"That's near enough," replied Jan. "She would go; and she did; and she danced; and she finished it up by breaking a blood-vessel. And now she is dying."
"What was Lionel about, to let her go?"
"Lionel knew nothing of it. She slipped off while he was out. Nobody was in the house but Lucy Tempest and one or two of the servants. She dressed herself on the quiet, sent for a fly, and went."
"And danced!"
"And danced," assented Jan. "Her back and shoulders looked like a bag of bones. You might nearly have heard them rattle."
"I always said there were moments when Sibylla's mind was not right," composedly observed John Massingbird. "Is there any hope?"
"None. There has not been hope, in point of fact, for a long while," continued Jan, "as anybody might have seen, except Sibylla. She has been obstinately blind to it. Although her father warned her, when he was here, that she could not live."
John Massingbird smoked for some moments in silence. "She was always sickly," he presently said; "sickly in constitution; sickly in temper."
Jan nodded. But what he might further have said was stopped by the entrance of Lionel. He came in at the gate, looking jaded and tired. His mind was ill at ease, and he had not been to bed.
"I have been searching for you, Jan. Dr. West ought to be telegraphed to. Can you tell where he is?"