The other physician has been in the next room for a long time now. Braine looks at his watch. It is past three. He tries to think how long this has lasted. He cannot remember whether it was to-day or yesterday that he came in here.
He stands in a half-daze in the middle of the floor, trying to recollect when. Suddenly an unearthly shriek comes from the next room. He stiffens like a wooden man. He puts his hands to his throat, and makes a peculiar metallic sound.
There is silence in the next room. He stands staring at the closed door. He thinks nothing. In a moment he hears another scream that causes his heart to give one wild bound, and then to seem pulseless. The silence in the room is intense. He stares fixedly at the door. The stillness is terrible. Gradually he becomes impressed that the woman—Helen, his wife, is dead.
He does not move. His mind begins to work. He sees a face like the dawn, a primrose face, with eyes as clear and untroubled as a child's; her hair a sunny glory in a little dismal room.
He feels the touch of a cool, soft hand, a touch as comfortable and calm as that of an angel's wing. Then comes to him the memory of a time when the touch of that hand thrilled him as no other touch on earth or in heaven could do; of the time when the sweet, loving girl became a glowing woman, intoxicating him, making him drunk with joy: and he again experiences that first sensation of proprietorship and possession.
And suddenly there appears to him the figure of a woman with a ghastly, drawn face, a face that he does not know, with staring eyes that gleam glassily, and accuse. He feels the touch of a rigid hand, cold and unresponsive. His eyes seem starting from his head.
The door opens, and one of the physicians stands looking at him in a startled way. There is something frightful in this man, with clenched hands, the veins like whip cords on his neck and forehead, and his ghastly face.
Braine says in a strange voice:
"Helen—"
"Lives; the child is dead."