The
limpness of her body frightened him. Laying her down on the bed, he
ran out again, seized a four-branched candlestick on the table, and ran
back, tearing down with a furious jerk the curtain that swung stupidly
in his way, but after putting the candlestick on the table by the bed,
he remained absolutely idle. There did not seem anything more for him
to do. Holding his chin in his hand he looked down intently at her still
face.
"Has she been stabbed with this thing?" asked Davidson, whom suddenly he
saw standing by his side and holding up Ricardo's dagger to his sight.
Heyst uttered no word of recognition or surprise. He gave Davidson only
a dumb look of unutterable awe, then, as if possessed with a sudden
fury, started tearing open the front of the girls dress. She remained
insensible under his hands, and Heyst let out a groan which made
Davidson shudder inwardly the heavy plaint of a man who falls clubbed in
the dark.
They stood side by side, looking mournfully at the little black hole
made by Mr. Jones's bullet under the swelling breast of a dazzling and
as it were sacred whiteness. It rose and fell slightly--so slightly that
only the eyes of the lover could detect the faint stir of life. Heyst,
calm and utterly unlike himself in the face, moving about noiselessly,
prepared a wet cloth, and laid it on the insignificant wound,
round which there was hardly a trace of blood to mar the charm, the
fascination, of that mortal flesh.
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