stood there a long while, hearing nothing. If the nurse were in the room, he would have heard her move or have heard someone speak by now, he thought. He could not imagine where the nurse could be. Had she gone out? At any rate, the sick woman could not prevent his going away whenever he wished. He turned the knob of the door softly and looked in. The nurse was not in the room. The sick woman lay with eyes closed and without a pillow, her look of immobility sending a sudden tension through him and making the hairs prickle on his skin. He went quietly into the room and stood looking down at her. Should he speak to her and make her open her eyes? Or should he merely go away? Her hand with its many rings lay outside the coverlet, he put out his own hand hesitatingly and touched it, and at the contact the hairs again stood up upon his flesh in warning to him. The immobility of her look was corroborated by the stiffness of the hand, which was now cold instead of burning with fever as it had been the night before.
He drew back from her a little, staring.
