refused utterance.
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