"Yes, I will stay till then, if I am really wanted," assented she.
"Ask my sister. Here she comes," said Max.
Doreen was on the stairs behind them.
"Is it really necessary—do you want me to stay while a nurse is sent for?" asked Carrie, diffidently.
Doreen looked up straight in her face.
"What more natural than that you should stay with him?" returned she, promptly; "since you are his sister."
Max and Carrie both started. The likeness between Dudley and Carrie, which Max had taken time to discover, had struck Doreen at once. Carrie would have denied the allegation, but Max caught her arm and stopped her.
"Quite true," said he quietly. "This is the way, Miss Horne, to your brother's room."
Doreen was quick enough to see that there was some little mystery about the relationship which she had divined, and she went rapidly past her brother without asking any questions.
It was about two hours after Dudley's arrival that Carrie, now installed in the sick-room, came to the door and asked for Max. Her face was rigid with a great terror. She seemed at first unable to utter the words which were on her tongue. At last she said, in a voice which sounded hard and unlike her own: