The minutes passed slowly. He grew restless, wished that the nurse or Emily would come and relieve him. A sick-room, where one has to sit perfectly still, is not the place for a man suffering from nervous excitement. His eyes fell again on the Bible. He had not seen his gift for years. There was a certain pathos in her desire to have it near her.
He took it up, undid the clasp, and looked at the fly-leaf. “To my dear wife.” He sighed. He had tried to delude himself in those days that he loved her. Could he ever write such an inscription again? He shook his head, as the ever-haunting face of the other woman came between his eyes and the leaf. He turned the pages. They fell open, naturally, where a letter had been placed. The back of the envelope was turned to him. He thought it was one of his own to his wife, and felt touched by the idea of her keeping it there. He took it up curiously, but as his glance fell on the address he started with great amazement. It was in Lady Phayre’s handwriting—bore only his name. It had been opened. He himself surely had never received such a letter. With heart furiously beating and trembling fingers, he drew out the enclosure.
“Go, my hero and leader of men, to your victory. And if you love me, come back to me for your reward—whatsoever your heart desireth.
“Rhodanthe.”
For a few moments he remained staring at the paper, unable to comprehend. Then the truth crashed down upon him—both the letter’s significance and the probable history of its miscarriage. His brain reeled. She loved him. The note of passion in the words drowned his senses like a great diapason. She loved him. But for this other woman she would be his. He rose from his chair, turning his back to his wife, and put his hand to his forehead. His instinct was to fly from her presence. The smouldering hatred had sprung into fierce flame. He made a few steps by the foot of the bed, then stopped and looked at her. Their eyes met. He saw that she had been following his movements from the time he had first opened the Bible. A wave of gathering madness clouded his brain, surged red before his eyes. Remaining sanity bade him rush from the room if she was to live. An explosion of his passion would kill her. But the expression of excitement and fear on her peaked, livid face read in his disordered brain as one of mocking triumph. It swept away the lingering self-control. He strode round to her side, lifted his arms above his head, clenching the letter and shaking with passion, let loose all the fury in his soul in a low, hoarse cry.
Lizzie rose to a sitting posture, gazed at him for a moment, an awful terror in her eyes, and then, with a gasp, fell back on her pillow—dead.
How long he stood there, as if petrified, he never knew. When he recovered reason he wiped the great drops of perspiration from his forehead, thrust the letter into his pocket, and rushed from the room.
“Emily! Nurse!” he shouted from the top of the landing; and when they appeared hurriedly from the dining-room, “Come up at once: I think Lizzie is dead.”
The women ran up the stairs.
“Go to her. I will fetch Dr. Carson,” he cried, brushing past them.