"After Tuesday night?"
Her eyes craved pardon. She essayed to speak but her lips made wordless
sounds. Finally she roused a little, caught his hand and held it to
her breast.
"Ask your Uncle Robert, dear?" she whispered. Her eyes looked into his
with longing, with renunciation. A certain peace stole into them and
slowly the eyelids closed.
Frank, who had half grasped the meaning of her words, leaned forward
fearfully. The hand which held his seemed colder, more listless. There
was something different. Something that he could not name--that
frightened him.
Suddenly he realized its meaning. The heart which had pulsed beneath his
fingers was still.
CHAPTER LXXXI
READJUSTMENT
Of the trip to Berkeley which followed, Frank could not afterward recall
the slightest detail. Between the time when, like a madman, he had tried
to rouse his sweetheart from that final lethargy which knew no waking,
and the moment when he burst upon his Uncle Robert with what must have
seemed an insane question, Frank lost count of time.
He was in the library of an Alameda county lawyer, host of the Stanley
and the Windham families. Across the mahogany table, grasping the back
of a chair for support, one hand half outstretched in a supplicating
gesture, stood his Uncle Robert--pale, shaken ghost of the
self-possessed man that he usually was.
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