Mr. Loftus looked blankly at Lady Pierpoint.
'Sibyl!' he said—'ill? Oh, surely there is some mistake? What do the doctors say?'
'They all say the same thing,' said Lady Pierpoint, her lips quivering. 'She had a cough last winter, and she is naturally delicate, but there is no actual disease as yet. But if she continues in this morbid state of health—if she goes on as she is at present—they say it will end in that.'
Mr. Loftus was silent.
Lady Pierpoint looked at his unconscious, saddened, world-weary face, and clasped her hands tightly together.
'Mr. Loftus,' she said, 'I am going to put a great strain on our friendship, and if I lose it, I must lose it. I have been thinking of writing to you, but I could not. I had thought of asking you to come and see me while I was alone here, but my courage failed me. But now that you have come by what is called chance, I dare not be a coward any longer. Sibyl has told me of what passed last summer between you and her.'
A faint colour came into Mr. Loftus's pale face. He kept his eyes on the floor.
'I think,' he said gently, but with a touch of reserve in his voice which did not escape his companion, 'we must both forget that as completely as she herself has probably already forgotten it.'
'She has not forgotten it,' said Lady Pierpoint, ignoring, though with a pang, his evident wish to dismiss the subject. 'It is that which is causing her ill-health. She can think of nothing else. Some of us,' she said sadly, 'are so constituted that we can bear trouble and disappointment—others can't. This poor child, who has cried for the moon, is not mentally and physically strong enough to bear the disappointment of being denied it. And the doctors say that her life is dependent on her happiness.'