Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/486

THE AMERICAN him made me afraid of her. The local apothecary kept him along through the day, and we waited for the gentleman from Paris, who, as I tell you, had already stayed here. They had telegraphed for him early in the morning, and in the evening he arrived. He talked a bit outside with the other one, and then they came in to see their malade together. I was with him, and so was Mr. Urbain. My lady had been to receive the great man, and she did n't come back with him into the room. He sat down by the Marquis—I can see him there now with his hand on the Marquis's wrist and Mr. Urbain watching them with a little looking-glass in his hand. 'I'm sure he's better,' said our country doctor; 'I'm sure he'll come back.' A few moments after he had spoken the Marquis opened his eyes, as if he were waking up, and looked from one of us to the other. I saw him look at me from very, very far off, and yet very hard indeed, as you might say. At the same moment my lady came in on tiptoe; she came up to the bed and put in her head between me and the Count. The Marquis saw her and gave a sound like the wail of a lost soul. He said something we could n't understand and then a convulsion seemed to take him. He shook all over and closed his eyes, and the doctor jumped up and took hold of my lady. He held her for a moment harder than I've ever seen a gentleman hold a lady. The Marquis was stone dead—the sight of her had done for him. This time there were those there who knew."

Newman felt as if he had been reading by starlight the report of highly important evidence in a great 456