Why, I wondered, had the Tempter barred my entrance there with such determination, endeavouring to take my life rather than allow me to enter there?
The small ormolu clock chimed the hour upon its silver bell. It was one o’clock.
Attentively I bent and listened. Her breathing seemed very low. I touched her hand and found it chilly.
For a moment I hesitated to disturb her, for she was lying in such a position that I could not see her face without turning her over. Suddenly, however, it occurred to me that I might draw out the bed from the wall and get behind it.
This I did, but the bed, being very heavy, required all my effort to move it.
Strangely enough at that moment I felt a curious sensation in my mouth and throat, and an unaccountable dizziness seized me. It seemed as though my mouth and lips were swelling, and the thought occurred to me that I might have ruptured a blood-vessel in my exertions in moving the bed.
Eager, however, to look upon the face of the woman who was my wife, I slipped between the wall and the bed, and, bending down, drew back the embroidered sheet which half concealed the features.
I stood dumb-stricken. The face was the most beautiful, the most perfect in contour and in natural sweetness of expression, that I had ever gazed upon. It was the face of a healthful and vigorous girl of twenty, rather than of an invalid—a face about the beauty of which there could be no two opinions. The great blue eyes were wide open, looking curiously into mine, while about the mouth was a half-smile which rendered the features additionally attractive.
“You are ill,” I whispered in a low, intense voice, bending to her. “Cannot you tell me what is the matter? I am a doctor, and will do all in my power to make you better.”
There was no response. The great blue eyes stared at me fixedly, the smile did not relax, the features seemed strangely rigid. Next second a terrible suspicion flashed across my mind, and I bent closer down. The eyes did not waver in the light as eyes must do when a light shines straight into them. I touched her cheek with my hand, and its thrilling contact told me the truth only too plainly.