His hair was quite grey, his face was old and lined. His body was beginning to be ravaged by the devilish drugs with which it had been inoculated.
But he lay upon a couch in the study, and Marjorie bent over him kissing him, calling to him and cooing inarticulate words of belief and of love.
Lady Poole was there also, motionless and silent, while Lord Malvin and the doctor, who had been hastily summoned from Baker Street, watched by the head of the couch.
The doctor looked at Lord Malvin and nodded his head.
"He will be all right," he whispered. "Those devils have not killed him yet. He will live and be as strong as ever."
The tears were rolling down Lord Malvin's face and he could not speak, but he nodded back to the doctor.
And then they saw the face of Guy Rathbone, who lay there so broken and destroyed, begin to change. The gashes, which supreme and long-continued agony had cut into it, had not indeed passed away. The ashen visage remained ashen still, but a new light came flickering into the tired eyes, and in an indescribable way youth was returning.
Youth was returning, youth!
It came back, summoned out of the past by a supreme magic—the supreme magic of love.
The girl who loved him was kissing him, he was with her at last, and all was well.