"'I know she'd like to see me, darling, if only just to nod to, and I promise I will go away quickly. Indeed, indeed I would not tire her! I want to tell her the train was late and the doctor would not let me come up yesterday. Only one second, PLEASE, Charty! …'
"'But, my darling heart, she's unconscious. She has never been conscious all day. She would not know you!'
"I sank stunned upon the stair. Some one touched my shoulder:
"'You had better go to bed, it is past one. No, you can't sleep here: there's no bed. You must lie down; a sofa won't do, you are too ill. Very well, then, you are not ill, but you will be to- morrow if you don't go to bed.'
"I found myself in the street, Arthur Balfour holding one of my
arms and Spencer Lyttelton the other. They took me to 40 Grosvenor
Square. I went to bed and early next morning I went across to
Upper Brook Street. The servant looked happy:
"'She's better, miss, and she's conscious.'
"I flew upstairs, and Charty met me in her dressing-gown. She was calm and capable as always, but a new look, less questioning and more intense, had come into her face. She said:
"'You can go in now.'
"I felt a rushing of my soul and an over-eagerness that half- stopped me as I opened the door and stood at the foot of the wooden bed and gazed at what was left of Laura.
"Her face had shrunk to the size of a child's; her lashes lay a black wall on the whitest of cheeks; her hair was hanging dragged up from her square brow in heavy folds upon the pillow. Her mouth was tightly shut and a dark blood-stain marked her chin. After a long silence, she moved and muttered and opened her eyes. She fixed them on me, and my heart stopped. I stretched my hands out towards her, and said, 'Laura!'… But the sound died; she did not know me. I knew after that she could not live.