"Oh, Lisa, Lisa!"
In terror, Elizabeth caught her mother in her arms.
"Mother--is he worse?"
"No! At least Barnett declares to me there is no real change. But he has made up his mind, to-day, that he will never get better. He told me so this evening, just after you had gone; and Barnett could not satisfy him. He has sent for Mr. Robson." Robson was the family lawyer.
The two women looked at one another in a pale despair. They had reached the moment when, in dealing with a sick man, the fictions of love drop away, and the inexorable appears.
"And now he'll break his heart over Mr. Anderson's going!" murmured the mother, in an anguish. "I didn't want him to see Philip to-night--but Philip heard his ring--and sent down for him."
They sat looking at each other, hand in hand--waiting--and listening. Mrs. Gaddesden murmured a broken report of the few words of conversation which rose now, like a blank wall, between all the past, and this present; and Elizabeth listened, the diamonds in her hair and the folds of her satin dress glistening among the shadows of the half-lit room, the slow tears on her cheeks.
At last a step descended. Anderson entered the room.
"He wants you," he said, to Elizabeth, as the two women rose. "I am afraid you must go to him."
The electric light immediately above him showed his frowning, shaken look.