And he lay awake long, struggling hard against a terror that was to grow nearer and more real with each succeeding day.
Vincent's sleep was sweet and sound that night, until, with the dawn, the moment came when it changed gently and painlessly into a sleep that was sounder still, and the plain common-place bedroom grew hushed and solemn, for Death had entered it.
CHAPTER XLII.
FROM THE GRAVE.
THE days went by; Mark had followed Vincent to the grave, with a sorrow in which there was no feigning, and now the Angel of Death stood at his own door, and Love strove in vain to keep him back. For the fear which had haunted Mark of late had been brought near its fulfilment—Mabel lay dangerously ill, and it seemed that the son she had borne was never to know a mother's care.
Throughout one terrible week Mark never left the house on Campden Hill, while Mabel wavered between life and death; he was not allowed to see her; she had not expressed any wish as yet to see him, he learnt from Mrs. Langton, who had cast off all her languor before her daughter's peril, and was in almost constant attendance upon her. Mabel appeared in fact to have lost all interest in life, and the natural desire for recovery which might have come to her aid was altogether wanting, as her mother saw with a pained surprise, and commented upon to the conscience-stricken Mark.
Day after day he sat in the little morning-room, which looked as if she had but left it for an instant, even while he knew that she might never enter it again; sat there listening and waiting for the words which would tell him that all hope was at an end.
The doctors came and went, and there were anxious inquiries and whispered answers at the cautiously-opened front-door, while from time to time he heard on the stairs, or in the room above, hurried footsteps, each of which trod heavy upon his aching heart.