He passed on, and into his own room. He wondered if he ought to undress and go to bed without disturbing her. But he could not bring himself to do this. He was still too much agitated; and the necessity of keeping quiet did not tend to calm him. He turned up his gas, and the light rose warmly. Then he saw that the door into his wife's room was partly open. "Jean!" he said softly. She did not answer him. Sometimes, if she were sleepy, or exhausted, she did not incline to talk when he came home.
"Jean?" he repeated, "are you awake, my darling? I want to speak to you.... I must speak to you," added the husband impetuously, when Jean did not reply.
He pushed the door wide and went in. The only light in the room came from the night candle, which was burning dimly. It was a blue candle, and it had a certain ghastly look to him, as he stood gazing across the little table at the bed.
"After all," he thought, "I suppose I ought not to wake her—just because I 've got all that to tell her."
He stood, undecided what to do.
Jean was lying on the bed in her lace-frilled nightdress, with her bright hair braided in long braids, as she wore it for the night. Something in her attitude and expression startled him. So she had lain—so she had looked— His temples throbbed suddenly. The blood froze at his heart.
"Jean!" he cried loudly. "Dear Jean!"
But Jean did not reply. He sprang to her, and tore open the nightdress at her throat; he crushed at her hands; they were quite cold. He put his ear to her heart; he could not hear it beat. Jean lay in her loveliness, with gentle, half-open eyes, and a desolate little smile on her sweet lips, as she might have looked when she called him and asked him to come back and kiss her good-night. And he had not come. One of her hands clasped the cord of the electric bell. But no one had heard Jean's bell.
Now, the truth smote the man like the hammer of Thor. His wandering spirit—gone; who knew how? who knew where? while the brain drifted into anæsthesia—had sought out and clutched to itself the terrible fact. At the instant when this perception reached his consciousness there came with it the familiar delusion of his vision.
"Jean cannot be dead. There must be some mistake."