Page:Possession (1926).pdf/417

 divined also that "Madame Nozières" was not a cocotte but a lady. She had been weeping and something of the grief carried over into her voice.

"You are Mees Tolliver," she said. "I am Madame Nozières. I have heard you play . . . many times, but I did not know until to-night that you were his sister. You do not know me, of course."

There was a quality almost comic in the formality with which the stranger went about the business of introductions. In the hallway, she continued in a low voice, "I have known your brother for a long time. We are very good friends." And then she began to weep again. As Lily had done in the letter written after César's death, the woman made no pretenses, thinking perhaps as Lily had thought, that at such a time there was place only for the truth.

To Ellen the whole affair was shot through with the light of unreality. Standing in the dark hallway, with this strange woman weeping beside her—a woman who in some vague way had been brought close to her because she too loved Fergus—she leaned back against the wall for a moment trying frantically to bring her mind back to the truth. This could not be. . . . It was unreal, fantastic. . ..

The door opened and she saw, with a clarity that stamped the scene forever on her brain, a big room furnished with luxury, and in the midst of all the feminine softness—the pillows, the gilt chairs, the mirrors and the satin—Fergus lying very white and very still upon a bed of white and gilt with gilded swans on each of its four posts. At the side of the bed stood a tall, grave man with a black beard who wore the uniform of an army surgeon. He bowed to her and Madame Nozières murmured, "Doctor Chausson."

The name struck some chord of memory in Ellen's brain, but before she could trace it to its source, Fergus opened his eyes, and grinning a little, said in a low voice, "Well, this is a pretty