“Then send for me. I would come instantly. Send to the town-hall any time before twelve, after that to Compton. Send without scruples, Lenore, you have truly the right.”
They did not send, except that a note met him as he returned home, telling him that suffusion of the brain had set in. Camilla Tyrrell did not survive Raymond Poynsett twelve hours.
CHAPTER XXX
Come Back
And are ye sure the news is true?
And are ye sure he’s weel?—J. THOMPSON
Eleonora Vivian was striving to write her sorrowful announcements in the deepening dusk of that autumn evening, while her father had shut himself up after his vigil to sleep under Victor’s care, when a message came that Lady Rosamond Charnock earnestly begged to see her. She stood with a face white and set, looking like a galvanized corpse, as her lips framed the words, “He is dead!”
“No!” almost screamed Rosamond, snatching her hand. “No! But no one can save him but you. Come!”
Without a word, Eleonora stepped into her own room, and came back in cloak, hat, and veil.
“Right,” said Rosamond, seizing her arm, and taking her to the pony-carriage at the door, then explaining while driving rapidly: “He has left off raving ever since his mother has been with him, but he lies—not still but weak, not speaking, only moaning now and then. His throat is so dreadful that it is hard to give him anything, and he takes no notice of what one says, only if his mother takes the spoon. He gets weaker, and Dr. Worth says it is only because there is no impulse to revive him—he is just sinking because he can’t be roused. When I heard that, I thought I knew who could.”
Eleonora’s lips once moved, but no sound came from them, and Rosamond urged her little pony to its best speed through the two parks from one veiled house to another, fastened it to the garden-door without calling any one, and led her silent companion up the stairs.
Mrs. Poynsett felt a hand on her shoulder, and Rosamond said, “I have brought our only hope,” and Eleonora stood, looking at the ghastly face. The yellow skin, the inflamed purple lips, the cavernous look of cheeks and eyes, were a fearful sight, and only the feeble incessant groping of the skeleton fingers showed life or action.