"Why? What did Jadby do?"
"He murdered Dolly Rover."
"Ned, do you mean to say——"
"I mean to say nothing just now. Try and go to sleep. Here, drink this first; you are still weak. Hang it, Dorry, you have been unconscious for twenty-four hours, and heaps has happened."
"One last question, and then I'll sleep," said Prelice, who felt that he was weak from loss of blood. "Madame Marie?"
"Dead. She killed herself, after confessing."
"Confessing what?"
"Many things. Go to sleep, Dorry, I tell you."
Prelice did not answer, but closed his eyes with a groan, feeling very stiff and sore and wonderfully weary. But sleep, the great healer, soothed his too restless brain, and mended his broken body, so that he woke again, after hours of slumber, feeling hungry and refreshed, and eager to learn all that had taken place. It was candle-light when he closed his eyes, but the sun was shining into the room when he opened them again. And beside his bed, Ned had been replaced by Mona. She was hanging over him like a mother over her first-born, and uttered a coo of satisfaction when he looked at her and smiled.
"Mona—darling," said the sick man, thrusting out one weak hand.