"But, Ocky! What is it, dear? We have the future—"
"That's just what we haven't got!" she gasped. "Oh, don't you understand? Haven't you guessed why I have done all these things, why I was able to play Destiny without fear of the consequences to myself, why I called you in to-night to hear my confession?" She drew a sobbing breath, "I told you I was very ill. Peter, I—I'm dying!"
Softly though it was spoken, the word crashed upon his ears like a thunderclap. He sprang to his feet, shaken and bewildered.
"Ocky! What are you saying? Are you telling me the truth? What is the matter with you?"
"Yes. It's the truth. Sit down—please! Don't get silly ideas into your head about a doctor. Give me credit for some sense!" She managed to smile, and gallantly pitched her voice to a note of lightness. "As for what's the matter—well, we needn't wander off into pathology, need we? I think we'll dispense with an ante-post-mortem, if there is such an animal! I contrived to tie some of my little innards into bowknots once when I was h-hunting hippopotamusses in the Himalayas, I guess.
"Months afterwards, I came down with a pain—a pain such as I could not have believed a human being could experience and survive, I went to a doctor in Paris, and he told me there was no hope. A few months later I had a second attack. When I was able to travel, I went to a new man in Rome. He said the next attack would be the—last.
"Then I came home. I wanted to see Lucy again, and if this stupid business of dying had to be gone through I wanted to do it here in this old house. I wanted a few weeks or months of peace and quiet and h-happiness." Her voice broke, then steadied again. "Golly—what a fizzle!" She shivered. "This afternoon I got my—notice! How I wished you were here! I came up to my room, burned that diary—you snooped just in time, Peter!—and wrote two letters. I didn't dare leave the house to mail them. I might have dropped in the—ah!"
Swift as a flash of lightning it had come. Beyond that one moan she fought silently, lips tight, one hand clutching at her side, through seconds that seemed eternities to the man watching helplessly. At last the spasm passed and speech returned to her.
"That's—just a preliminary twinge!" she whispered between her teeth. "Peter—there's something beyond the stars! You believe that, don't you?"
"My dear—my dear!"