I strove more
frantically than ever to make signs to her; but no, I could not.
Seemingly she did not see.
Then I thought: "I'm dead! This is being dead! I've died!"
Margaret ran to the dressing-table and picked up her hand-mirror. She
rubbed it carefully on the counterpane, and then held it to the mouth
and nostrils of that face on the pillows, and then examined it under the
gas. She was very agitated; the whole of her demeanour had changed; I
scarcely recognized her. I could not help thinking that she was mad. She
put down the mirror, glanced at the clock, even glanced out of the
window (she was much closer to me than I am now to you), and then flew
back to the bed. She seized the scissors that were hanging from her
girdle, and cut a hole in the top pillow, and drew from it a flock of
down, which she carefully placed on the lips of that face. The down did
not even tremble. Then she bared the breast of the body on the bed, and
laid her ear upon the region of the heart; I could see her eyes blinking
as she listened intensely. After she had listened some time she raised
her head, with a little sob, and frantically pulled the bell-rope.
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