“Well, send for her, for he will need careful nursing. You say you will take charge of him? Very well; and to-morrow morning I will send in a nurse, who will set you at liberty for a few hours. Evidently he has had some shock. Can you make out what it was at all?”
“Well; last autumn, I believe—indeed, I am sure—he was jilted by an English girl with whom he was desperately in love. It all came upon the top of the other troubles of which I told you.”
“And what is this paper he raves about? What is the girl’s name? We might get some clew in that way.”
“Oh,” said Roy, “she was married some months ago. She is now Lady Romiaux.”
The doctor gave a stifled exclamation.
“That explains all. I suppose the poor fellow honestly cared for her, and was shocked to see the paragraph in this week’s Idle Time. Your friend has had a narrow escape, if he could but see it in that light. For the husband of that heartless little flirt must be the most miserable man alive. We shall soon have another of those detestable causes célèbres, and the newspapers lying about in every household will be filled with all the poisonous details.”
As Roy kept watch through the long nights and days that followed, as he listened to the delirious ravings of his patient, and perceived how a man’s life and health had been ruined by the faithlessness of a vain girl, he became so absorbed in poor Frithiof, so devoted to him, that he altogether forgot his specimens and his microscope. He wondered greatly how many victims had been sacrificed to Blanche Romiaux’s selfish love of admiration, and he longed to have her in that room, and point to the man who tossed to and fro in sleepless misery, and say to her, “This is what your hateful flirting has brought about.”
But the little Norwegian episode had entirely passed out of Lady Romiaux’s mind. Had she been questioned she would probably have replied that her world contained too many hard realities to leave room for the recollection of mere dreams.
The dream, however, had gone hard with Frithiof. Sleeping draughts had no effect on him, and his temperature remained so high that Dr. Morris began to fear the worst.
Roy used to be haunted by the thought that he had telegraphed for Sigrid Falck, and that he should have to meet her after her long journey with the news that all was over. And remembering the bright face and sunny manner of the Norwegian girl, his heart failed him at the thought of her desolation. But Frithiof could not even take in the idea that she had been sent for. Nothing now made any difference to him. Sleep alone could restore him. But sleep refused to come, and already the death-angel hovered near, ready to give him the release for which he so greatly longed.