Gently, gently, she stole a peep at that pretty watch that stood in its little slanting stand at her bedside. There was still twenty minutes—Heaven be praised for its mercy!—and she heard old Lennox at the far side of this "great bed of Ware," making an ostentation of undressing. His boots tumbled on the floor. She heard his watchguard jingle on the stand, and his keys and purse dropped in turn on the table. She heard him adjust the chair, as usual, on which he was wont to deposit his clothes as he removed them; she fancied she even heard him yawn. Her heart was throbbing as though it would choke her, and she was praying as she never prayed before—for a reprieve. And yet her respiration was long and deep, as if in the sleep she was counterfeiting.
Lennox, at the other side, put off his muffler, his outer coat, the frock-coat he wore, the waistcoat. She dared not look round to observe his progress. But at last he threw himself on the bed with a groan of fatigue, and pulled the coverlet over him, and lay without motion, like a man in need of rest.
Lady Jane listened. She could not hear him breathe. She waited some five minutes, and then she murmured, "Arthur." No answer. "Arthur." Again no answer; and she raised herself on her elbow, cautiously, and listened; and after a little pause, quick as light she got out of bed, glided to the chimneypiece, and lighted a taper at the candle there, listened again for a moment, and on tiptoe, in bare feet, glided round the foot of the bed, and approached the recess at the other side of the bed's head, and instantly her fingers were on one of those little flowers in the ormolu arabesque that runs along the edge of the wooden casing.
Before she could turn it a gouty hand over her shoulder took hold of hers, and, with a low sudden cry, she saw her husband.
"Can't I do that for you? What is it?" said he.
Her lips were white, and she gazed in his face without saying a word.
He was standing there unbooted, in his trowsers, with those crimson silk suspenders on, with the embroidery of forget-me-nots, which she had described as "her work"—I am afraid inaccurately—a love-token—hypocrisy on hypocrisy.
Asmodeus, seated on the bed's head, smirked down sardonically on the tableau, and clapped his apish hands.
"Get to your bed there. If you make a sign, by ——, I'll kill you."
She made no answer. She gazed at him dumbly. He was not like himself. He looked like a villain.