And yet he did not notice when twilight came, nor when the dusk's purple turned to night until he saw lights turned up on both floors.
Nobody summoned him to dinner but he did not notice that. Connor came to him there in the darkness and said that two other physicians had arrived with another nurse. He went into the library where they were just leaving to mount the stairs. They looked at him as they passed but merely bowed and said nothing.
A steady, persistent clangour vibrated in his brain, dulling it, so that senses like sight and hearing seemed slow as though drugged.
Suddenly like a sword the most terrible fear he ever knew passed through him.... And after a while the dull, ringing clangour came
back, dinning, stupefying, interminable. Yet he was conscious of every sound, every movement on the floor above.
One of the physicians came halfway down the stairs, looked at him; and he rose mechanically and went up.
He saw nothing clearly in the room until he bent over Athalie.
Her eyes unclosed. She whispered: "It is all right, beloved."
Somebody led him out. He kept on, conscious of the grasp on his arm, but seeing nothing.