In another second she had passed out of the room and out of his life.
That night, or rather just before dawn on the following morning, Hilda, knowing that her end was very near, sent for her husband.
“Go quickly, doctor,” she said. “I shall die at dawn.”
The doctor found him seated in the same spot where Maria Lee had left him.
“What, more misery!” he said, when he had told his errand. “I cannot bear it. There is a curse upon me—death and wickedness, misery and death!”
“You must come if you wish to see your wife alive.”
“I will come;” and he rose and followed him.
A sad sight awaited him. The moment of the grey dawn was drawing near, and, by his wife’s request, a window had been unshuttered, that her dimmed eyes might once more look upon the light. On the great bed in the centre of the room lay Hilda, whose life was now quickly draining from her, and by her side was placed the sleeping infant. She was raised and supported on either side by pillows, and her unbound golden hair fell around her shoulders, enclosing her face as in a frame. Her pallid countenance seemed touched with an awful beauty that had not belonged to it in life, whilst in her eyes was that dread and prescient gaze which sometimes come to those who are about to solve death’s mystery.
By the side of the bed knelt Mr. Fraser, the clergyman of the parish, repeating in an earnest tone the prayers for the dying, whilst the sad-faced attendants moved with muffled tread backwards and forwards from the ring of light around the bed into the dark shadows that lay beyond.
When Philip came, the clergyman ceased praying, and drew back into the further part of the room, as did Pigott and the nurse, the former taking the baby with her.