“You are their friend, then?”
“I am,” Courtlaw answered.
“The one whose life you have been making a burden, who has been all the time shielding her sister. I would have married her long ago, but she will not have me.”
“Bring her—here,” Hill muttered. “I——”
The door opened, and the doctor entered softly. Hill closed his eyes. Courtlaw stood up.
“He has asked to see some one,” he whispered to the doctor. “Is there any urgency?”
The doctor bent over his patient, who seemed to have fallen asleep. Presently he turned to Courtlaw.
“I think,” he said, “that I would fetch any one whom he has asked to see. His condition is not unfavourable, but there may be a relapse at any moment.”
So only a few minutes after Ennison’s departure, while Anna stood indeed with her sister’s open letter still in her hand, Courtlaw drove up in hot haste. She opened the door to him herself.