He went
up to the bed and placed his hand on the sleeping head. Mrs. Levice moved
her chair slightly as he seated himself on the edge of the bed and took
Levice's hand. Ruth, watching him with wide, distended eyes, thought he
would never drop it. Her senses, sharpened by suffering, read every change
on his face. As he withdrew his hand, she gave one long, involuntary moan.
He turned quickly to her.
"What is it?" he asked, his grave eyes scanning her anxiously.
"Nothing," she responded. It was the first word she had spoken to him
since the afternoon ceremony. He turned back to Levice, lowering his ear
to his chest. After a faint, almost imperceptible pause he arose.
"I think you had all better lie down," he said softly. "I shall sit with
him, and you all need rest."
"I could not rest," said Mrs. Levice; "this chair is all I require."
"If you would lie on the couch here," he urged, "you would find the
position easier."
"No, no! I could not."
He looked at Ruth.
"I shall go by and by," she answered.
Arnold had long since gone out.
Ruth's by and by stretched on interminably. Kemp took up the "Argonaut"
that lay folded on the table. He did not read much, his eyes straying from
the printed page before him to the "finis" writing itself slowly on Jules
Levice's face, and thence to Ruth's pale profile; she was crying, --so
quietly, though, that but for the visible tears an onlooker might not have
known it; she herself did not, --her heart was silently overflowing.
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