There had been hardly any warning. Suddenly a stifled cry—a gurgling in the throat—a spasm. Sister Rosa thought she had distinguished the words "Jesus!—" "Alan—" but there had been no time for any message, any farewell. The doctors had once warned the brother that it was possible, though not likely, that the illness would end in this way.
"Father Bowles gave her Communion this morning?" said Helbeck, with a grave exactness, like one informing himself of all necessary things.
"This morning and yesterday," said Sister Rosa eagerly; "and dear Mrs.
Fountain confessed on Saturday."
Laura rose from her knees and wrung her hands.
"Oh! I can't bear it!" she said to Helbeck. "If I had been there—if we could just have told her! Oh, how strange—how strange it is!"
And she looked wildly about her, seized by an emotion, a misery, that Helbeck could not altogether understand. He tried to soothe her, regardless of the presence of the nurses. Laura, too, did not think of them. But when he put his arm round her, she withdrew herself in a restlessness that would not be controlled.
"How strange—how strange!" she repeated, as she looked down on the little blanched and stiffening face.
Helbeck stooped and kissed the brow of the dead woman.
"If I had only loved her better!" he said with emotion.
Laura stared at him. His words brought back to her a rush of memories—Augustina's old fear of him—those twelve years in which no member of the Fountain household had ever seen Mrs. Fountain's brother. So long as Augustina had been Stephen Fountain's wife, she had been no less dead for Helbeck, her only brother, than she was now.