Tapster"s ear: "Of course you would like to see her, sir," and he felt himself being propelled forward. Making an effort to bear himself so that he should not feel afterwards ashamed of his lack of nerve, he forced himself to stare with dread-filled yet fascinated eyes at that which had just been laid upon the leather sofa.
Flossy"s hat--the shabby hat which had shocked Mr. Tapster"s sense of what was seemly--had gone; her fair hair had all come down, and hung in pale, gold wisps about the face already fixed in the soft dignity which seems so soon to drape the features of those who die by drowning. Her widely-opened eyes were now wholly emptied of the anguish with which they had gazed on Mr. Tapster in this very room less than an hour ago.
Her mean brown serge gown, from which the water was still dripping, clung closely to her limbs, revealing the slender body which had four times endured, on behalf of Mr. Tapster, the greatest of woman"s natural ordeals. But that thought, it is scarcely necessary to say, did not come to add an extra pang to those which that unfortunate man was now suffering; for Mr. Tapster naturally thought maternity was in every married woman"s day"s work--and pleasure.
It might have been a moment, for all that he knew, or it might have been an hour, when at last something came to relieve the unbearable tension of Mr. Tapster"s feelings. He had been standing aside helpless, aware of and yet not watching the efforts made to restore Flossy to consciousness.
The doctor raised himself and straightened his cramped shoulders and tired arms. With a look of great concern on his face he approached the bereaved husband.
"I"m afraid it"s no good," he said; "the shock of the plunge in the cold water probably killed her. She was evidently in poor health, and--and ill-nourished. But, of course, we shall go on for some time longer, and----"
But whatever he had meant to say remained unspoken, for a telegraph boy, with the impudence natural to his kind, was forcing his way into and through the crowded room.
"James Tapster, Esquire?" he cried in a high, childish treble.
The master of the house held out his hand mechanically. He took the buff envelope and stared down at it, sufficiently master of himself to perceive that some fool had apparently imagined c.u.mberland Crescent to be in South London; before his eyes swam the line, "Delayed in transmission." Then, opening the envelope, he saw the message for which he had now been waiting so eagerly for some days, but it was with indifference that he read the words:
"_The Decree has been made Absolute._"