The suggestion meeting with Anstice's approval they adjourned in search of food; and found Iris coming to look for them with tidings of a meal. When they had taken their seats at the improvised table, Iris quietly withdrew; and Anstice guessed she had returned to her place by the side of her husband—a place she had relinquished for an hour only during the whole of the strenuous day.
When, a little later, he went to see Cheniston again, he was dismayed to find an ominous change in his patient.
Bruce had indeed the air of a man at the point of death; and as he looked at the wasted features, the sunken eyes, the grey shadows which lay over the whole face, transforming it into a mere mask, Anstice told himself bitterly that all his care had been in vain; that before morning broke there would be one soul the less in their pitiful little company.
He bent over the bed and spoke gently; but Cheniston was too ill to pay any heed; and with a sigh Anstice stood upright and turned to Iris rather helplessly.
"Mrs. Cheniston"—he forced himself to speak truthfully—"I am afraid your husband is no better. In fact"—he hesitated, hardly knowing how to put his fears into words—"I think—perhaps—you must be prepared for the worst."
"You mean he will die?" She spoke steadily, though her eyes looked suddenly afraid. "Dr. Anstice, is there no hope? Can you do nothing more for him?"
"There is so little to be done," he said. "Believe me, I have tried every means in my power, but you know my resources here are so limited, and in those surroundings—if I had been here a week earlier, I might have done something; but as things are——"
"Oh, I know—I know you have done all you could!" She feared her words had sounded ungracious. "Only—Bruce is so young—he has never been ill before——"
"Ah, yes, but everything has been against him—the climate for one thing—and of course the forced removal was about the last thing he should have had to endure." Anstice longed to comfort her as she stood before him, looking oddly young and wistful in her distress, but honesty forbade him to utter words of hope, knowing as he did what might well take place during the coming night.
"You think he will die—to-night?" Her eyes, tearless as they were, demanded the truth; and after a secondary hesitation Anstice replied candidly: