"Charlotte here!" exclaimed Valentine. "You are dreaming, girl!"
"And you told me she was dying!" said Mrs. Woolper, with a look of triumph. "What becomes of your fine story now?"
"It is Miss Halliday!" cried the housemaid, as she opened the door. "And O my!" she added, looking back into the hall with a sorrowful face, "how bad she do look!"
Valentine ran out to the gate. Yes; there were two cabs, one laden with luggage, the two cabmen busy about the doors of the vehicles, a little group of stragglers waiting to see the invalid young lady alight. It was the next best thing to a funeral.
"O, don't she look white!" cried a shrill girl with a baby in her arms.
"In a decline, I dessay, pore young thing," said a matron, in an audible aside to her companion.
Valentine dashed amongst the group of stragglers. He pushed away the girl with the baby, the housemaid who had run out behind him, Mr. Sheldon, the cabman, every one; and in the next moment Charlotte was in his arms, and he was carrying her into the house.
He felt as if he had been in a dream; and all that exceptional force which the dreamer sometimes feels he felt in this crisis. He carried his dear burden into the study, followed by Mr. Sheldon and Diana Paget. The face that dropped upon his shoulder showed deadly white against his dark-blue coat; the hand which he clasped in his, ah, how listless and feeble!
"Valentine!" the girl said, in a low drowsy voice, lifting her eyes to his face, "is this you? I have been so ill, so tired; and they would bring me away. To be near the doctors, papa says. Do you think any doctors will be able to cure me?"
"Yes, dear, with God's help. I am glad he has brought you here. And now I must run away," he said; when he had placed Charlotte in Mr. Sheldon's arm-chair, "for a very little while, darling. I have seen a doctor, a man in whom I have more confidence than I have in Dr. Doddleson. I am going to fetch him, my dearest," he added tenderly, as he felt the feeble hand cling to his; "I shall not be long. Do you think I shall not hurry back to you? My dearest one, when I return, it will be to stay with you—for ever."