pitch as that?...

And what nonsense was this dream! Here was her husband needing her. And
the children, whose inherent ungainliness, whose ungracious spirits
demanded a perpetual palliation of culture and instilled deportment.
What honest over-nurse was there for him or helper and guide and friend
for them, if she withdrew? There was something undignified in a flight
for mere happiness. There was something vindictive in flight from mere
insult. To go, because she was disinherited, because her hostels were
shattered,--No! And in short--she couldn't do it....

If Sir Isaac wanted to disinherit her he must disinherit her. If he
wanted to go on seizing and reading her letters, then he could. There
was nothing in the whole scheme of things to stop him if he did not want
to stop himself, nothing at all. She was caught. This was the lot of
women. She was a _wife_. What else in honour was there but to be a wife
up to the hilt?...

She finished writing her telegram.

Sec.11

Suddenly came a running in the passage outside, a rap at the door and
the nurse entered, scared, voluble in Italian, but with gestures that
translated her.

Lady Harman rose, realized the gravity and urgency of the moment and
hurried with her along the passage. "Est-il mauvais?" the poor lady
attempted, "Est-il----"

Oh! what words are there for "taken worse"?

The woman attempted English and failed. She resorted to her native
Italian and exclaimed about the "povero signore." She conveyed a sense
of pitiful extremities. Could it be he was in pain again? What was it?
What was it? Ten minutes ago he had been so grimly angry.

At the door of the sick room the nurse laid a warning hand on the arm of
Lady Harman and made an apprehensive gesture. They entered almost
noiselessly.

The Bavarian doctor turned his face from the bed at their entrance. He
was bending over Sir Isaac. He held up one hand as if to arrest them;
his other was engaged with his patient. "No," he said. His attention
went back to the sick man, and he remained very still in that position,
leaving Lady Harman to note for the first time how broad and flat he was
both between his shoulders and between his ears. Then his face came
round slowly, he relinquished something heavy, stood up, held up a hand.
"Zu spaet," he whispered, as though he too was surprised. He sought in
his mind for English and then found his phrase: "He has gone!"

"Gone?"

"In one instant."

"Dead?"

"So.