She must think this whole thing out, she told herself desperately; view it dispassionately and calmly; decide upon the best and quickest step toward reinstating the old order, toward blotting out this last fortnight of weakness and madness.  But, if Susan was fighting for the laws of men, a force far stronger was taking arms against her, the great law of nature held her in its grip.  The voice of Stephen Bocqueraz rang across her sanest resolution; the touch of Stephen Bocqueraz’s hand burned her like a fire.

Well, it had been sent to her, she thought resentfully, lying back spent and exhausted; she had not invited it.  Suppose she accepted it; suppose she sanctioned his efforts to obtain a divorce, suppose she were married to him—­And at the thought her resolutions melted away in the sudden delicious and enervating wave of emotion that swept over her.  To belong to him!

“Oh, my God, I do not know what to do!” Susan whispered.  She slipped to her knees, and buried her face in her hands.  If her mind would but be still for a moment, would stop its mad hurry, she might pray.

A knock at the door brought her to her feet; it was Miss Baker, who was sitting with Kenneth to-night, and who wanted company.  Susan was glad to go noiselessly up to the little sitting-room next to Kenneth’s room, and sit chatting under the lamp.  Now and then low groaning and muttering came from the sick man, and the women paused for a pitiful second.  Susan presently went in to help Miss Baker persuade him to drink some cooling preparation.

The big room was luxurious enough for a Sultan, yet with hints of Kenneth’s earlier athletic interests in evidence too.  A wonderful lamp at the bedside diffused a soft light.  The sufferer, in embroidered and monogrammed silk night-wear, was under a trimly drawn sheet, with a fluffy satin quilt folded across his feet.  He muttered and shook his head, as the drink was presented, and, his bloodshot eyes discovering Susan, he whispered her name, immediately shouting it aloud, hot eyes on her face: 

“Susan!”

“Feeling better?” Susan smiled encouragingly, maternally, down upon him.

But his gaze had wandered again.  He drained the glass, and immediately seemed quieter.

“He’ll sleep now,” said Miss Baker, when they were back in the adjoining room.  “Doesn’t it seem a shame?”

“Couldn’t he be cured, Miss Baker?”

“Well,” the nurse pursed her lips, shook her head thoughtfully.  “No, I don’t believe he could now.  Doctor thinks the south of France will do wonders, and he says that if Mr. Saunders stayed on a strict diet for, say a year, and then took some German cure—­but I don’t know!  Nobody could make him do it anyway.  Why, we can’t keep him on a diet for twenty-four hours!  Of course he can’t keep this up.  A few more attacks like this will finish him.  He’s going to have a nurse in the morning, and Doctor says that in about a month he ought to get away.  It’s my opinion he’ll end in a mad-house,” Miss Baker ended, with quiet satisfaction.