Savine sank into a chair. His twitching face was livid, and great beads of moisture gathered upon his forehead. Thurston pressed a button, then strode swiftly towards the door hoping that Helen, who passed outside with a laugh upon her lips, might be spared the sight of her father's suffering. But Mrs. Savine, gazing in through a long window, started as she exclaimed, "Helen, your father's very sick! Run along and bring me the elixir out of my valise."
Helen turned towards the window, and Geoffrey, who groaned inwardly, placed himself so that she could not see. There was a rustle of skirts, and swift, light footsteps approached.
"What is the matter? Why do you stand there? Let me pass at once!" cried Helen in a voice trembling with fear.
"Please wait a few moments," answered Geoffrey, standing between the suffering man and his daughter. "Your father will be better directly, and you must not excite him."
There was no mistaking the color in Helen's face now. If her eyes were anxious the crimson in her cheeks and on her forehead was that of anger. Geoffrey felt compassionate, but he was still determined to spare her.
"For your father's sake and your own, don't go to him just yet, Miss Savine," he pleaded, but, with little fingers whose grip felt steely, the girl wrenched away his detaining arm.
"Is there no limit to your interference or presumption?" she asked, sweeping past him to fall with a low cry beside the big chair upon which her father was reclining. The cry pierced to Thurston's heart.
Helen had seen little of either sickness or tragedy. Savine sat still as if he did not see her, his face contracted into a ghastly grin of pain. The attendant who came to them deftly aided Geoffrey to force a little cordial between the sufferer's teeth. Savine made no sign. Forgetting her indignation in her terror Helen glanced at Geoffrey in vague question, but he merely raised his hand with a restraining gesture.
"We had better get him onto a sofa, sir," whispered the attendant, presently. "Not very heavy. Perhaps you and I could manage." It was when he was being lifted that Savine first showed signs of intelligence. He glanced at Geoffrey and attempted to beckon towards the room they had left. When he seemed slightly better, Thurston said:
"I am going, sir. Stay here a few minutes, and then call somebody, waiter. I cannot stay any longer."