"A physical impossibility," growled the Chief Inspector, to whom the sight of a woman's suffering was peculiarly distressing.
"Her heart has dilated beyond belief. It is twice the normal size. This is the end, Winter! She is dying!"
The flow of blood stopped abruptly. She opened her eyes, those magnificent eyes which were no longer golden brown but a pathetic yellow.
"Oh, forgive!" she muttered. "I—I—loved you, Rupert—with all my soul!"
She seemed to sink a little, to shrink, to pass from a struggle to peace. The lines of despair fled from her face. She lay there in white beauty, a lily whiteness but little marred by traces of the make-up hurriedly wiped off her cheeks and forehead.
"May the Lord be merciful to her!" said Furneaux, and without another word, he hurried from the room and out of the house.
Winter, having secured some degree of order in a distracted household, raced off to Marlborough Street; but Furneaux had been there before him, and Osborne, knowing nothing of Hylda Prout's death, had flown to Porchester Gardens and Rosalind.
The hour was not so late that the thousand eyes of Scotland Yard could not search every nook in which Furneaux might have taken refuge, but in vain. Winter, grieving for his friend, fearing the worst, remained all night in his office, receiving reports of failure by telephone and messenger. At last, when the sun rose, he went wearily to his home, and was lying, fully dressed, on his bed, in the state of half-sleep, half-exhaustion, which is nature's way of healing the bruised spirit, when he seemed to hear Furneaux's voice sobbing:
"My Mirabel, why did you leave me, you whom I loved!"
Instantly he sprang up in a frenzy of action, and ran out into the street. At that early hour, soon after six o'clock, there was no vehicle to be found except a battered cab which had prowled London during the night, but he woke the heavy-witted driver with a promise of double fare, and the horse ambled over the slow miles to the yews and laurels of Kensal Green Cemetery.