The watchers turned to the entranced woman as though involuntarily expecting a reply through her from that mysterious region where her soul was in touch with the long-past tragedy she had revealed. She still wept silently in that awful sleep which was no sleep. But no word passed her lips. Only the clock she held upon her lap struck one silvery note, marking the half-hour.
At the sound the doctor turned from the fireplace and took up the clock. He gazed, with a passionate intensity, upon the inscription on the back.
“Marcelle!” he murmured. “Our love ceases not when time itself shall cease! Though you are dead, that still lives--_that_ was not murdered!--I understand, _ma bien-aimée_, I understand!”
He put the clock gently upon the mantelpiece and turned once more to the rigid, waiting figure. His comrades watched him, spell-bound, keying themselves to deduce his decision from the tone of his voice when he should speak. His stern face was set in an unfaltering resolve they could not penetrate. He lifted her hand.
“_Gnädige Frau_,” he said, and the level, passionless voice gave no hint to those ignorant of the language of the purport of the German words which followed, “when you wake from this sleep you will entirely forget the hideous dream through which you have passed. You will never remember it, waking or asleep. You will think of your husband as you have always thought of him--faithful and loving. You will completely resume your normal life. You will not even be aware that you have slept. It will seem to you as if you had only just sat down in this chair. But when you wake you will present me with the clock upon the mantelpiece. You will feel an overmastering impulse to do this, and you will obey it.--Now,” he wiped the tears from her face and blew sharply upon her closed eyelids, “_wake!_”
The two officers watched her, fascinated. Would she shriek? What terrible paroxysm would be the expression of a heart-broken despair? Or had he----? They held their breath.
Her eyelids flickered for a moment, and then, with one deep sigh, her eyes opened. She smiled round on them.
“_Meine Herren?_” she said in her voice of timid enquiry. Then, fixing her eyes on the doctor, “You sent for me?”