incapacitated as I. My first thought, when I recovered so that I
could think, was of Gwen. I felt sure her reason must give way under
the strain, and I thought of going nearer to her in case she should
fall, but refrained when I noticed that Maitland had noiselessly
glided within easy reach of her. To move seemed impossible to me.
Such a sudden transition from warm, vigorous life to cold, impassive
death seems to chill the dynamic rivers of being into a horrible
winter, static and eternal. Though death puts all things in the
past tense, even we physicians cannot but be strangely moved when
the soul thus hastily deserts the body without the usual farewell of
an illness.

Contrary to my expectations Gwen did not faint. For a long time,
--it may not have been more than twenty minutes, but it seemed,
under the peculiar circumstances, at least an hour,--she remained
perfectly impassive. She neither changed colour nor exhibited any
other sign of emotion. She stood gazing quietly, tenderly, at her
father's body as if he were asleep and she were watching for some
indication of his awakening. Then a puzzled expression came over
her countenance. There was no trace of sorrow in it, only the look
of perplexity. I decided to break the gruesome silence, but the
thought of how my own voice would sound in that awe-inspired
stillness frightened me. Gwen herself was the first to speak. She
looked up with the same impassive countenance, from which now the
perplexed look had fled, and said simply:

"Gentlemen, what is to be done?" Her voice was firm and sane,--that
it was pitched lower than usual and had a suggestion of intensity in
it, was perfectly natural. I thought she did not realise her loss
and said: "He has gone past recall." "Yes," she replied, "I know