A fly settled on Billy's face and came in his zig-zag course to the red stream trickling from his nostrils, and stopped short. She brushed the carrion thing away, but it crawled back drunkenly. She touched it with her finger, and the fly would not move. On a sudden, every nerve in her body began to shake and jerk like a flag snapping in the wind. XXVI Some ten minutes afterward, as the members of the house-party sat chatting on the terrace before Selwoode, there came among them a mad woman in violet trappings that were splotched with blood. "Did you know that Billy was dead?" she queried, smilingly. "Oh, yes, a man killed Billy just now. Wasn't it too bad? Billy was such a nice boy, you know. I--I think it's very sad. I think it's the saddest thing I ever knew of in my life." Kathleen Saumarez was the first to reach her. But she drew back quickly. "No, ah, no!" she said, with a little shudder. "You didn't love Billy. He loved you, and you didn't love him. Oh, Kathleen, Kathleen, how _could_ you help loving Billy? He was such a nice boy. I--I'm rather sorry he's dead." Then she stood silent, picking at her dress thoughtfully and still smiling. Afterward, for the first and only time in history, Miss Hugonin fainted--fainted with an anxious smile. Petheridge Jukesbury caught her as she fell, and began to blubber like a whipped schoolboy as he stood there holding her in his arms. XXVII But Billy was not dead. There was still a feeble, jerky fluttering in his big chest when Colonel Hugonin found him. His heart still moved, but under the Colonel's hand its stirrings were vague and aimless as those of a captive butterfly. The Colonel had seen dead men and dying men before this; and as he bent over the boy he loved he gave a convulsive sob, and afterward buried his face in his hands. Then--of all unlikely persons in the world--it was Petheridge Jukesbury who rose to meet the occasion. His suavity and blandness forgotten in the presence of death, he mounted with confident alacrity to heights of greatness. Masterfully, he overrode them all. He poured brandy between Billy's teeth. Then he ordered the ladies off to bed, and recommended to Mr. Kennaston--when that gentleman spoke of a clergyman--a far more startling destination. For, "It is far from my intention," said Mr. Jukesbury, "to appear lacking in respect to the cloth, but--er--just at present I am inclined to think we are in somewhat greater need of a mattress and a doctor and--ah--the exercise of a little common-sense. The gentleman is--er--let us hope, in no immediate danger." "How dare you suggest such a thing, sir?" thundered Petheridge Jukesbury. "Didn't you see that poor girl's face? I tell you I'll be damned if he dies, sir!" And I fancy the recording angel heard him, and against a list of wordy cheats registered that oath to his credit.