"Yes," Herman said slowly, wondering in a baffled way if 'it was possible to soften the blow. "He is dead."
"Dead!"
Her cry rang out sharply in the dim studio, over that clay figure of a lifeless warrior.
A cry of horror, of pain, and, too, of remorse. There was in it nothing of love, only that nameless fear that death brings, and still more that groundless self-reproach which sensitive natures must feel when confronted by the irremediable—as if some blame must be taken for the acts of fate. Imaginative natures never quite shake off the responsibility of the inevitable, and Helen began instinctively to question herself. The scene of the previous night came before her. Ought she to have yielded to the love which had called her, late aftermath of a blighted wedded life? At least when her husband spoke of his suffering she might more strongly—A sudden thought pierced her like a knife.
"How did he die?" she questioned breathlessly.
"Of heart disease."
So then the world would not know the truth, if what she feared were truth.
"I will go home," she said. "Please tell Ninitta."
When she reached her rooms she found a letter, addressed in Dr. Ashton's hand, which the penny-post had left for her after she had gone out in the morning. It contained only an impression in wax which resembled a large seal. With hot eyes she bent over it, making nothing of its reversed letters. Then, with a sudden thought, she held it before the glass, seeing in the mirror the words, which read backwards, like the life of him whose last act had been their forming: