Her dressing gown of gray merino trailed on the marble floor, and her bare feet gleamed like ivory, as one hand caught up the soft merino folds sufficiently to enable her to walk. Over the blue shawl streamed her beautiful hair, making the wan face look even more ghastly by contrast with its glossy jet masses.
She stood irresolute, with her calm, mournful eyes riveted on the coffin, and Mr. Manning saw her pale lips move as she staggered toward it. He sprang to meet and intercept her, and she stretched her hands in the direction of the corpse, and smiled strangely, murmuring like one in a troubled dream: "You need not be afraid, little darling, 'there is no night there.'"
She reeled and put her hand to her heart, and would have fallen, but Mr. Manning caught and carried her back to her room.
For two weeks she hovered on the borders of eternity; and often the anxious friends who watched her, felt that they would rather see her die than endure the suffering through which she was called to pass.
She bore it silently, meekly, and when the danger seemed over, and she was able to sleep without the aid of narcotics, Mrs. Andrews could not bear to look at the patient white face, so hopelessly calm.
No allusion was made to Felix, even after she was able to sit up and drive; but once, when Mr. Manning brought her some flowers, she looked sorrowfully at the snowy orange-blossoms, whose strong perfume made her turn paler, and said faintly: "I shall never love them or violets again. Take them away, Hattie, out of my sight; put them on your brother's grave. They smell of death."
From that day she made a vigorous effort to rouse herself, and the boy's name never passed her lips; though she spent many hours over a small manuscript which she found among his books, directed to her for revision. "Tales for Little Cripples," was the title he had given it, and she was surprised at the beauty and pathos of many of the sentences. She carefully revised and rewrote it, adding a brief sketch of the young writer, and gave it to his mother.
About a month after Felix's death the governess seemed to have recovered her physical strength, and Mrs. Andrews announced her intention of going to Germany. Mr. Manning had engagements that called him to France, and, on the last day of their stay at Genoa, he came as usual to spend the evening with Edna.
A large budget of letters and papers had arrived from America; and when he gave her the package containing her share, she glanced over the directions, threw them unopened into a heap on the table, and continued the conversation in which she was engaged, concerning the architecture of the churches in Genoa.