Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. III, 1889.djvu/172

162 calamity. The church bells had ceased ringing, and Sunday’s silence in the street enhanced the effect of blankness and alarming expectancy. Joseph could not keep still; he strained his ears in attention to any slight sound that might come from the floor above, and his heart beat painfully when at length the door opened.

Jane fixed her eyes on him and came silently forward.

“Does he show any signs of coming round?” her father inquired.

“No. He hasn’t once moved.”

She spoke only just above a whisper. The shock kept her still trembling and her face bloodless.

“Tell me how it happened, Jane.”

“He’d just got up. I’d taken him his breakfast, and we were talking. All at once he began to turn round, and then he fell down—before I could reach him.”

“I’ll go upstairs, shall I?”

Jane could not overcome her fear; at the door of the bedroom she drew back, involuntarily, that her father might enter before her. When she forced herself to follow, the first