Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/481

THE AMERICAN I could n't have told you, since surely a poor gentleman, however helpless, might be in safety at such a crisis with his wife and his son. It was as if I expected to hear his voice moan after me again. I listened, but I heard nothing. It was a very still night; I never knew a night so still. At last the very stillness itself seemed to frighten me, and I came out of my room and went very softly downstairs. In the anteroom, outside of where his father was, I found the Count, as he then was, walking up and down. He asked me what I wanted, and I said I had returned to relieve my lady. He said he would relieve my lady and ordered me back to bed; but as I stood there, unwilling to turn away, the door of the room opened and my lady herself came out. I noticed she was very pale; she was altogether extraordinary. She looked a moment at the Count and at me, and then held out her arms to the Count. He went to her and she fell upon him and hid her face. I brushed quickly past her into the room and came to the Marquis's bed. He was lying there very white and with his eyes shut; you could have taken him for a corpse. I took hold of his hand and spoke to him, but it was as if I had been dealing with the dead. Then I turned round; my lady and Mr. Urbain were there. 'My poor Bread,' said my lady, 'M. le Marquis is gone.' Mr. Urbain knelt down by the bed and said softly Mon père, mon père. I thought it most prodigious, and asked my lady what in the world had happened and why she had n't called me. She said nothing had happened; that she had only been sitting there with him in perfect stillness. She had closed her eyes, thinking she might 451