it was as if his words came from a distance.
What does it mean? He is not--he is not--"

She looked the word he could not speak.

Fane made her sit down.

"I will go to him immediately," he said. "I may be able to do
something."

"Yes, go--do go!" she exclaimed with feverish excitement.

Then suddenly she sprang up, and seizing his hands with hers, she said
in a piercing voice: "You are a great doctor. Surely--surely you can
keep this one life for me a little longer."

As they stood, Fane was facing the statue, which was at her back, and
while she spoke his eyes were drawn from the woman he loved to the
marble thing he senselessly hated. It struck him that a ghastly change
had stolen over it. A sudden flicker of absolute life surely infused it,
quickened it even while she spoke, stole through the limbs one by one,
welled up to the eyes as light pierces from a depth, flowed through all
the marble. A pulse beat in the dead, cold heart. A mind rippled into
the rigid, watching face. There was no absolute movement, and yet there
was the sense of stir. Fane, absorbed in horror, seemed to watch an act
of creation, to see life poured from some invisible and unknown source
into the bodily chamber that had been void and dark.

Motionless he saw the statue dead; motionless he saw the statue live.

He drew his hands from Sydney's. He was too powerfully impressed to
speak, but she looked up into his face, turned, and followed his eyes.

She, too, observed the change, for her lips parted, and a wild
amazement shone in her eyes. Then she touched Fane's arm, and whispered,
rather in awe than in horror, "Go--go to him. See if anything has
happened. I will stay and watch here."

With a hushed tread Fane left the studio, passed through the hall,
ascended the stairs to the sculptor's room. Outside the door he
hesitated for a moment. He was trembling. He heard a clock ticking
within. It sounded very loud, like a hammer beating in his ears. He
pushed the door open at length, and entered. Brune's tall figure was
sitting in an armchair, bowed over a table on which lay an open Art
magazine.

His head lay hidden on his arms, which were crossed.

Fane raised the face and turned it up towards him.

It was the face of a dead man.

He looked at it, and smiled.

Then he stole down again to the studio, where Sydney was still standing.

"Yes?" she said interrogatively, as he entered.

"He is dead," Fane answered.

She only bowed