The sick man looked at him and laughed.
"That's a pretty kind of joke to play upon a man lying on his back," he said. "Go and fetch her, and we'll laugh at it together—perhaps she'll see the fun in it; I don't!"
Then, as Austin Ambrose remained silent, Blair looked from him to the doctor, who had entered—an awful look of anguished, fearful scrutiny.
"I'm—I'm dreaming; that's what it is," he muttered. "Madge—don't leave me. Take hold of my hand I—I dreamt somebody had told me you were dead. Don't cry, dear. It's I who was nearly dead, not you; and I'm all right now. Did you find the painting things? They're all right, are they? I told Austin—I told——" he stopped short suddenly, and uttered a cry, a heartrending cry, and raised himself so that he could see Austin Ambrose's face. "I'm not asleep," he moaned; "I am awake. And you are there—and you have just told me. Dead! Dead! Austin—don't—keep—it from me! Tell me all. Look, I'll be quiet. I won't utter a sound. Doctor, for Heaven's sake make him tell me."
The doctor turned his face away. It was wet with tears; there was not a tear in Austin Ambrose's eyes.
"Shall I tell him—or wait?" he whispered to the doctor. The doctor nodded.
"Better now than later; the shock will be less now he is weak. Poor fellow, poor fellow!"
Austin Ambrose bent down, and in a few words scarcely audible, told the story. He said nothing of the visitor who had come, nothing of Margaret's anguish. According as he told it, Margaret had strolled down to the rock and remained there too long, until the tidal wave had caught her and washed her out to sea.
Blair listened, his face pallid as that of death, his wide eyes fixed gleamingly on the speaker's face, his hands clutching the quilt. Every now and then his lips moved as if he were repeating the words as they dropped cautiously from Austin Ambrose's lips, and when he had finished he still leant upon his arm and looked at Austin with horror and despair.
Then, without a cry, he sank back upon the pillow and closed his eyes.