The doctor came in. He and Richard Maule were old friends—in fact, contemporaries. But there was a great difference between the two men—the one was broad, ruddy, and did not look his years; the other was the wreck we know.
"I'm sorry to say Mrs. Maule is very ill." The doctor plunged at once into the business which had brought him. Long experience had taught him the futility, the cruelty, of "breaking" bad news.
"What's the matter with her? She's always enjoyed remarkably good health." Richard Maule moved a little in his bed.
"Yes, I should have taken her to be a remarkably healthy woman, though of course as you know—we both know—she has always been very sleepless. Almost as if she caught insomnia from you, eh?"
The doctor's courage was beginning to fail him, curiously. It was strange, it—it was horrible, the hatred, the contempt Richard Maule felt for his wife.
"Mallet—come here, closer. I believe you are concealing something from me. If there's bad news I'd rather hear whatever it is from you than from Dick." Mr. Maule spoke in a hard, rather breathless tone.
"There is something to hear. Your wife last night took an overdose of chloral——"
The doctor said no word of sympathy. The words would have stuck in his throat. He knew too well the real relationship of the husband and wife. Richard Maule would receive plenty of condolences from others. But even so, to learn suddenly of the death of a human being with whom one has been associated over long years is always a shock, is always painful.
Richard Maule straightened himself in bed. "An overdose of chloral," he repeated, "then she's—she's——"
The other bent his head.