"Fainted again, has she?" said the good woman, grimly. "I knew she would. She's overdone, is Miss Wyn, and this here nonsense of Master Osmond's has been the finishing touch. Don't talk to me! He's no right to go off like that, nor to carry on like a madman because he's disappointed. But men are poor things, and he don't know nor care what he makes his sisters suffer. Here I comes down this morning to see Miss Wyn fainted dead off in the middle of all that rummage on the studio floor; and I can tell you, sir, it give me a turn, for I thought, from the state of the room, as somebody had been a-murdering of her. Dear, dear, she is dead off. I suppose you couldn't carry her upstairs, sir, could you?"
"Half-a-dozen of her weight," said Henry, laconically.
"My pretty dear, my lamb," said Sal, pushing up the heavy hair. "She do look ill, don't she, sir?"
"Very," said Henry, speaking as well as he could for the lump in his throat. "I am horrified at her. Let me take her upstairs. You had better put her straight to bed."
He lifted the unconscious girl in his strong, tender arms, and carried her up, directed by Sally, into the little room which was her own. Reluctantly he laid her down on the bed, looking with pitiful love upon the whiteness of the thin sweet face. How much would he have given to kiss the pure line of the pathetic mouth! How far away out of his reach she seemed, this pale, hard-working girl whom other men passed unnoticed by. One cold hand he lifted to his lips, and held it there lingeringly a moment.
"Now," said he to Sally, "I will go and fetch the doctor, if you will direct me. She must have every care, and at once."
From leaving a message with the doctor, he went straight to his hotel.
The sudden rush of events had somewhat confused him, and he could not tell what was best to be done. It seemed no use to go hunting for Osmond, when his sisters did not possess the slightest clue to his whereabouts. Yet he had an uneasy conviction that it might go badly with Wynifred if it could not be proved that her brother was alive and safe, and he would cut off his right hand to serve her.
Oh reaching his sitting-room, the fragrance of a cigar assailed his senses, and, not much to his surprise, he discovered Claud, ensconced in a deep arm-chair near the fire.
"Just thinking of going to the police-station after you," said the young gentleman, composedly. "Thought you were lost in London."