“A few telegrams will settle that.  I shall take you to Geneva to-morrow.  We shall get doctors there.”

A little smile played about her mouth—­a smile which did not seem to have any reference to his words or to her next question.

“Nobody thinks of the book now, do they, William?”

“No, Kitty, no!  It’s all forgotten, dear.”

“Oh, it was abominable!” She drew a long breath.  “But I can’t help it—­I did get a horrid pleasure out of writing it—­till Venice—­till you left off loving me.  Oh, William!  William!—­what a good thing it is I’m dying!”

“Hush, Kitty—­hush.”

“It gives one such an unfair advantage, though, doesn’t it?  You can’t ever be angry with me again.  There won’t be time.  William, dear!—­I haven’t had a brain like other people.  I know it.  It’s only since I’ve been so ill—­that I’ve been sane!  It’s a strange feeling—­as though one had been bled—­and some poison had drained away.  But it would never do for me to take a turn and live!  Oh no!—­people like me are better safely under the grass.  Oh, my beloved! my beloved!  I just want to say that all the time, and nothing else—­I’ve hungered so to say it!”

He answered her with all the anguish, all the passionate, fruitless tenderness and vain comfortings that rise from the human heart in such a strait.  But when he asked her pardon for his hardness towards the Dean’s petition, when he said that his conscience had tormented him thenceforward, she would scarcely hear a word.

“You did quite right,” she said, peremptorily—­“quite right.”

Then she raised herself on her arm and looked at him.

“William!” she said, with a strange, kindled expression.  “I—­I don’t think I can live any more!  I think—­I’m dying—­here—­now!”

She fell back on her pillows, and he sprang to his feet, crying that he must go for Fraeulein Anna and a doctor.  But she held him feebly, motioning towards the brandy and strychnine.  “That’s all—­you can do.”

He gave them to her, and again she revived and smiled at him.

“Don’t be frightened.  It was a sudden feeling—­it came over me—­that this dear little room—­and your arms—­would be the end.  Oh, how much best!  There!—­that was foolish!—­I’m better.  It isn’t only the lungs, you see; they say the heart’s worst.  I nearly went at Vevey, one night.  It was such a long faint.”

Then she lay quiet, with her hand in his, in a dreamy, peaceful state, and his panic subsided.  Once she sent messages to Lady Tranmore—­messages full of sorrow, touched also—­by a word here, a look there—­by the charm of the old Kitty.

“I don’t deserve to die like this,” she said, once, with a half-impatient gesture.  “Nothing can prevent it’s being beautiful—­and touching—­you know; our meeting like this—­and your goodness to me.  Oh, I’m glad!  But I don’t want to glorify—­what I’ve done. Shame!  Shame!"