Supposing he wasn't? Or supposing he was still warm and limp like the boy
at Melle? She must know; it was a thing she must know for certain, or she
would never have any peace. And when the Flamand was laid out on
McClane's table, while McClane dressed his wound, she slipped down the
lane and opened the green door.

The man lay on a row of packing cases with his feet parted. She put one
hand over his heart and the other on his forehead under the lock of
bloodstained hair. He was dead: stiff dead and cold. His tunic and shirt
had been unbuttoned to ease his last breathing. She had a queer baffled
feeling of surprise and incompleteness, as if some awful sense in her
would have been satisfied if she had seen that he had been living when
John had said that he was dead. To-day would then have been linked on
firmly to the other day.

John stood at the top of the lane. He scowled at her as she came.

"What do you think you're doing!" he said.

"I went to that house--to see if the man was dead."

"You'd no business to. I told you he was dead."

"I wanted to make sure."

* * * * *

That evening she had just gone to her room when somebody knocked at her
door. McClane stood outside, straddling, his way when he had got
something important on hand. He asked if he might come in and speak to