“Madame la Duchesse! Madame la Duchesse!”
The strangled tones of the medical student made Tatiana, who was leaning over the balcony of her room looking at the crescent moon, start with a sudden uncontrollable dread.
“What is it?” she cried in a shaking voice.
“Come down, come down, quick!”
Her hair already unbound for the night and falling below her knees, her peignoir fluttering like wings behind her, Tatiana joined him on the terrace.
“My God,” she whispered, “you look like a ghost!”
The young man tried to speak, gulped, tried again, and failed. He was shaking like a leaf as he pointed to the lighted windows of Preston’s room.
She needed now no explanation, and her little feet in their velvet mules covered the ground from one entrance to the other as fast as Marguerite’s could have done.
In the room all was as still and orderly as when she had last left it; on the bed lay Preston ... asleep? No! One look was enough, and, rushing forward, she pushed out of her way the Salvières doctor, who stood white-faced and helpless between her and the quiet form.
“Have you tried everything?” she asked, tremulously, her hand on the still heart, her lips twitching.