The old man knocked on a door that led into the apartment from which the light showed itself. From inside the murmur of voices came to them, distantly. And at last the door opened.
Against the dim light, Ellen was able to discern the figure of a small woman, dressed in a trim dark suit. She wore no hat and her blonde hair, cut short, stood about her head in a halo of ringlets which caught and reflected the glow behind her. She had been weeping. Even in the emotion of the moment, Ellen saw with a feminine instinct that she had chic, and when she spoke she divined also that “Madame Nozières” was not a cocotte but a lady. She had been weeping and something of the grief carried over into her voice.
“You are Mees Tolliver,” she said. “I am Madame Nozières. I have heard you play ... many times, but I did not know until to-night that you were his sister. You do not know me, of course.”
There was a quality almost comic in the formality with which the stranger went about the business of introductions. In the hallway, she continued in a low voice, “I have known your brother for a long time. We are very good friends.” And then she began to weep again. As Lily had done in the letter written after César’s death, the woman made no pretenses, thinking perhaps as Lily had thought, that at such a time there was place only for the truth.
To Ellen the whole affair was shot through with the light of unreality. Standing in the dark hallway, with this strange woman weeping beside her—a woman who in some vague way had been brought close to her because she too loved Fergus—she leaned back against the wall for a moment trying frantically to bring her mind back to the truth. This could not be.... It was unreal, fantastic....
The door opened and she saw, with a clarity that stamped the scene forever on her brain, a big room furnished with luxury, and in the midst of all the feminine softness—the pillows, the gilt chairs, the mirrors and the satin—Fergus lying very white and very still upon a bed of white and gilt with gilded swans on each of its four posts. At the side of the bed stood a tall, grave man with a black beard who wore the uniform of an army surgeon. He bowed to her and Madame Nozières murmured, “Doctor Chausson.”
The name struck some chord of memory in Ellen’s brain, but before she could trace it to its source, Fergus opened his eyes, and grinning a little, said in a low voice, “Well, this is a pretty mess!” (This was the old Fergus. She knew it at once. All the strangeness had gone....)
She asked no questions because from the look of the doctor and the tears of Madame Nozières she understood that there was only one answer. She wanted suddenly to weep, to beat her head against the wall, to cry out. But she was silent. She approached the bed and pressed his hand.
They had taken off the blue tunic with the silver wings and he lay now in his white shirt and the blue trousers with the silver braid along the seam. Around his waist he wore a woolen ceinture of brilliant yellow. The shirt was open and on his breast where the silver wings had been there was a little spot of red ... a tiny spot, scarcely as large as a strawberry.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “But you see I couldn’t come to-morrow ... as I promised.”