Marcella gave an involuntary sob!  “What a horror!” she said, “what a martyrdom!”

“It was just that,” he answered in a low voice—­“It was a martyrdom.  And when one thinks of the way in which for years past he has held these big meetings in the hollow of his hand, and now, because he crosses their passion, their whim,—­no kindness!—­no patience—­nothing but a blind hostile fury!  Yet they thought him a traitor, no doubt.  Oh! it was all a tragedy!”

There was silence an instant.  Then he resumed: 

“We got him into the back room.  Luckily there was a doctor on the platform.  It was heart failure, of course, with brain prostration.  We managed to get him home, and Susie Hallin and I sat up.  He was delirious all night; but yesterday he rallied, and last night he begged us to move him out of London if we could.  So we got two doctors and an invalid carriage, and by three this afternoon we were all at the Court.  My aunt was ready for him—­his sister is there—­and a nurse.  Clarke was there to meet him.  He thinks he cannot possibly live more than a few weeks—­possibly even a few days.  The shock and strain have been irreparable.”

Marcella lay back in her chair, struggling with her grief, her head and face turned away from him, her eyes hidden by her handkerchief.  Then in some mysterious way she was suddenly conscious that Aldous was no longer thinking of Hallin, but of her.

“He wants very much to see you,” he said, bending towards her; “but I know that you have yourself serious illness to nurse.  Forgive me for not having enquired after Mr. Boyce.  I trust he is better?”

She sat up, red-eyed, but mistress of herself.  The tone had been all gentleness, but to her quivering sense some slight indefinable change—­coldness—­had passed into it.

“He is better, thank you—­for the present.  And my mother does not let me do very much.  We have a nurse too.  When shall I come?”

He rose.

“Could you—­come to-morrow afternoon?  There is to be a consultation of doctors in the morning, which will tire him.  About six?—­that was what he said.  He is very weak, but in the day quite conscious and rational.  My aunt begged me to say how glad she would be—­”

He paused.  An invincible awkwardness took possession of both of them.  She longed to speak to him of his grandfather but could not find the courage.

When he was gone, she, standing alone in the firelight, gave one passionate thought to the fact that so—­in this tragic way—­they had met again in this room where he had spoken to her his last words as a lover; and then, steadily, she put everything out of her mind but her friend—­and death.

CHAPTER II.

Mrs. Boyce received Marcella’s news with more sympathy than her daughter had dared to hope for, and she made no remark upon Aldous himself and his visit, for which Marcella was grateful to her.