James Beresford pressed forward too, pushing aside the woman who tried to prevent him; and there he saw--what? Not his wife: a pale, lovely image, still as she never was in her life, far away, passive, solemn, neither caring for him nor any one; beyond all pain or fear of pain. ‘My God!’ he said. He did not seem even to wonder. Suddenly it became quite clear to him that for years he had known exactly how this would be. Maxwell put the husband, who stood stupefied, out of his way; he called the weeping nurse, who, now that there was nothing to conceal, gave free outlet to her sorrow. ‘Oh, don’t ask me, sir, I can’t tell you!’ she said among her sobs. ‘Miss Carry rung the bell and I came. And from that to this never a word from her, no more than moans and hard breathing. I sent for you, sir, and then for the nearest as I could get. He came, but there was nothing as could be done. If she took it herself or if it was give her, how can I tell? Miss Carry, poor child, she don’t know what’s happened; she’s watching in the library for her papa. The medicine-box was on the table, sir, as you see. Oh, I don’t hold with them medicine-boxes; they puts things into folk’s heads! The other doctor said as it was laudanum; but if she took it, or if it was give her----’ Mr. Maxwell stopped the woman by a touch on the arm. Poor Beresford stood still there, supporting himself by the bed, gazing upon that which was no more his wife. His countenance was like that of one who had himself died; his mouth was open, the under lip dropped; the eyes strained and tearless. He heard, yet he did not hear what they were saying. Later it came back to his mind; at present he knew nothing of it. ‘God help him!’ said the doctor, turning away to the other end of the room. And there he heard the rest of the story. They left the two together who had been all in all to each other. Had he given her the quietus, he who loved her most, or had she taken it? This was what neither of them could tell. They stood whispering together while the husband, propping himself by the bed, looked at her. At _her_? It was not her. He stood and looked and wondered, with a dull aching in him. No more--he could not go to her, call her by her name. A dreary, horrible sense that this still figure was some one else, a something new and unknown to him, another woman who was not his wife, came into his soul. He was frozen by the sudden shock; his blood turned into ice, his heart to stone. Annie! oh, heaven, no; not _that_; not the marble woman lying in her place! He was himself stone, but she was sculptured marble, a figure to put on a monument. Two hours of time--light, frivolous, flying hours--could not change flesh and blood into _that_; could not put life so far, and make it so impossible. He did not feel that he was bereaved, or a mourner, or that he had lost what he most loved; he felt only a stone, looking at stone, with a dull ache in him, and a dull consternation, nothing more.