For more than a minute Floriot stood motionless, but now he was leaning his weight on the hand that held the knob. He listened—half-hoping, half-fearing that he would hear her at the outside door—and then staggered across the room and collapsed into the chair where she had sat, lying with arms and head on the table above the photograph that Jacqueline had kissed. He had won—but to know that he would have found happiness in defeat.
"God!" he groaned aloud. "She's gone! She's gone! And I love her! I love her! And I shall never see her again! She must never see Raymond! Her influence would be——No!" he cried, as if fighting something within himself. "She must never come back. God give me strength to forget!" he prayed in anguish. "Let me forget! Let me forget!"
There was a sound of someone at the door leading to the stairway, and he barely had time to wipe the moisture from his forehead and half-compose himself before Dr. Chennel swung breezily into the room.
"He's doing splendidly!" cried the doctor with a cheery smile. "And he's hungry—the best sign in the world! I have left my orders with the nurses." He began packing his little bag on a side table. "He's to have a little milk and three spoonfuls of soup before he goes to sleep and nothing else until I come again in——Why, what's the matter?" he cried in alarm, hurrying over to his friend as he caught a glimpse of his face. "Are you ill?"
Floriot straightened up and put out his hand. His face was lined and livid and his eyes were wild with grief.
"My dear—doctor!" he said, brokenly, "I have just gone through—the most awful fifteen minutes of my life. My—my wife—has been here!"
"Your wife!" The doctor fell back a step and stared at him. Floriot buried his face in his handkerchief.
"Yes, she has—just gone! You can imagine—how I felt No, you can't!" he cried, bitterly, springing up with clenched fists. "For a moment I was afraid of myself—afraid that I would kill her!"
Dr. Chennel watched the writhing face in silence as Floriot paced wildly up and down the room.
"Doctor, in these few minutes—I have lived five years over again! All the joy, all the miseries, all my love, all her——"