They could not see the doctor's face, but his voice was very grave when he replied, "I'm sorry to say yes. Our friend down south is in a very bad way."
"Mr. Brierly?" exclaimed Mrs. Jamieson. "Oh, doctor, tell us the worst." And then she murmured to Ruth, who sat near her, "Miss Grant's friend, you know, but of course you do. I have grown as much interested in his welfare, somehow, as if he were not really a stranger, whom I never saw but once."
The doctor had left his place, and crossed to the open window, through which the lamp-light shone upon the open letter.
"I think I can see to read it," he said, and bent over the sheet. "The writer says:
"I fear our friend will not see many more Florida suns; will not be here with us long. The change has been surprisingly rapid, and the heart is now seriously implicated. Do not be surprised if ill news comes at an early day."
He folded the letter. "Ill news should always be briefly told," he said.
When the ladies came in, that night, having parted from the two gentlemen who had escorted them as far as the piazza steps, they found Miss Glidden's maid hovering in the passage, near her mistress's door.
"Miss Glidden, ladies," she began in evident agitation, "I have been terribly frightened. Some one has been in your room, and, I fear, in that of this lady also. I sat, for an hour, on the back piazza with two of the housemaids, and when I came up, only a few steps from this room, some one slipped out from Mrs. Jamieson's door and round the corner toward the south hall. I did not think about it until I had gone into your room to make all ready for the night, and then I saw the closet door open, and the things upon your table pulled about as if some one had hurried much, and had left, when they found it was not a sleeping room. Then I thought of the next room, of the person coming out so still and so sly——"
Miss Glidden pushed past the maid, and opened her own door. "Look in your room, Mrs. Jamieson," she said, "and see if you have really been robbed before we alarm the house. Susan, go with her."