“Good-bye, Honoria,” said her husband with a faint smile.

The medical assistant looked a little surprised.  He had never, it is true, happened to be present at a meeting between husband and wife, when one of the pair had just been rescued by a hair’s-breadth from a violent and sudden death, and therefore wanted experience to go on.  But it struck him that there was something missing.  The lady did not seem to him quite to fill the part of the Heaven-thanking spouse.  It puzzled him very much.  Perhaps he showed this in his face.  At any rate, Lady Honoria, who was quick enough, read something there.

“He is safe now, is he not?” she asked.  “It will not matter if I go away.”

“No, my lady,” answered the assistant, “he is out of danger, I think; it will not matter at all.”

Lady Honoria hesitated a little; she was standing in the passage.  Then she glanced through the door into the opposite room, and caught a glimpse of Beatrice’s rigid form and of the doctor bending over it.  Her head was thrown back and the beautiful brown hair, which was now almost dry again, streamed in masses to the ground, while on her face was stamped the terrifying seal of Death.

Lady Honoria shuddered.  She could not bear such sights.  “Will it be necessary for me to come back to-night?” she said.

“I do not think so,” he answered, “unless you care to hear whether Miss Granger recovers?”

“I shall hear that in the morning,” she said.  “Poor thing, I cannot help her.”

“No, Lady Honoria, you cannot help her.  She saved your husband’s life, they say.”

“She must be a brave girl.  Will she recover?”

The assistant shook his head.  “She may, possibly.  It is not likely now.”

“Poor thing, and so young and beautiful!  What a lovely face, and what an arm!  It is very awful for her,” and Lady Honoria shuddered again and went.

Outside the door a small knot of sympathisers was still gathered, notwithstanding the late hour and the badness of the weather.

“That’s his wife,” said one, and they opened to let her pass.

“Then why don’t she stop with him?” asked a woman audibly.  “If it had been my husband I’d have sat and hugged him for an hour.”

“Ay, you’d have killed him with your hugging, you would,” somebody answered.

Lady Honoria passed on.  Suddenly a thick-set man emerged from the shadow of the pines.  She could not see his face, but he was wrapped in a large cloak.

“Forgive me,” he said in the hoarse voice of one struggling with emotions which he was unable to conceal, “but you can tell me.  Does she still live?”

“Do you mean Miss Granger?” she asked.

“Yes, of course.  Beatrice—­Miss Granger?”

“They do not know, but they think——­”

“Yes, yes—­they think——­”

“That she is dead.”

The man said never a word.  He dropped his head upon his breast and, turning, vanished again into the shadow of the pines.