Page:Bat Wing 1921.djvu/196

 “Has any one told her the truth?” he asked.

“You mean that Colonel Menendez is dead?”

“Yes,” replied Dr. Rolleston. “I understood that no one had told her?”

“No one has done so to my knowledge,” said Harley.

“Then the sympathy between them must have been very acute,” murmured the physician, “for she certainly knows!”

“Do you really think she knows?” I asked.

“I am certain of it. She must have had knowledge of a danger to be apprehended, and being awakened by the sound of the rifle shot, have realized by a sort of intuition that the expected tragedy had happened. I should say, from the presence of a small bruise which I found upon her forehead, that she had actually walked out into the corridor.”

“Walked?” I cried.

“Yes,” said the physician. “She is a shell-shock case, of course, and we sometimes find that a second shock counteracts the effect of the first. This, temporarily at any rate, seems to have happened to-night. She is now in a very curious state: a form of hysteria, no doubt, but very curious all the same.”

“Miss Beverley is with her?” I asked.

Dr. Rolleston nodded affirmatively.

“Yes, a very capable nurse. I am glad to know that Madame de Stämer is in such good hands. I am calling again early in the morning, and I have told Mrs. Fisher to see that nothing is said within hearing of the room which could enable Madame de Stämer to obtain confirmation of the idea, which she evidently entertains, that Colonel Menendez is dead.”

“Does she actually assert that he is dead?” asked Harley.