"Quite sure, ma'am. He also has had a message to come to the sick-room. I stopped and gave it to him myself on my way here."
Thus assured that he had not yet left the house, Dorothy breathed a great sigh of intense relief.
"I—I do not mind going to the sick-room with you now," she whispered, in a low, unsteady voice; and, all unconscious of what was to accrue from it, Dorothy followed her companion from the room and up to Jessie's chamber.
The silence of death was upon all things as she parted the silken portières and entered the room where the sick girl lay, white and gasping, upon the couch.
The two doctors made way for her, motioning her to advance to the couch.
"Oh! she is not dying—not dying?" gasped Dorothy, with a wild wail of terror. "You must not tell me that!"
"Are you so very much surprised?" asked Doctor Crandall, slowly and impressively.
"Oh, she must not die—-she must not die!" she cried. "Where is all your vaunted skill if you can not save her life?"
"Man can work against the skill of man," significantly replied Doctor Crandall, "but not against the will of Heaven."
"But is she dying?" wailed Dorothy, grasping the ice-cold hands.