I heard no more. Hephzy was on her way up the stairs and I followed. The door of the first floor back was closed. I rapped upon it.
“Come in,” said the voice I remembered, but now it sounded weaker than before.
Hephzy looked at me. I nodded.
“You go first,” I whispered. “You can call me when you are ready.”
Hephzy opened the door and entered the room. I closed the door behind her.
Silence for what seemed a long, long time. Then the door opened again and Hephzy appeared. Her cheeks were wet with tears. She put her arms about my neck.
“Oh, Hosy,” she whispered, “she's real sick. And—and—Oh, Hosy, how COULD you see her and not see! She's the very image of Ardelia. The very image! Come.”
I followed her into the room. It was no brighter now, in the middle of a—for London—bright forenoon, than it had been on my previous visit. Just as dingy and forbidding and forlorn as ever. But now there was no defiant figure erect to meet me. The figure was lying upon the bed, and the pale cheeks of yesterday were flushed with fever. Miss Morley had looked far from well when I first saw her; now she looked very ill indeed.
She acknowledged my good-morning with a distant bow. Her illness had not quenched her spirit, that was plain. She attempted to rise, but Hephzy gently pushed her back upon the pillow.
“You stay right there,” she urged. “Stay right there. We can talk just as well, and Mr. Knowles won't mind; will you, Hosy.”