On the bed, the counterpane drawn smoothly over it, the little figure,
with the rosary still between its fingers; and kneeling by the pillow,
his silvery hair flowing forward, Joyselle.
He started on hearing the door open, and after a pause, rose.
"She is dead," he said slowly. "My wife is dead."
Brigit caught at a chair as she saw his face, for it was the face of an
old man, blanched and wrinkled and hollow-eyed.
"My wife is dead," he repeated.
Then he turned to the table, and seeing her shabby old red-lined
work-basket, took it up and held it to his breast.
As he stood, his back to her, as to one who did not belong there, who
was an intruder, he began to cry, great slow tears dropping into the
basket, wetting the red lining, and, no doubt, rusting the very needle
she had used yesterday.
Brigit saw his face in the glass.
"Oh, Victor," she faltered, her hands clasped.
He turned and pointed to the bed.
"You will excuse me," he said, with an evident effort to be polite, "but
I cannot talk. My wife is dead."
And the girl turned and crept from the room. She understood. And she
left him as he wished, alone with his wife, who was dead.
Going quietly downstairs, she went to the nearest flower shop and bought
a great mass of the yellow-crumple-leaved roses that Joyselle had once
told her grew in Normandy.
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