'Oh, at several places. I met Mr. Carnaby at lunch,' she added quickly. 'He told me he was going somewhere—I forget—oh, to Weymouth, to see Mrs. Larkfield.'
Harvey was watching her, and paid little attention to the news.
'Do you know, it wouldn't much surprise me if you couldn't get up tomorrow morning, let alone play at a concert. Well, I won't keep you talking. Go to bed.'
'Yes.'
She rose, but instead of turning to the door, moved towards where Harvey was sitting.
'Don't be angry with me,' she murmured in a shamefaced way. 'It wasn't very wise—I've over-excited myself but I shall be all right tomorrow; and afterwards I'll behave more sensibly—I promise——'
He nodded; but Alma bent over him, and touched his forehead with her lips.
'You're in a fever, I suppose you know?'
'I shall be all right tomorrow. Goodnight, dear.'
In town, this morning, she had called at a chemist's, and purchased a little bottle of something in repute for fashionable disorder of the nerves. Before lying down she took the prescribed dose, though with small hope that it would help her to a blessed unconsciousness. Another thing she did which had not occurred to her for many a night: she knelt by the bedside, and half thought, half whispered through tearless sobs, a petition not learnt from any book, a strange half-heathen blending of prayer for moral strength, and entreaty for success in a worldly desire. Her mind shook perilously in its balance. It was well for Alma that the fashionable prescription did not fail her. In the moment of despair, when she had turned and turned again upon her pillow, haunted by a vision in the darkness, tortured by the never-ending echo of a dreadful voice, there fell upon her a sudden quiet; her brain was soothed by a lulling air from dreamland; her limbs relaxed, and forgot their aching weariness; she sighed and slept.