Mrs. Melrose merely moaned heavily in answer, and Norma said softly, to the doctor who had spoken:
"I think perhaps she was asking for my aunt—who is also Mrs. Sheridan!"
Before the doctor, gravely considering, could answer, the sick woman startled them all by saying, almost fretfully, in a surprisingly clear and quiet voice:
"No—no—no, I want you, Norma!"
She groped blindly about with her hand, as she spoke, and Norma kneeled down, and covered it with both her own. Mrs. Melrose immediately began to breathe more easily, and sank at once into the stupor from which she had only momentarily roused.
Norma looked for instruction to the doctor, who presently decided that there was nothing more to be gained for a time; she joined them presently, with Chris, in the adjoining room. This was the same old room of her first visit to the house, with the same rich old brocaded paper and fringed rep draperies, with the same pictures, and a few new ones, lined on the mantel.
"Where are Mrs. von Behrens and Leslie?" Doctor Murray, who had known all the family intimately for years, asked Chris.
"Is it so serious, Doctor?" Christopher asked in turn, when he had answered. The doctor, glancing toward the closed door, nodded gravely.
"A matter of a day or two," he said, looking at the other old doctor for confirmation. "She was apparently perfectly normal last night, went to bed at her usual hour," he said, "this morning she complained of her head, when the maid went in at ten, said that she must have hurt it—struck it against something. The maid, a sensible young woman, was uneasy, and telephoned for me. Unfortunately, I was in Westchester this morning, but I got here at about one o'clock and found her as she is now. She has had a stroke—probably several slight shocks."
"Why, but she was perfectly well day before yesterday!" Norma said, in amazement. "And only ten days ago she came back from Florida, and said that she never felt better!"