‘Go in and wake your master gently—he may be nervous and tired. Tell him I wish to speak to him.’
The man obeyed, and Maria waited on the threshold of the dressing-room. The smell of stale Havana cigarettes which she so much detested had met her as the door opened. The sun was shining in, for the valet had already opened the blinds, lighted the fire, prepared the tub, and laid out the clothes. He pushed the bedroom door on its hinges without noise and entered in the dark to open the window. Maria waited, and her eyes fell upon a faded photograph of herself, taken soon after she had been married. It stood in a gilt frame on the dressing-table on one side of the mirror. On the other was one of Montalto’s mother, in court dress, with her coronet. The frame was black and there was a white cross upon the lower edge.
While Maria was looking at these things she unconsciously listened as the valet softly called his master, softly at first, then louder—then a third time, with a kind of frightened cry. But there was no answer, and Maria pressed her hand to her heart in sudden terror. The man appeared at the door with white face and starting eyes, but he could not speak, and an instant later Maria rushed past him into the bedroom. The servant’s terrified cry, his livid face, his speechless horror, all told her that her husband must be dead.
She was at the bedside now, bending down and calling him, softly at first, then louder, for he was breathing heavily; but he did not hear, he did not even stir. Maria did not cry out, for she was not frightened now; only she did not understand. The valet was beside her, pale and scared.
‘He sleeps very heavily,’ she said, lowering her voice instinctively, but without the least tremor. ‘Have you ever seen him sleep like this?’
The servant looked at her strangely, and his words broke out, loud and sudden.
‘Excellency—don’t you see? It is an apoplexy! I’ve seen it before.’
‘An apoplexy!’
She repeated the word slowly with a wondering horror, and drew back from the bedside, gazing at the dark, unconscious, upturned face, the dreadful, half-opened eyes, the knotted arteries and veins at the temple that was towards her.
‘It came in his sleep,’ the servant said, in an awed tone.