gathered emphasis. The sick man's ghastly face was yet more ghastly; his
eyes were more sunken, his skin more livid; "his nose was as sharp as a
pen," and if he did not "babble of green fields" it was because he
seemed to be beyond even that. If it had been a case of disease, I
should have said at once that he was dying. He had all the appearance of
a man in articulo mortis. Even as it was, feeling convinced that the
case was one of morphine poisoning, I was far from confident that I
should be able to draw him back from the extreme edge of vitality on
which he trembled so insecurely.

"He is very ill? He is dying?"

It was Mrs. Schallibaum's voice; very low, but eager and intense. I
turned, with my finger on the patient's wrist, and looked into the face
of the most thoroughly scared woman I have ever seen. She made no
attempt now to avoid the light, but looked me squarely in the face, and
I noticed, half-unconsciously, that her eyes were brown and had a
curious strained expression.

"Yes," I answered, "he is very ill. He is in great danger."

She still stared at me fixedly for some seconds. And then a very odd
thing occurred. Suddenly she squinted--squinted horribly; not with the
familiar convergent squint which burlesque artists imitate, but with
external or divergent squint of extreme near sight or unequal vision.
The effect was quite startling. One moment both her eyes were looking
straight into mine; the next, one of them rolled round until it looked
out of the uttermost corner, leaving the other gazing steadily forward.

She was evidently conscious of the change, for she turned her head away