Page:Chipperfield--Unseen Hands.djvu/213

Rh she cried out, and her voice was hoarse with terror, 'I implore you! Do what I ask! I am not mad, I know!' Then that confounded nurse intervened and practically ordered me from the room, and like a fool I went. My poor wife's eyes had been so wild, her words so incredible, and her manner so violent, that it did not occur to me for a moment that she could be in full possession of her faculties. I supposed as a matter of course that it was all a mere figment of her disordered imagination.

"When I look back now, Sergeant, I could kill myself. I feel as guilty as though I myself had caused her death. My God, if I had only listened and believed!" He threw his sound arm up across his eyes and for a space lay very still. When at last his arm dropped to his side once more the detective saw the traces of tears on his fat cheeks.

"Yet I have nothing even now against that nurse except my poor wife's accusation; and I would hesitate to accuse any woman of so vile and purposeless a crime. It is only that I could not put those words from my thoughts and they were the last my wife ever spoke to me. The next time I saw her she was raving in delirium; then the state of coma ensued which continued until the end. After her death I thought of mentioning my misgiving to the doctor; but I knew that he would not give it a moment's credence, and I tried to put it from my own mind. But I couldn't; I shall hear that pitiful, desperate appeal ringing in my ears while I live!"

"Did both the nurses leave immediately after Mrs. Lorne passed away?" Odell asked.

"Within a few hours; as soon as the undertaker had gone.