"I'll take some presently," was the answer. "What is it you want, Jelly?"
Jelly carefully closed the door before speaking. She then entered on her tale. At first the doctor supposed, by all this caution, that she was about to consult him on some private ailment of her own; St. Anthony's fire in the face, for instance, or St. Vitus's dance in the legs; and thought she might have chosen a more fitting moment. But he soon found it was nothing of the sort. With her hands pressing heavily the back of the patients' chair, Jelly told her tale. The doctor stood facing her, his arms folded, his back to the drawn blind. At first he did not appear to understand her.
"Saw my wife upon the landing in her nightgown?" he exclaimed--and Jelly thought he looked startled. "Surely she was not so imprudent as to get out of bed and go there!"
"But, sir, it is said that she was then dead!"
"Dead when? She did not die until nine o'clock. She could not have known what she was doing," continued Dr. Rane, passing his hand over his forehead. "Perhaps she may then have caught a chill. Perhaps----"
"You are misunderstanding me, sir," interrupted Jelly. "It was in the night I saw this; some hours after Mrs. Rane's death."
Dr. Rane looked bewildered. He gazed narrowly at Jelly, as if wondering what it was she would infer.
"Not last night?"
"Yes, sir. Or, I'd rather say this morning; for it was one o'clock. I saw her standing there as plainly as I see you at this moment."
"Why, Jelly, you must have been dreaming?"