Page:A Good Woman (1927).pdf/433

 he said, "It's this, Mary. Listen. . . . Write. . . . I think it ought to go like this. . . . 'Whatever happens, after my death, I mean that my children, Philip and Naomi . . . whom I had by my first wife, Naomi Potts, are never to be left in the care of my mother, Emma Downes. He hesitated for a moment, and then weakly murmured, The same is my wish with regard to any child who may be born after my death . . . of my second wife, Mary Conyngham. Again he paused. This is my express wish. He beckoned with his eyes to Swanson. "Raise me up," he said. "Here, Mary, give me the pencil and the paper." She held the drawing-block for him while the thin, brown hand wrote painfully the words "Philip Downes."

The pencil dropped to the floor. "Now, Swanson . . . you must sign it as witness. . . ." Swanson laid him back gently and then wrote his own name and went quietly out.

As his grotesque figure shut out from the doorway the blue of the African night, she knelt beside him, and, pressing the dry, hot hands against her cheek, she cried out, "But you're not going to die, Philip. . . . You're not going to die! I won't let you!" She would hold him by her own will. Anything was possible in this strange, terrifying world by the lake.

"No . . . Mary . . . I'm not going to die. I only wanted to make certain."

The room grew still, and all at once she found herself praying. Her lips did not move, but she was praying. She was ashamed to have Philip hear her, and she was ashamed, too, before God that she should