The doctor soon came, and after careful examination pronounced it to be shock.
“A nervous shock,” he said cheerfully. “She’ll get all right presently, won’t you?” And he patted his patient’s pretty old hand soothingly. “You’ll get all right presently?”
Miss Letty looked upon them all with her sweetly patient air and smiled.
“Oh yes! I shall soon be quite well. You must not worry about me.”
“But what’s the matter, Letty?” asked the Major tenderly, bending over her chair. “What is troubling you?”
“Nothing, Dick! It was only a little faintness. I am almost well now—almost well!—only weak—very weak——”
She closed her eyes and lay back again in her chair, while Violet still bathed her forehead and chafed her hands. She was reviving gradually, and after a few minutes the doctor took his leave. Out in the hall, however, he beckoned mysteriously to Major Desmond.
“She may last a couple of years or so longer,” he said, “but she will require the greatest care,—it is the beginning of the end.”
And with a hurried bow after these ominous words, he got into his brougham and was driven away. Major Desmond stood where the doctor had left him, stupefied.
“The beginning of the end!” Letty! He shuddered. Letty had got her deathblow! She was going away to be an angel with Harry Raikes, and sit on a golden throne——