The Prayer

'It is but giving over of a game.
That must be lost.'--PHILASTER

'Come, Mrs Arne--come, my dear, you must not give way like this! You
can't stand it--you really can't! Let Miss Kate take you away--now
do!' urged the nurse, with her most motherly of intonations.

'Yes, Alice, Mrs Joyce is right. Come away--do come away--you are only
making yourself ill. It is all over; you can do nothing! Oh, oh, do
come away!' implored Mrs Arne's sister, shivering with excitement and
nervousness.

A few moments ago Dr Graham had relinquished his hold on the pulse of
Edward Arne with the hopeless movement of the eyebrows that meant--the
end.

The nurse had made the little gesture of resignation that was possibly
a matter of form with her. The young sister-in-law had hidden her face
in her hands. The wife had screamed a scream that had turned them all
hot and cold--and flung herself on the bed over her dead husband.
There she lay; her cries were terrible, her sobs shook her whole body.

The three gazed at her pityingly, not knowing what to do next. The
nurse, folding her hands, looked towards the doctor for directions,
and the doctor drummed with his fingers on the bed-post.

The young girl timidly stroked the shoulder that heaved and writhed
under her touch.

'Go away! Go away!' her sister reiterated continually, in a voice
hoarse with fatigue and passion.

'Leave her alone, Miss Kate,' whispered the nurse at last; 'she will
work it off best herself, perhaps.'

She turned down the lamp as if to draw a veil over the scene. Mrs Arne
raised herself on her elbow, showing a face stained with tears and
purple with emotion.

'What! Not gone?' she said harshly. 'Go away, Kate, go away! It is my
house. I don't want you, I want no one--I want to speak to my husband.
Will you go away--all of you. Give me an hour, half-an-hour--five
minutes!'

She stretched out her arms imploringly to the doctor.

'Well...' said he, almost to himself.

He signed to the two women to withdraw, and followed them out into the
passage. 'Go and get something to eat,' he said peremptorily, 'while
you can. We shall have trouble with her presently. I'll wait in the
dressing-room.'

He glanced at the twisting figure on the bed, shrugged his shoulders,
and passed into the adjoining room, without, however, closing the door
of communication. Sitting down in an arm-chair drawn up to the fire,
he stretched himself and closed his eyes. The professional aspects of
the case of Edward Arne rose up before him in all its interesting
forms of complication...