Part 59 (1/2)

When Mrs. Lloyd was left with the two doctors and a young a.s.sistant, Robert, and Ellen, she said, cutting her words short as if she released every one from a mental grip:

”I have got everything ready. Shall I go out now?”

”I think you had better, Mrs. Lloyd,” said the family physician, pityingly. He went close to Ellen.

”Can't you stay with her a little while?” he whispered.

Ellen nodded.

Then the physician spoke quite loudly and cheerfully to Mrs. Lloyd.

”We are going to probe for the ball,” he said. ”We must all hope for the best, Mrs. Lloyd.”

Mrs. Lloyd made no reply. She bent again over her husband with a rigid face, and kissed him on his white lips, then she went out, with Ellen following.

Norman Lloyd lived only two hours after he was shot. The efforts to remove the ball had to be abandoned. He was conscious only a few minutes. He suddenly began to look about him with comprehension.

”Robert,” he said, in a far-away voice.

Robert stooped closely over his uncle. The dying man looked up at him with an expression which he had never worn in life.

”That man was insane,” whispered he, faintly. Then he added, ”Look out for her, if she has to go through the operation. Take care of her. Make it as easy for her as you can.”

”Then you know, Uncle Norman,” gasped Robert.

”All the time, but it--pleased her to think I--did not. Don't let her know I knew. Take care--”

Then Norman Lloyd relapsed into unconsciousness, and the whole room and the whole house became clamorous with his stertorous breathing.

Mrs. Lloyd and Ellen came and stood in the doorway. The doctor whispered to them. Then the breathing ceased, although at first it was inconceivable that the silence did not continue to ring with it, and Mrs. Lloyd came into the room.

Chapter XLIII

When Mrs. Lloyd entered the room, the attention of every one was taken from the dead man on the bed and concentrated upon the woman.

Dr. Story, a nervous, intense, elderly man with a settled frown of perplexity over keen eyes, which he had gotten from a struggle of forty years with unanswerable problems of life and death, stepped towards her hastily. Robert pressed close to her side. Ellen came behind her, holding in a curious, instinctive fas.h.i.+on to a fold of the older woman's gown, as if she had been a mother holding back a child from a sudden topple to its hurt. Everybody expected her to make some heart-breaking manifestation. She did nothing. At that moment the sublime unselfishness of the woman, which was her one strength of character, seemed actually to spread itself, as with wings, before them all. She moved steadily, close to her husband on the bed. She gazed at that profile of rigid calmness and enforced peace, which, although the head lay low, seemed to have an effect of upward motion, as if it were cleaving the mystery of s.p.a.ce. Mrs.

Lloyd laid her hand upon her husband's forehead; she felt a slight incredulousness of death, because it was still warm. She took his hands, drew them softly together, and folded them upon his breast.

Then she turned and faced them all with an angelic expression.

”He did not realize it to suffer much?” she said.

”No, Mrs. Lloyd,” replied Dr. Story, quickly. ”No, I a.s.sure you that he suffered very little.”

”He seemed very happy when he died, Aunt Lizzie,” said Robert, huskily.

Mrs. Lloyd looked away from them all around the room. It was a magnificent apartment. Norman Lloyd had had an artistic taste as well as wealth. The furnis.h.i.+ngs had always been rather beyond Mrs.

Lloyd's appreciation, but she admired them kindly. She took in every detail; the foam of rich curtains at the great windows, the cut-gla.s.s and silver on the dressing-table, the pale softness of a polar-bear skin beside the bed, the lifelike insistence of the costly pictures on the walls.

”He's gone where it is a great deal more beautiful,” she said to them, like a child. ”He's gone where there's better treasures than these which he had here.”