"She's more than quiet. She's grim. It's what she has never been. So
you see--all these days. I can't tell you--but it's better so. It would
kill me if she _were_ to tell me."
"To tell you?" He was still at a loss.
"How she feels. How she clings. How she doesn't want it."
"How she doesn't want to die? Of course she doesn't want it." He had a
long pause, and they might have been thinking together of what they
could even now do to prevent it. This, however, was not what he brought
out. Milly's "grimness" and the great hushed palace were present to
him; present with the little woman before him as she must have been
waiting there and listening. "Only, what harm have _you_ done her?"
Mrs. Stringham looked about in her darkness. "I don't know. I come and
talk of her here with you."