For some moments there was only silence, and then she looked at him with troubled, perplexed eyes, and said:
“I don’t quite know what to make of it.”
“Doesn’t it mean that she has passed some crisis and will live?” he suggested. “I think it must.”
Hal still looked doubtful; and at that moment there was another knock at the door.
Again Alymer opened it himself. “Lord Denton particularly wishes to see you,” he was told.
“Show him in at once,” he replied, and turned to tell Hal who was coming.
Flip Denton had come to inquire for more detailed news of Lorraine than he could get from her letters. He gathered from them that she was remaining away for the whole winter theatrical season, because her health was bad; but any suggestion on his part to run over to Brittany and see her was persistently negatived. Finally he had come to Alymer.
The moment he saw them he knew that something serious was wrong, and that it concerned Lorraine. But when, after learning she was very ill, he asked Hal what was the matter, and saw the scarlet blood flame into her face, he said no more.
“I was with her yesterday,” she told him, “and the doctor said he feared she would not live many days. She wanted Alymer, and I came over to fetch him.”
“And you are going at once?” Denton asked him, with a curious expression in his eyes.