One dismal wintry afternoon, however, when I was sitting in the dark, telling Dora stories, a card was brought up to me by the little housemaid.  The gentleman begged to see me.  “Mr. Tracy” was on the card, and the very sight startled me with the certainty that something was amiss.

I left the girl in charge and hurried down to the room, where Dermot was leaning over the mantel-shelf, with his head against his arms, in a sorrowful attitude, as if he could not bear to turn round and face me, I flew up to him, crying out that I knew he was come to fetch me to Harold; Dora was so much better that I could leave her.

He turned up to me a white haggard face, and eyes with dismay, pity, and grief in them, such as even now it wrings my heart to recall, and hoarsely said in a sunken voice, “No, Lucy, I am not come to fetch you!” and he took my hand and grasped it convulsively.

“But he has caught it?” Dermot bent his head.  “I must go to him, even if he bids me not.  I know he wants me.”

“No!” again said Dermot, as if his tongue refused to move.  “Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot tell you!”

And he burst into a flood of tears, shaking, choking, even rending him.

I stood, feeling as if turned to stone, and presently the words came out in a sob, “Oh, Lucy, he is dead!” and, sinking on the nearest seat, his tempest of grief was for the moment more frightful than the tidings, which I could not take in, so impossible did the sudden quenching of that glorious vitality seem.  I began in some foolish way to try to console him, as if it were a mere fancy.  I brought him a glass of water from the sideboard, and implored him to compose himself, and tell me what made him say such terrible things, but he wrung my hand and leant his head against me, as he groaned, “I tell you, it is true.  We buried him this morning.  The noblest, dearest friend that ever—­”

“And you never told me!  You never fetched me; I might have saved him,” was my cry; then, “Oh! why did you not?”

Then he told me that there had been no time, and how useless my presence would have been.  We sat on the sofa, and he gasped out something of the sad story, though not by any means all that I afterwards learnt from himself and from the Yollands, but enough to make me feel the reality of the terrible loss.  And I will tell the whole here.

Left to himself, the dear fellow had no doubt forgotten all about vaccination, or any peril to himself, for he never mentioned it to Dermot, who only thought him anxious about Dora.  On the Saturday they were to have had a day’s shooting, and then to have dined at Erymanth, but Harold sent over in the morning to say he had a headache and could not come, so Dermot went alone.  When the Yollands came home at nine at night a message was given that Mr. Alison would like to see Mr. George as soon as he came in; but as the train had been an hour late, and the message had not been delivered immediately on their coming in, George thought it could not concern that night, so he waited till morning; but he was awaked in the winter twilight by Harold at his door, saying, “Doctor, I’m not quite right.  I wish you would come up presently and see after me.”