"Nothing, Channah, nothing! Oh, tell me, why did you persuade me to go away, both of you? If I ever forgive you, can I forgive myself?" "Philip, let me close the front door! Come in, don't stand like a stone! I can't understand you; why don't you go in at once, she's been asking for you, I tell you!" "Don't you see how I'm afraid? It's on my mind--what I just said! Why did you let me go?" "We hadn't the least idea of anything. You'd have upset her if you'd missed the chance. You'd have brought it about sooner!" "Do you think she really meant it--about the _kuggel_? Wasn't she just joking?" "No. She wanted to get up to make you some and send it to you! Emmes, Philip, if it isn't true!" He had been standing stiff in each joint, touched as with frost. Suddenly all his body drooped. His voice fell to an almost unintelligible whisper. "Let me go in to her....!" He moved the few steps to the parlour door and turned the handle. He was at her bedside. Only her eyes he first saw. They were larger, warmer, deeper than they had been at any time before. Because of the eyes, he was not immediately conscious with the whole of his mind of the pallor in which they were set: not merely pallor, a bloodless yellow. But the consciousness of this pallor was soaking through each pore of his body and mind, even as he bent to kiss her powerless lips; even as he rose and was saying, "Look, mother, mother! I'm back from Wenton!" The consciousness of her pallor so steeped each atom, each corpuscle in him that he became yellow as she. Still, for her sake, he held his lips firm against his teeth, subdued the impulse in his four limbs to fling themselves wildly, wildly, upon the floor. She was too weak to answer. He saw her mouth endeavour to frame words and abandon the attempt. Only by a lifting of the eyelids she showed the joy at the centre of that waning heart, and by the dim flush of colour which spread across her cheeks. He knew not for what length of time he stood motionless over a body so thin it hardly seemed to break the line of the counterpane. At last he became aware that the door had opened and Channah had come through. "Let me just come near her, Philip, I'll see if she can take a drop of milk! Dorah's in the kitchen! She wants you to go in and have some food!" "Not now!" he whispered.