Félicité had died in her sleep beside her husband. An hour before he had
waked, and, lying quietly by her, thinking no doubt of the woman for
whom he was going to desert her, he had by chance touched her hand as it
lay on the counterpane, with the shabby black rosary in it, and--the
hand was cold.
They had not called a doctor, for there was no doubt that she was dead,
and she had hated doctors. She had been very happy the day before, and
in the evening she had asked Joyselle to play to her, a thing she very
rarely did. He had played, they had drunk some Norman cider, and gone to
bed early.
"Father was tired," Théo added, as the hansom stopped.
Brigit dared not speak. Could it be that Joyselle had told her, after
they had gone to their room? He would have had to tell her either then
or the next day--to-day. He had not feared to tell her, for his delirium
was such that he feared nothing, and besides, she was always very
gentle.
"She will understand," he had told Brigit, "that I cannot help it."
Had he told her? Had the last beats of that gentle heart been unhappy
ones, or had the Madonna, to whom she prayed with such simple
confidence, spared her that supreme shock, and allowed her to die
happy, with her man beside her?
"Father has not spoken since--since the first," Théo whispered as they
crept up the stairs. "I--he rather frightens me."
The door of Félicité's room was closed, and for several seconds Brigit
dared not open it. Then, very softly, she turned the handle, and
motioning Théo not to follow her, went in.
On the bed, the counterpane drawn smoothly over it, the little figure,
with the rosary still between its fingers; and kneeling by the pillow,
his silvery hair flowing forward, Joyselle.
He started on hearing the door open, and after a pause, rose.
"She is dead," he said slowly. "My wife is dead."
Brigit caught at a chair as she saw his face, for it was the face of an
old man, blanched and wrinkled and hollow-eyed.
"My wife is dead," he repeated.
Then he turned to the table, and seeing her shabby old red-lined
work-basket, took it up and held it to his breast.
As he stood, his back to her, as to one who did not belong there, who
was an intruder, he began to cry, great slow tears dropping into the
basket, wetting the red lining, and, no doubt, rusting the very needle
she had used yesterday.
Brigit saw his face in the glass.
"Oh, Victor," she faltered, her hands clasped.
He turned and pointed to the bed.
"You will excuse me," he said, with an evident effort to be polite, "but
I cannot talk. My wife is dead."
And the girl turned and crept from the room. She understood. And she
left him as he wished, alone with his wife, who was dead.
Going quietly downstairs, she went to the nearest flower shop and bought
a great mass of the yellow-crumple-leaved roses that Joyselle had once
told her grew in Normandy.
Then she went back to Golden Square.
"He will not leave her, Brigitte," Théo told her as he met her on the
stairs, "and the doctor is troubled about him. He says--the shock has
been almost too great for--for his mind. I--I knew he loved her--oh,
_petite mère chérie_--but I never knew how much. Ah, my dear, they had
grown together in the twenty-six years they were man and wife, and now
she has left him----" The young man put his arm on the balustrade and wept
quite simply and unrestrainedly.
Joyselle, who was sitting by his wife, looked up when Brigit entered
with the roses, but he did not speak.
"I have brought these--for _her_--Beau-papa," the girl faltered, and he
rose.
"Thank you. Yes, she loved roses--ma Félicité."
Brigit noticed, with a thrill of horror, remembering what the doctor had
said, that he spoke not quite distinctly; his tongue was a little thick.
"Let us," she said, laying her hand on his shoulder, "thank God that
she died so happily, with you by her side."
He passed his hand over his forehead where the halo of hair lay so
untidy.
"Yes. Let us thank God. You see, _ma fille_--I have not been a good man.
I have loved many women--or thought I did. I have betrayed her love for
me; I have--_enfin_, I have not been good. But--it all meant nothing.
She was the bride of my youth, the companion of my--of my young
manhood." He stammered again, and went on with the slight difficulty she
had noticed before, "and--I know now that after all, and in spite of
all, I have loved only her. _Félicité, ma vieille, tu m'entends?_"
He laid the roses on the pillow near her little peaceful face, and then
sat down again.
"My wife is--dead," he added.