WE cannot live to ourselves alone, nor die so. If a man or a dog crawl off to perish in a wilderness, immediately death sets in motion a great activity. On the ground ants muster, flies drum and pound; in the earth worms make haste upward. On the empty sky a speck appears, wings gather, buzzards are overhead. In the bushes eyes peer, paws are lifted and set down with caution; coyotes, hyenas arrive. A city of scavengery is founded and begins to flourish.
Persis had said, "This is the last of Persis." As if there were ever the last of anybody or anything.
Of Persis it was almost the beginning. People were to hear of her now who had never known of her existence. She who had never done anything ambitious or earnest in any large sense was to become the cause of world-wide debate. The newspapers she dreaded so much were to give her head-lines above panics, wars, and empires.
When Persis screamed at the horror and the shame of being knifed, and Roake appeared, and she told him that she was ill, he believed her. He dispersed the servants. They knew, as servants always know, that a quarrel had been raging; but family quarrels were the staple of their lives, and they suspected nothing unusual.
Persis had told Roake to call the nearest physician. The telephone is the confusion of distance; it mixes near and far hopelessly. So Roake called the family physician, Dr. Thill; caught him dressing for the opera. He promised to "be right over."
Then Roake went back to give Mrs. Enslee this word. He found the woeful spectacle of Persis no longer able to hide her wound, no longer thinking of appearances. Enslee was on his knees sobbing. Crofts, too good a servant to express his emotions noisily, had not fallen to the floor or sunk into a chair; he had turned a little aside and stood waiting the next command; only, rubbing his hands together a little harder than usual, while the tears poured across his eyelids.
Roake tiptoed to him and put his hand on his arm, and whispered, "Mr. Crofts."
Crofts put his finger to his quivering lips and, beckoning his underling aside, whispered to him: "No word of this to the rest of the house, mind you. We'd best carry Mrs. Enslee to her room. Then we must help the master to his."
They took Persis' chair by the arms dreadfully; but Crofts could not lift his share of the weight. It was necessary to call Chedsey, and to explain things a little to him and to pledge him to silence for the honor of the house. He sickened of his burden and nearly fainted in the little elevator as they crowded into it with their hideously beautiful freight.
Nichette had the bed ready, and Enslee's man was helping her. Also two other chambermaids had gathered to talk of the scream that had shot through the house. Nichette banished the men while she took what care she could of what remained of Persis—so different an office now from what it had always been to Nichette.