"Not ill?"
"No; worse!"
"Oh, Martha! Not dead?"
"O God, I wish she were!"
An hour passed—an hour of agony, of humiliation and despair.
Again the door opened and Jane stepped out—slowly, as if in pain, her lips tight drawn, her face ghastly white, the thin cheeks sunken into deeper hollows, the eyes burning. Only the mouth preserved its lines, but firmer, more rigid, more severe, as if tightened by the strength of some great resolve. In her hand she held a letter.
Martha lay on the bed, her face to the wall, her head still in her palms. She had ceased sobbing and was quite still, as if exhausted.
Jane leaned over the banisters, called to one of the servants, and dropping the letter to the floor below, said:
"Take that to Captain Holt's. When he comes bring him upstairs here into my sitting-room."
Before the servant could reply there came a knock at the front door. Jane knew its sound—it was Doctor John's. Leaning far over, grasping the top rail of the banisters to steady herself, she said to the servant in a low, restrained voice: