She spoke to no one of that look, but it must have been the same look that Theophil saw, a few nights after, as she sat listening to him reading in her usual chair.  Suddenly, as he looked up at her, he threw down the book, and with concern, almost terror, in his voice, exclaimed, “Good God, Jenny! are you ill, dear?  What is that terrible white look in your face?”

He sprang across and took her hands.  The look had gone again before he had finished speaking, but it was a look he was never to forget.

One day Jenny put out her arm, and asked him to feel how thin it was growing.

“It is thin, dear; but you mustn’t be anxious.  Perhaps you’re a trifle run down.  You must see the doctor.”

Mrs. Talbot did not believe in doctors, and suggested nourishing soups and port wine as a substitute.  These, however, made those dear arms no fatter, they put none of that promised flesh on Jenny’s bones. (Why did Theophil rather creep one day as Mrs. Talbot made use of that expression?)

And Jenny was growing tired too.  She was not so ready on her feet as she used to be.  Small exertions exhausted her.  Her breath was not so available for running up and down stairs as it had been.

Then Theophil would have a doctor, who sounded Jenny, and looked a little grave, but finally, reassured, asked her if she had had a shock,—­Jenny smiled rather knowingly, but denied it,—­declared her a little run down and in need of bracing and nourishment, prescribed phosphites and steel.

Then Jenny got very wet one day on her way from school, and she began to cough.  She had to stay at home, and bed was perhaps the best place for her.  So Jenny went to bed, and looked very pretty there, and was quite merry of an evening when Theophil, bringing her flowers,—­he was already bringing her flowers,—­would draw up the arm-chair by her side, and read to her.  Those were very sweet hours, perhaps the sweetest their love had ever known, so cosy and homelike, and yet without fear.

But one evening, when Jenny had been coughing, there was blood on the bosom of her nightdress, and as Theophil saw it, his heart stood still with terror.  Jenny grew very white, too, as she saw it, though the awful thought which was behind the still look they gave each other was not quite new to her.  Sometimes she might have been heard softly saying over to herself,—­

“I am lost, I am changed, I must go farther, where
The change shall take me worse, and no one dare
Look in my face and see.”

Yet although Death’s voice calling us from afar may seem all sweetness, his voice coming nearer has a note of dread in it that appals the most death-desirous heart.  And in that silence those poor lovers both heard him singing, it seemed not many streets away.

“I must be very ill, dear,” said Jenny.  “O my love, O my love...!”

Theophil strove with himself to say words with a real ring of the future in them, when this cloud should have passed away; and for his sake Jenny pretended to believe them.  Yes, this very week he would take her away to bright skies and healing air,—­though Jenny felt a little tired at the thought of rising any more from the bed to which she was growing curiously accustomed.