Whatever it seemed
to be for the time, its weight rested only on me, and I was never so ill
or so weak that I did not respond with my whole soul. There were always
crowds of faces about me, mostly strange, but a few I recognized, Boris
among them. Afterward they told me that this could not have been, but I
know that once at least he bent over me. It was only a touch, a faint
echo of his voice, then the clouds settled back on my senses, and I lost
him, but he _did_ stand there and bend over me _once_ at least. At last, one morning I awoke to find the sunlight falling across my bed,
and Jack Scott reading beside me. I had not strength enough to speak
aloud, neither could I think, much less remember, but I could smile
feebly, as Jack's eye met mine, and when he jumped up and asked eagerly
if I wanted anything, I could whisper, "Yes--Boris." Jack moved to the
head of my bed, and leaned down to arrange my pillow: I did not see his
face, but he answered heartily, "You must wait, Alec; you are too weak to
see even Boris." I waited and I grew strong; in a few days I was able to see whom I would,
but meanwhile I had thought and remembered. From the moment when all the
past grew clear again in my mind, I never doubted what I should do when
the time came, and I felt sure that Boris would have resolved upon the
same course so far as he was concerned; as for what pertained to me
alone, I knew he would see that also as I did. I no longer asked for any
one. I never inquired why no message came from them; why during the week
I lay there, waiting and growing stronger, I never heard their name
spoken. Preoccupied with my own searchings for the right way, and with my
feeble but determined fight against despair, I simply acquiesced in
Jack's reticence, taking for granted that he was afraid to speak of them,
lest I should turn unruly and insist on seeing them. Meanwhile I said
over and over to myself, how would it be when life began again for us
all? We would take up our relations exactly as they were before Geneviève
fell ill. Boris and I would look into each other's eyes, and there would
be neither rancour nor cowardice nor mistrust in that glance. I would be
with them again for a little while in the dear intimacy of their home,
and then, without pretext or explanation, I would disappear from their
lives for ever. Boris would know; Geneviève--the only comfort was that
she would never know. It seemed, as I thought it over, that I had found
the meaning of that sense of obligation which had persisted all through
my delirium, and the only possible answer to it. So, when I was quite
ready, I beckoned Jack to me one day, and said--

"Jack, I want Boris at once; and take my dearest greeting to
Geneviève...."

When at last he made me understand that they were both dead, I fell into
a wild rage that tore all my little convalescent strength to atoms. I
raved and cursed myself into a relapse, from which I crawled forth some
weeks afterward a boy of twenty-one who believed that his youth was gone
for ever. I seemed to be past the capability of further suffering, and
one day when Jack handed me a letter and the keys to Boris' house, I took
them without a tremor and asked him to tell me all. It was cruel of me to
ask him, but there was no help for it, and he leaned wearily on his thin
hands, to reopen the wound which could never entirely heal. He began very
quietly--

"Alec, unless you have a clue that I know nothing about, you will not be
able to explain any more than I what has happened. I suspect that you
would rather not hear these details, but you must learn them, else I
would spare you the relation. God knows I wish I could be spared the
telling. I shall use few words. "That day when I left you in the doctor's care and came back to Boris, I
found him working on the 'Fates.' Geneviève, he said, was sleeping under
the influence of drugs. She had been quite out of her mind, he said. He
kept on working, not talking any more, and I watched him. Before long, I
saw that the third figure of the group--the one looking straight ahead,
out over the world--bore his face; not as you ever saw it, but as it
looked then and to the end. This is one thing for which I should like to
find an explanation, but I never shall. "Well, he worked and I watched him in silence, and we went on that way
until nearly midnight. Then we heard the door open and shut sharply, and
a swift rush in the next room. Boris sprang through the doorway and I
followed; but we were too late. She lay at the bottom of the pool, her
hands across her breast. Then Boris shot himself through the heart." Jack
stopped speaking, drops of sweat stood under his eyes, and his thin
cheeks twitched. "I carried Boris to his room. Then I went back and let
that hellish fluid out of the pool, and turning on all the water, washed
the marble clean of every drop. When at length I dared descend the steps,
I found her lying there as white as snow. At last, when I had decided
what was best to do, I went into the laboratory, and first emptied the
solution in the basin into the waste-pipe; then I poured the contents of
every jar and bottle after it. There was wood in the fire-place, so I
built a fire, and breaking the locks of Boris' cabinet I burnt every
paper, notebook and letter that I found there. With a mallet from the
studio I smashed to pieces all the empty bottles, then loading them into
a coal-scuttle, I carried them to the cellar and threw them over the
red-hot bed of the furnace. Six times I made the journey, and at last,
not a vestige remained of anything which might again aid in seeking for
the formula which Boris had found. Then at last I dared call the doctor. He is a good man, and together we struggled to keep it from the public. Without him I never could have succeeded. At last we got the servants
paid and sent away into the country, where old Rosier keeps them quiet
with stones of Boris' and Geneviève's travels in distant lands, from
whence they will not return for years. We buried Boris in the little
cemetery of Sèvres. The doctor is a good creature, and knows when to pity
a man who can bear no more. He gave his certificate of heart disease and
asked no questions of me." Then, lifting his head from his hands, he said, "Open the letter, Alec;
it is for us both." I tore it open. It was Boris' will dated a year before. He left
everything to Geneviève, and in case of her dying childless, I was to
take control of the house in the Rue Sainte-Cécile, and Jack Scott the
management at Ept. On our deaths the property reverted to his mother's
family in Russia, with the exception of the sculptured marbles executed
by himself. These he left to me. The page blurred under our eyes, and Jack got up and walked to the
window. Presently he returned and sat down again. I dreaded to hear what
he was going to say, but he spoke with the same simplicity and
gentleness. "Geneviève lies before the Madonna in the marble room.