“I do not know whether you have killed him or not,” she said at last. “It does not matter—oh! it matters all—no, no, it does not matter—Oh! could you not—could you not kill me too?”
For his life he could not have answered: he but looked at her in mortal pity, and at that she ground her teeth and struck him on the lips.
“Awake, decidedly awake!” he said, and shrugged his shoulders; and then for the first time he saw that she was shivering.
“Madame,” he said, “you will die of cold: permit me,” and he stooped and picked up his coat from the sand and placed it without resistance on her shoulders, like a cloak. She drew it, indeed, about her with trembling fingers as if her senses craved the comfort though her detestation of the man who gave it was great. But in truth she was demented now, forgetting even the bleeding lover. She gave little paces on the sand, with one of her shoes gone from her feet, and wrung her hands and sobbed miserably.
Count Victor bent to the wounded man and found him regaining consciousness. He did what he could, though that of necessity was little, to hasten his restoration, and relinquished the office only when approaching footsteps on the shore made him look up to see a group of workmen hastening to the spot where the Chamberlain lay on the edge of the tide and the lady and the foreigner beside him.
“This man killed him,” cried Mrs. Petullo, pointing an accusing finger.
“I hope I have not killed him,” said he, “and in any case it was an honourable engagement; but that matters little at this moment when the first thing to do is to have him removed home. So far as I am concerned, I promise you I shall be quite ready to go with you and see him safely lodged.”
As the wounded man was borne through the lodge gate with Count Victor, coatless, in attendance, the latter looked back and saw Mrs. Petullo, again bare-shouldered, standing before her husband's door and gazing after them.
Her temper had come back; she had thrown his laced coat into the approaching sea!