'Name of Freydon?' he said tersely.
'Yes.'
'Ah! Will you step this way, please, to my room?'
And, as we passed into an inner room, he wheeled upon me with a look of grave sympathy in his eyes. 'I have serious news for you, Mr. Freydon; if--if it is your wife who is here.'
Then I knew. Something in the doctor's grave eyes and meaning voice told me. It was not really necessary for me to ask. I knew quite certainly, and had no wish, no intention to say anything. My subconscious self apparently was bent upon explicitness. For, next moment, I heard my own voice, some little distance from me, saying, in quite a low tone:
'My God! My God! My God!' And then: 'You don't mean that she is dead?'
But I knew all the time.
Then I heard the doctor speaking. His body was close to me, but his voice, like my own, came from some distance away.
'A woman was brought here by a constable this afternoon ... helpless ... intoxication.... Did your wife ... is she addicted to drink?' I may have nodded. 'There was a pawnticket in the name of Freydon.... She passed away less than an hour ago.... The condition ... heart undoubtedly accelerated ... alcoholism ... a very short time, in any case.... Medically, an inquest would be quite unnecessary, but.... Will you come with me, and ...'
From a long way off now these phrases trickled into my consciousness, the sense of them somewhat blurred and interrupted by a continuous buzzing noise in my head. We walked along dead white passages, and down steps. We stopped at length where a man in uniform stood at a door, which he opened for us at a sign from the doctor. Inside, a woman was bending over a low pallet, and on the little bed was my wife Fanny. A greyish sheet was drawn over her body to the chin. I think it was so drawn up as we entered the room. I stared down upon Fanny's calm, white face, in which there was now a refinement, a pathetic dignity, a something delicate and womanly which I had not seen there before; not even in the early days, when gentle prettiness had been its quality.