The telegram did not prove her wrong; yet seizure was
a vague word under which much might lie hidden. But her mood and her
feeling still remained; it was not in hope or in any attempt at
self-consolation, but in the expression of an obstinate conviction which
dominated her mind that she said in answer to Marchmont's glance, "I
can't believe it's anything really amiss. I expect I shall find him at
work again when I get back to-morrow."
With a little movement of his hands Marchmont turned away. He had at
command no conventional phrases in which to express a desire that she
might prove right. It was impossible to say that he wished she might
prove wrong; even in his own mind a man leaves a hope like that vague and
unformulated. But he marvelled, still without understanding, at the
strange obstinate idea which seemed almost to exalt Quisante above the
ordinary lot of mortals, to see in him a force so living that it could
not perish, a vitality so intense that death could lay no hand on it. He
glanced at her as he crossed the room to the piano; she sat now with the
telegram in her hands and her eyes fixed on the floor in front of her.
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