"Or what?" Tasked.
"He must have moved," she whispered in an unnatural tone.
Once more I bent over the still form. The pupils of the wide-open eyes were slightly dilated; they seemed to meet mine with a horrible, unseeing directness. There was no sign about his waxen face or still, cold mouth that life had lingered for a moment beyond the stated period. And yet something of the nurse's terror was slowly becoming communicated to me. I felt that I was in close company with mysterious things.
I turned towards the nurse.
"Go to your room," I said, "and shut yourself in there. I am going to send for Dr. Rust. Understand it is you that are ill. I do not want a word of this to be spoken of amongst the servants."
She passed into her room and closed the door without a word. I had a telephone from my room to the stables, and in a few moments I had succeeded in awakening one of the grooms.
"The nurse is ill," I told him. "Take a dog-cart and go down and fetch
Dr. Rust. Ask him to come back with you at once."
I heard his answer, and a few minutes later the sound of wheels in the avenue. Then I put on my clothes, and going downstairs, fetched some brandy and took it up to the nurse. She, too, was dressed; and, although she was still pale, she had recovered her self-possession.
"I am very sorry to have been so foolish, sir," she said, declining the brandy. "I have never had an experience like this before, and it rather upset me."
"You think," I asked, "that he has lived, since—"