The laundress paused to draw breath, and to pour a dose of medicine from one of the bottles on the table.

“Well, sir, the next day, he had a vi’lent cold, as you may suppose, and was low and languid-like, but went on with his writing, and it weren’t no good asking him not.  ‘I want money, Mrs. Pratt,’ he said; ’you can’t tell how bad I want money, and these people pay me for my stuff as fast as I send it in.’  The day after that he was a deal worse, and had a wandering way like, as if he didn’t know what he was doing; and sat turning over his papers with one hand, and leaning his head upon the other, and groaned so that it went through one like a knife to hear him.  ’It’s no use,’ he said at last; ‘it’s no use!’ and then went and threw hisself down upon that bed, and has never got up since, poor dear gentleman!  I went round to fetch a doctor out of Essex Street, finding as he was no better in the evening, and awful hot, and still more wandering-like—­Mr. Mew by name, a very nice gentleman—­which said as it were rheumatic fever, and has been here twice a day ever since.”

“Has Mr. Saltram never been in his right senses since that day?” Gilbert asked.

“O yes, sir; off and on for the first week he was quite hisself at times; but for the last three days he hasn’t known any one, and has talked and jabbered a deal, and has been dreadful restless.”

“Does the doctor call it a dangerous case?”

“Well, sir, not to deceive you, he ast me if Mr. Saltram had any friends as I could send for; and I says no, not to my knowledge; ‘for,’ says Mr. Mew, ’if he have any relations or friends near at hand, they ought to be told that he’s in a bad way;’ and only this morning he said as how he should like to call in a physician, for the case was a bad one.”

“I see.  There is danger evidently,” Gilbert said gravely.  “I will wait and hear what the doctor says.  He will come again to-day, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir; he’s sure to come in the evening.”

“Good; I will stay till the evening.  I should like you to go round immediately to this Mr. Mew’s house, and ask for the address of some skilled nurse, and then go on, in a cab if necessary, and fetch her.”

“I could do that, sir, of course,—­not but what I feel myself capable of nursing the poor dear gentleman.”

“You can’t nurse him night and day, my good woman.  Do what I tell you, and bring back a professional nurse as soon as you can.  If Mr. Mew should be out, his people are likely to know the address of such a person.”

He gave the woman some silver, and despatched her; and then, being alone, sat down quietly in the sick-room to think out the situation.

Yes, there was no longer any doubt; that piteous appeal to Marian had settled the question.  John Saltram, the friend whom he had loved, was the traitor.  John Saltram had stolen his promised wife, had come between him and his fair happy future, and had kept the secret of his guilt in a dastardly spirit that made the act fifty times blacker than it would have seemed otherwise.