His comrades stared at him in horrified astonishment.
“But,” cried the battalion-commander, “are you sure----”
The young woman still sat rigidly upright. Her face was drawn with anguish. Heavy tears rolled ceaselessly from under the closed eyelids. She sobbed quietly in a far-off kind of way that was nevertheless eloquent of an immense despair.
“She sees what happened----?” queried the captain in an incredulous and puzzled tone.
“Three years ago. She is looking at it now,” asserted the doctor. “She sees her husband bending over my dead wife.--Come, _messieurs_, let me have your verdict!” He seemed to be experiencing a grim, unhuman enjoyment at their evident recoil from the terrible problem he offered them. “I must wake her soon!”
“And if she wakes--knowing----?” faltered the captain.
“She will probably kill herself. She has been living in an intense love for the idealized memory of her husband. The revulsion will be overwhelming.”
“But, _mon cher_--a suicide--that goes beyond----”
“Her husband drove _my_ wife to suicide----”
“It is terribly logical,” murmured the young captain, “but,” he glanced at the unconscious figure in its mysterious and awful grief, “one needs to be God to indulge in logic to that point.”
“And yet we are but men,” said the doctor, “and the problem is there before us--must be solved at once! In my place, what would you do?”
The battalion-commander rose. He went up to his comrade and looked him in the eyes.
“_Mon cher_,” he said solemnly, “God forbid that I should ever be in your place! I do not know.”
The doctor turned to the young man. There was a terrible smile on his lips.
The captain rose also. He also read the hell in the doctor’s eyes. He shook his head and shuddered.
“_Mon ami_,” he replied, “I should go mad.”
“The terrible thing is that I cannot go mad,” he said. “I am still sane.--So you both decline the problem?”
The two officers shook their heads, not trusting themselves to speech.
The doctor turned away from them and covered his face with both hands. He reeled to the mantelpiece, leaned against it. They saw his body shake in the intensity of the nervous crisis which swept over him.
“Marcelle!” he cried. “Marcelle!--if you are a living spirit, counsel me! Shall I avenge?”