He sat down beside the bed and held her hand, and she turned her eyes upon him gratefully, then averted them and groaned faintly.
"Did I hurt you, Fin?" he asked.
"No, no!" she replied. "It wasn't that. It—it was something I was thinking of."
"You mustn't talk," said the doctor.
She opened her lips and grinned at him contemptuously.
"Why mustn't I? Do you think I am going off my head? Well, there—but don't leave me, or if you do, come again to-morrow, Yorke," and she turned her head away and closed her eyes.
Yorke sat beside her through the night, holding her hand. At times she seemed to fall into an uneasy slumber, from which she would wake and look from him to Polly with a vacant gaze which grew troubled when it rested on his face, and then she would sigh and close her eyes again. Toward morning she fell into a deep sleep, and Yorke went home, but only remained long enough to change his clothes, and returned to St. John's Wood. He found Sir Andrew there, and the great man greeted him with a significant gravity; but before he could speak Finetta turned her eyes to Yorke.
"Ask him to tell me the truth of the case, Yorke!" she said, in a voice much weaker than that of last night. "I'm not afraid. He says I'm not going to die; but ask him how soon I shall get back to the Diadem!"
Sir Andrew smiled, but it was the smile which masks the face of the physician while he pronounces sentence.
"Not yet awhile, my dear young lady," he said.