So soon. Wait a little. This is a
vision. I shall sleep it off. It has been too short and easy. I
must have a better vision than this; this is the poorest of all.
No struggle, no consciousness of peril, no entreaty--and yet I
never saw THAT before.' With a start.
'Saw what, deary?'
'Look at it! Look what a poor, mean, miserable thing it is! THAT
must be real. It's over.'
He has accompanied this incoherence with some wild unmeaning
gestures; but they trail off into the progressive inaction of
stupor, and he lies a log upon the bed.
The woman, however, is still inquisitive. With a repetition of her
cat-like action she slightly stirs his body again, and listens;
stirs again, and listens; whispers to it, and listens. Finding it
past all rousing for the time, she slowly gets upon her feet, with
an air of disappointment, and flicks the face with the back of her
hand in turning from it.
But she goes no further away from it than the chair upon the
hearth. She sits in it, with an elbow on one of its arms, and her
chin upon her hand, intent upon him. 'I heard ye say once,' she
croaks under her breath, 'I heard ye say once, when I was lying
where you're lying, and you were making your speculations upon me,
"Unintelligible!" I heard you say so, of two more than me. But
don't ye be too sure always; don't be ye too sure, beauty!'
Unwinking, cat-like, and intent, she presently adds: 'Not so
potent as it once was? Ah! Perhaps not at first.
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