Lord Hayes had been rather troubled about his health during the winter in which the foregoing events had occurred, though it had not stood in the way of their giving several large house-parties. But at one of these he had suddenly fainted dead off in the middle of dinner, and, when the house was empty again, he had gone up to London to see a doctor.
Eva was sitting in her room when he returned, feeling rather bored.
"Well, Hayes," she said, as he came in, "what did they say to you?"
Lord Hayes adjusted his trousers about the knee before he answered.
"I have all the symptoms of dangerous heart disease," he said. "I may live for many years, and die of something else. Again, I may die almost at any moment."
Eva's book drooped off her knee.
"How horrible!" she said at length. "Can nothing be done? Are they sure they are right?"
"Unfortunately, they are quite sure," he said; "and nothing can be done. They consider the chance of my dying quite suddenly at any time as possible, but not at all likely."
Eva, in her serene health, felt a sudden, great pity for him, but not unmixed with horror. She had no sympathy with disease; it seemed to her hardly decent.