For another moment, their eyes had met; but no word had been
spoken between them. Then Alice had come to them, bringing the
surgeon's verdict. That had been an hour before. Now they still were
there, watching the slow approach of the inevitable summons.
Slowly the day waxed--and waned. For the waning life, there was no
interval of waxing. Slowly, steadily, by infinitesimal degrees, Leo
Frazer was sinking down into the Valley of the Shadow. Once the head
surgeon had stepped behind the screens and bent over the bed. Only
Ethel had seen the brief contraction of his brows; but no one of
them was deceived by his cheery words of parting. And still the blue
eyes rested upon Ethel, as if seeking to gain from her the answer to
some unspoken question, as if begging her to share with him some
fraction of her quiet strength. Now and then Ethel wondered at her
own quiet. This was the second week of her promised month with her
cousin; but it was the first time she had come face to face with
death, the first time, too, that her work had taken on any hint of
personality. Now, suddenly confronted with these three, Death and
the two men who, during the past fourteen months, had played so
active parts in her life, she was surprised to find that she faced
them steadily and in silence.
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