"You're surprised I should address you, Mr. Heriot," she said. "I shouldn't have, but she wants me to beg you to speak to her, if it's only for five minutes. She implores you humbly to let her speak to you. She made me ask you; I couldn't say 'no.'"
His pulses throbbed madly, and momentarily he couldn't reply.
"What purpose would it serve?" he said in tones he struggled to make firm.
"She can't bear it, Mr. Heriot—Sir Heriot, I should say; I was forgetting, I'm sure I beg your pardon! She 'implores you humbly to let her speak to you'; I was to use those words. Won't you consent? She is ill, she's dying."
"Dying?" whispered Heriot by a physical effort.
She nodded slowly. "The doctor has told her. She won't be here long, poor girl. But whether she's to be pitied for it or not, it's hard to say; I don't think she'll be sorry to go.... My brother is gone, Sir Heriot."
His answer was inarticulate.
"We got there just at the end. If we had been too late, she——She has been ailing a long while, but we didn't know it was so serious. When she saw you, it was awful for her. I—— Oh, what am I to tell her? She's waiting now!"
"Where?" said Heriot, hoarsely.
"Will you come with me?"