This admission to herself was coincidental with the slow decline of her
physical courage.
Then, on the August morning after Adam Patch's unexpected call, they
awoke, nauseated and tired, dispirited with life, capable only of one
pervasive emotion--fear.
PANIC
"Well?" Anthony sat up in bed and looked down at her. The corners of his
lips were drooping with depression, his voice was strained and hollow.
Her reply was to raise her hand to her mouth and begin a slow, precise
nibbling at her finger.
"We've done it," he said after a pause; then, as she was still silent,
he became exasperated. "Why don't you say something?"
"What on earth do you want me to say?"
"What are you thinking?"
"Nothing."
"Then stop biting your finger!"
Ensued a short confused discussion of whether or not she had been
thinking. It seemed essential to Anthony that she should muse aloud upon
last night's disaster. Her silence was a method of settling the
responsibility on him. For her part she saw no necessity for speech--the
moment required that she should gnaw at her finger like a nervous child.
"I've got to fix up this damn mess with my grandfather," he said with
uneasy conviction.
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