The listener could imagine the shrug of the broad shoulders and the outward cast of the persuasive hands.
‘Voyons, madame,’ pursued the doctor, ‘we wish nothing but your good, but that we are determined to accomplish. I have nothing to add to what I have said already, and perhaps it is time that you should see your husband.’
Paul hastily thrust his feet into his slippers, and awaited the opening of the door.
‘He is there,’ said Laurent; ‘he has probably listened to every word we have spoken.’
Paul sat trembling on the bed-edge. The imminent interview disturbed him strangely, and set all manner of conflicting tides flowing in heart and brain. He was part coward and part hero; ready to face everything and to run away from everything. His pity for Annette was pity, and no more; his sympathy for Paul Armstrong amounted to a passion. He strove to bring himself to what he conceived to be a more fitting mood, but whilst he struggled with himself the inner door of the room in which he sat was suddenly torn open, and Annette stood before him. He could not have believed, without that actual visual revelation, that such a wreck could have been achieved in so small a space of time. Whatever of spirituality, whatever of youthful foolish espièglerie the face had held, had vanished. The visage was like a mask—and a mask of death. There was a splash of purplish crimson beneath either eyelid, but for the rest the face was of the yellow of a week-old bone; the eyelids were puffy, and the lips were lax. The whole face quivered like a shaken jelly as she looked at him.
‘Paul,’ she said—’ Paul, Paul!’
And with that she cast herself upon his breast in a very storm of tears.
For a moment he stood helpless and confused, and then a sudden flux of pity came upon him, and he held her steadily and firmly in answer to the hysteric grip with which her arms encircled him, now tightening and now relaxing. She fawned upon him piteously from the very beginning of this embrace, and at the last she fell, both knees thudding upon the carpet, and abased her head between his ankles, crying bitterly the while. And at this whatever manhood was within the man fled for the time being, and he, kneeling to raise her from her self-abasement, also lifted up his voice and wept bitterly.
Before things had quite reached this melancholy pass Laurent had stolen from the room, and had closed both doors behind him, so that husband and wife were alone.
‘Dearest,’ said Paul, ‘what can I do to help you?’