"Let me add 'Urgent,'" he said.
"No, Jack. You are not to. Add nothing. If he doesn't come for that, he will never come at all. And I sha'n't wait for him," she added under her breath.
She seemed impatient for him to depart and despatch the message, but when he took his leave her eyes followed him with a wistful gratitude that sent a thrill to his heart. She had taken him at his word, and had made him her friend in need.
X
"If he doesn't come for that, he will never come at all."
Over and over Cynthia whispered the words to herself as she lay, with her wide, shining eyes upon the door, waiting. She was a gambler who had staked all on the final throw, and she was watching, weak and ill as she was after long suffering, watching restlessly, persistently, for the result of that last great venture. Surely he would come—surely—surely!
Once she spoke imperiously to the nurse.
"If a gentleman named West calls, I must see him at once, whatever the hour."
The nurse raised no obstacle. Perhaps she realised that it would do more harm than good to thwart her patient's caprice.
And so hour after hour Cynthia lay waiting for the answer to her message, and hour followed hour in slow, uneventful procession, bringing her neither comfort nor repose.