And how—how was she going?
“What is making that buzzing noise? I can’t hear you two,” she said presently. “And, Hugh, raise me, or I shall choke!”
She was gasping. I raised her. She did not feel cold now. Nurse was fanning her.
No hope for anyone to come! I felt desperate. Just then she said, “You fan me; Nurse—baby.” So Nurse gave me the fan and went away. The dying must be obeyed.
As I held her—a dead weight—on one arm and fanned her with my disengaged hand, she looked up at me with a terrible look—the most hopeless, yet defiant and angered, look I have ever seen in human eyes. I once saw it in a celebrated picture of “Lucifer at His Condemnation,” and, remembering this, it was hell to see it in my wife’s eyes now.
“I must know,” she said, in her altered voice. “Is this death?”
“It may be,” I faltered. I dared not withhold the awful truth.
She smiled—a sneering, derisive smile.
“And you still believe in a good God?” she said.
“More than ever!” I said, my very life in my words. “Darling, how could I live and see you like this if God did not hold me, help me? I should be like a dead thing—helpless—and you know I am holding you up. I am calm, I can talk, by the mercy of God——”