In the same quiet, silent way he watched her as she busied herself about the apartment, lifting the kettle from the stove, adjusting the wick of the lamp which had begun to smoke from the draft of the open door, taking from a shelf two cups and saucers and from a tin bread box a loaf and some crackers.
When, in one of her journeys to and fro, she passed where the light of the lamp fell full upon her round face, framed in its white cap and long strings, he gave a slight start.

There were dark circles below her eyes and heavy lines near the corners of her mouth--signs he had not seen since the month she had spent in the Marine Hospital when the plague was stamped out.

He noticed, too, that her robust figure, with its broad shoulders and capacious bosom, restful pillow to many a new-born baby, seemed shrunken--not in weight, but in its spring, as if all her alertness (she was under fifty) had oozed out.

It was only when she had completed her labors and taken a chair beside him, her soft, nursing hand covering his own, that his mind reverted to the tragedy which had brought him to her side.

Even then, although she sat with her face turned toward his, her eyes reading his own, some moments passed before either of them spoke.