"felix seriously ill; double pneumonia; we are married.--lilian grig." ten words, plus isabel's address and her own! she wrote the telegram after several trials, in her bedroom, on half a sheet of the hotel notepaper, kate o'connor standing by her side, the next morning but one.
"give it me," said the white nurse. "i'll see to it for you, mrs. grig, as i go home."
she looked up at the nurse, and the nurse, eyes no longer laughing, looked down at her. the nurse knew everything, and, moreover, must have assisted at scores of tragedies; yet lilian regarded her as an innocent who understood nothing essential in life. her comforting kiss was like the kiss of a very capable child pretending to be grown up.
voices in the other bedroom! the doctor had arrived and was talking to the second nurse. they went in together. felix lay a changed man, horribly aged. he was a man who had suddenly learned that in order to live it was necessary to breathe, and that breathing may be an intensely difficult operation of mechanics. his lined, wrinkled face was drawn with the awful anxieties incident to breathing, and with the acute pain in both lungs. the enemy was growing in strength and felix was losing strength, but he could not surrender. he must continue to struggle, despite the odds, and there was no referee to stop the fight, either on the ground that it had developed into an assassination or on any other ground. the brutality had to proceed. and the sun streamed through the window; and outside, from the promenade where the idlers were strolling and the band was playing, the window looked exactly the same as all the other windows of the enormous hotel.
after an examination, dr. samson injected morphia. the result was almost instantaneous. the victim, freed from the anxiety of the pain, could devote the whole of his energy to breathing. he sighed, and smiled as if he had entered paradise. he gave a few short, faint coughs, like the cough of a nervous veiled woman in church, and said in a hoarse, feeble, whispering voice:
"you must understand, doctor, it was all my fault. i insisted, and what could she do?" the two nurses modestly bent their gaze.
"yes, yes," the doctor concurred.
felix had already made the same announcement several times.
"but i want everybody to know," he persisted.
"yes, yes," said the doctor. "i shall give you some oxygen this morning. it will be here in a minute. that will do you a lot of good. you'll see."
lilian was the calmest person in the room. she had decided that there was no hope, and had braced herself and become matter-of-fact. she was full of health, power, and magnificent youth, and the living seed of felix was within her. she quietly kissed felix on his damp cheek; no gold now glistened in his half-empty mouth. she returned to her own bedroom, and dr. samson followed.
"he's much worse," she said firmly to the doctor.
"he is not better," said the doctor. "but there is always hope."
she glanced sadly at the soft and mournful face of the middle-aged doctor. nurse kate had told her the story of the doctor, who was a widower and solitary and possibly consumptive, and on account of his lungs practised on the riviera during the winter. the vast tragedy of the world obsessed her; there was no joy nor pleasure in the whole world, and the ceaseless activities of gaiety that wearied the hotel and the casino and the town and the neighbouring towns seemed to her monstrous, pathetic, and more tragic even than felix's bed.
for five days she cabled daily to miss grig, and got nothing in reply. felix's strength consistently waned. and neither morphia nor oxygen could help him more than momentarily. jacqueline, the nurses, the doctor, treated lilian as a holy madonna. they all exclaimed at her marvellous stedfastness. the manager of the hotel paid a decorous call of inquiry--though it was apparent that he was already familiar with every detail--and he, too, treated lilian as a holy madonna. two days later, in the evening, just after nurse kate had come on duty, felix held out his hand for his wife's hand, and, casting off his frightful physical preoccupation, said in a normal voice:
"everything's in order. don't be an idle woman, my poor girl."
she dropped on her knees, and throwing her arms on his body, cried:
"darling, i've killed you!" (the thought that she had brought about his death was her continual companion.) but felix, utterly absorbed again in the ghastly effort to breathe, had no ears for the wild outburst. in the night he died. he had written a short note to his sister before the great relapse, and since then had not even mentioned her.
