could be dead.

He spoke to her again--crying aloud in agony--but the heavily
fringed eyelids did not open, no glad cry of welcome broke from
the parted lips, the little rounded bosom that had always heaved
tumultuously at his coming was still under the silken kimono. He
bent over her with ashen face and laid his hand gently on her
breast, but the icy coldness struck into his own heart and his
touch seemed a profanation. He drew back with a terrible shudder.

How dared he touch her? Murderer! For it was murder. His work as
surely as if he had himself driven a knife into that girlish
breast or squeezed the breath from that slender throat. He was
under no delusion. He understood the Japanese character too well
and he knew O Hara San too thoroughly to deceive himself. He knew
the passionate love that she had given him, a love that had often
troubled him with its intensity. He had been her god, her
everything. She had worshipped him blindly. And he had left
her--left her alone with the memory of his strangeness and his
harshness, alone with her heart breaking, alone with her fear. And
she had been so curiously alone. She had had nobody but him. She
had trusted him--and he had left her. She had trusted him. Oh, God,
she had trusted him!

His quick imagination visualised what must have happened. Frantic
with despair and desperate at the seeming fulfilment of her fears
she had not stopped to reason nor waited for calmer reflection but
with the curious Oriental blending of impetuosity and stolid
deliberation she had killed herself, seeking release from her
misery with the aid of the subtle poison known to every Japanese