So they went away, taken quietly and stealthily out of the
house for fear Andrew should know. In the book-room only a few books
were left to keep the dusty pennant a melancholy companionship.
But the patent foods and drugs did no good; they reminded Marcella
irresistibly of the soil and water she had laid hopefully round the
bursting apple tree. As he lay once, with all the wheels of life running
at half rate after a sedative, he said to Marcella, who had been
reading to him:
"I feel as if I'm not in my body, Marcella. Oh, Marcella, help me to get
a grip on my body! I can't make it do what I'm tellin' it to do! Look!"
and he held up one gaunt arm feebly, to let it drop a minute later.
"Look! Marcella--once I could break men with my hands!"
She stared at him, choking. There was nothing she could think to say. In
her mother's weakness her lips had overflowed with tendernesses; for her
father she could only feel a terrified, inarticulate pity. It was not
sympathy. She could not understand enough to sympathize. It was the same
sort of hungry, brooding pity she used to feel for the hungry beasts on
the farm.
"Marcella, do you think if I were to eat a lot of meat I'd be stronger?"
he asked hopefully. "Oh, make me stronger!--give me something," and
suddenly raising himself in bed, he threw his arms about her and, with
his grey head on her shoulder, sobbed desolately.
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