Then he followed her in silence up the old oaken staircase, wondering at her power of self-control—she, so sensitive and emotional a creature! Until now, she had drawn his sympathies by her gift of fascination; thus, she seized and held his respect.
At a tap from Lilia, a nurse opened the door.
“Mr. Paull,” whispered Lilia, gliding away.
“I am thankful you have come,” said the nurse, who looked worn and harassed. “There are two of us, but he has been dreadful. You are a doctor. You will not let him over-excite himself? We are to leave you alone.”
Hugh satisfied the nurse, as they stood by the door behind the screen. They whispered, but the hearing of the dying man was sharpened.
“Who’s—that?” Hugh heard, in reedy, querulous tones he hardly recognised.
“You must come at once,” said the nurse.
Then her worn, anxious expression suddenly changed to the placid, cheerful smile that is as necessary an adjunct in the case of a sick-room attendant as in a danseuse before the public.
Hugh, following her, saw a yellowish-white face on the pillows of a big bed hung with dark green. The change was at hand. Sir Roderick’s aquiline features were pinched and shrunken; the great bluish circles round his dark eyes intensified the fixedness of his gaze; there was the heaviness of death in his arms, stretched motionless at his sides.
“Hamlet!” he said, in a far-away voice, and his pallid lips drew aside in the faint mockery of a dying smile. “Come here—close. You two women, go.”