Geoffrey flung open the door. It did not need the light to show them that the room was empty; the desolate evening sky again confronted them at the window. They drew back.
“The drawing-room—the studio—he could not easily hear in the studio.”
Geoffrey knew that her hope was desperate—almost mechanical. They looked into the drawing-room; went through the dining-room to the studio. All were empty. They retraced their steps. Her hand no longer grasped and repelled his arm. She leaned upon it.
“His dressing-room—across the passage,” she half whispered.
If only, Geoffrey thought, she would faint in his arms so that he might lay her down and go alone. But her swiftness equalled his. Neither could hesitate. He threw open the door of the little dressing-room.
Darkness again. The curtain drawn before the window with its courtyard aspect. Geoffrey’s hand felt for the electric button, trembled before it found it. Light came like a shock in the darkness. Maurice lay at their feet.
The pistol had not fallen from his hand, though the open fingers no longer held it. He had not shot himself through the head. Thank God for that, Geoffrey found himself trivially thinking; his head was unmarred and beautiful. One hardly noticed the breast’s tragic disarray.
As Felicia put away his arm and left him it was now Geoffrey who leaned, weak, nerveless against the wall.
He watched her kneel beside her husband, and, softly pushing the pistol from his hand, take the empty, open hand in hers.
With a look of tender wonder, like a mother with her sleeping child, she slightly touched his hair and brow. It was still with wonder that she looked up at Geoffrey.