"My dear!" Mrs. Wright was genuinely shocked. She threw a sharp glance towards the curtain. "But there is no reason! There can be no reason! You're talking wildly. You can't know what you're saying."
Maud had sunk back upon her pillows, white-lipped, exhausted. "There is a reason," she whispered. "There is a reason! I love Charlie. I have loved him for years. And Jake--Jake would kill him if he knew. He does know--a little. That's why--why I am so--afraid. Oh, I wish--I wish I were--dead!"
She ceased to speak, and a dreadful pallor crept up over her face. Mrs. Wright, anxiously watching, saw that she was slipping into unconsciousness, and across the bed she issued a sharp command.
"Quick, Jake! Go and fetch the doctor!"
The shadow behind the curtain vanished. Mrs. Wright reached for a fan. The heat was intense. The darkness hung before the window like a pall. And the good woman trembled a little in spite of herself. She felt as if the Angel of Death had suddenly entered the quiet room to share her watch.
CHAPTER XII
REFUGE
"So you've come to see your old uncle at last! Dear me, you've been a precious long time about it. Tut, tut, child, what a clothes-peg to be sure! Sit down. Sit down! You don't look fit to stand."
Old Uncle Edward pulled out a chair from his dining-room table and almost thrust his visitor into it. Then he turned, seized a decanter, and poured some wine into a large old-fashioned glass goblet.
"You drink this! It's good stuff--older than you are. It'll turn to blood in your veins, and a good thing too. You look as if you hadn't got more than a thin half-pint in the whole of your constitution. There! That's better. Don't be afraid of it! Don't be afraid of it! Take another dose before you start talking! I know what you women are once your tongues get going. Take another dose, I say! You're looking half-dead. What have they been doing to you? Starving you?"