"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.
Dr. Samson sat late with Lilian in her bedroom the next night. It was the middle of the night. He was taller than Felix, and not so old; his face was more flat and milder, but there was something in his expression and about the wrinkles round his eyes that reminded her of Felix, and he had attached himself to her to serve her; his mournful gaze appealed to her. It was he who had made her understand that death in a hotel devoted to gaiety was an indiscretion, a lapse from good taste that must be carefully hidden. He stood faithfully between her and the world, the captive of her beauty, wanting no reward but the satisfaction of having helped her.
Not that much help was needed. The routine of such episodes was apparently fixed. Things moved of themselves. All requirements seemed to be met automatically. There was even an English cemetery in the region. Early on the morning after the death a young woman in black had called to present the card of a great Paris shop with a branch in the town, and by the evening Lilian was dressed in black. The layer-out had arrived earlier yet than the dressmaker. Dr. Samson had interviewed the manager of the hotel. An important part of the routine was that the whole of the furniture of Felix’s room should be removed, and the room refurnished at the cost of the representative of the dead. Dr. Samson settled the price. Lilian decided to give the old furniture to the Alexandra Hospital. The doctor had volunteered to finance Lilian till she should be back in London; but afterwards the equivalent of nearly four hundred pounds in French and English money was discovered in Felix’s dispatch-case, the inside of which Lilian had never seen. The doctor had also sent off the telegram to the mute Miss Grig: "Felix died in the night; am returning London immediately," and got the railway ticket, and accomplished the legal formalities preliminary to the burial, and warned the English chaplain, and ordered a gravestone in a suitable design and taken Lilian’s wishes as to the inscription thereon. Nothing remained to be done but wait. Lilian was quietly packing; the doctor sat watchful to assist. They both heard a noise in the next room; and at the noise Lilian was at last startled from her calm. The moment, then, had come. Dr. Samson went first. The room, which ought to have been in darkness, was lighted, and not by electricity but by two candles, one on either side of the bed.