Page:Possession (1926).pdf/418

 mess!" (This was the old Fergus. She knew it at once. All the strangeness had gone. . . .)

She asked no questions because from the look of the doctor and the tears of Madame Nozières she understood that there was only one answer. She wanted suddenly to weep, to beat her head against the wall, to cry out. But she was silent. She approached the bed and pressed his hand.

They had taken off the blue tunic with the silver wings and he lay now in his white shirt and the blue trousers with the silver braid along the seam. Around his waist he wore a woolen ceinture of brilliant yellow. The shirt was open and on his breast where the silver wings had been there was a little spot of red. . . a tiny spot, scarcely as large as a strawberry.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. "But you see I couldn't come to-morrow . . . as I promised."

She could find nothing to say. She could only press his hand more and more tightly.

"I'm glad you brought the dog," he continued. "It will be less lonely for you." And then he beckoned to the doctor and asked him and Madame Nozières to leave the room for a moment. When they had gone, he drew Ellen nearer to him and said, "You must not be hard with her. She is a lady. Madame Nozières is not her name. It is I who am to blame if any one. I wanted to marry her. . . . I'm not talking rot. We had planned it." And then for a time he was silent as if too weak to go on.

Pressing his hand more tightly, she whispered, "How could I be hard? Nothing matters . . . only one thing."

He coughed and continued. "She has done everything. She has risked the rest of her life to save me. Chausson is the great Chausson . . . the surgeon from Neuilly. She knows him and he knows her husband. They are old friends. That was why he came. He is a busy man and a great surgeon. You see, she risked everything . . . her reputation, her future . . . everything. She did not hesitate to send for him."

She knew now why the name had been familiar. She had heard