“Mrs. Ashe! One of your maids telephoned for me at half-past twelve, from the nearest station—‘Come at once! Mrs. Ashe is dangerously ill.’ Can there be some mistake?”
Mrs. Ames called him from the top of the stairs: “Come up quick, please, doctor. It takes two of us to hold her in bed.”
The doctor rushed upstairs. Barton walked leisurely back into the library and shut the door. A woman who had sat here reading old MSS. and new contracts until she heard her husband’s latchkey in the outer door, then rushed off up a long flight of stairs to avoid him, in such frantic haste that she fell into a fit at the top, might come out of it without his help. He would never be fooled by her again, so help him God!
Half an hour went by and he had not moved, although the stealthy rush of feet overhead bespoke excitement and yet caution on the part of the attendants, and twice a faint scream penetrated the ceiling. At last he reached out his hand for pen and paper and began a letter.
“My Dear Uncle:
“I said to you, jestingly, thirteen months ago, that I would employ you to draw up articles of separation in the event of my needing——”
The pen stopped. He could have sworn that someone passed him, so close that he felt the wind from floating garments, and that there was the odor of Bon Silène roses in the air. It was strangely still overhead. Cold sweat broke out all over him; when he strove to resume his writing, his fingers were nerveless. Slow, heavy feet came down the stairs and to the library door. It was opened without the ceremony of knocking, and the physician appeared.
A withering glance took in the details of the quiet figure at the table, the paper, and the pen arrested in the hand. He went through no form of merciful preparation.
“Mr. Ashe! your wife is dead! A severe shock of some kind—the nurse thinks you can explain it—brought on convulsions and suffusion of the brain.”