"Is he worse?" asked Roland, when he had stared a little.
"No," she answered, scarcely making a pretence to conceal her grief. "I fear there will not be very much 'worse' in it at all, Roland: a little more weakness perhaps, and that will be all. I am afraid the end is very near. I fancy he thinks so."
Roland grew hot and cold; a dart took him under his waistcoat.
"Let's understand, Mrs. Channing. Don't play with a fellow. Do you mean that Hamish is--going--to die?"
"Yes, I am sure there is no more hope."
"My goodness!"--and Roland rubbed his hot and woe-stricken face. "Why he was better yesterday. He was laughing and talking like anything."
"Not really better. It is as I say, Roland."
"If ever I saw such a miserable world as this!" exclaimed Roland: who, though indulging at times some private despondency upon the case, had perhaps not realized its utter hopelessness until now, when the words put it unmistakably before him. "I never thought--at least, much--but what he'd get well again: the fine, good, handsome man. I'd like to know why he couldn't, and what has killed him."
"The reviews have done it," said Ellen, in a low tone.
Roland groaned. A suspicion, that they must have had something to do with the decay, had been upon himself. Hamish had never been quite the same after they appeared: his spirit had seemed to fade away in a subdued sadness, and subsequently his health followed it.