“Gone?”
“In one instant.”
“Dead?”
“So. In one instant.”
On the bed lay Sir Isaac. His hand was thrust out as though he grasped at some invisible thing. His open eyes stared hard at his wife, and as she met his eyes he snored noisily in his nose and throat.
She looked from the doctor to the nurse. It seemed to her that both these people must be mad. Never had she seen anything less like death. “But he’s not dead!” she protested, still standing in the middle of the room.
“It iss chust the air in his throat,” the doctor said. “He went—so! In one instant as I was helping him.”
He waited to see some symptom of feminine weakness. There was a quality in his bearing—as though this event did him credit.
“But—Isaac!”
It was astounding. The noise in his throat ceased. But he still stared at her. And then the nurse made a kind of assault upon Lady Harman, caught her—even if she didn’t fall. It was no doubt the proper formula to collapse. Or to fling oneself upon the deceased. Lady Harman resisted this assistance, disentangled herself and remained amazed; the nurse a little disconcerted but still ready behind her.