“I’ll come at once,” he said and threw down the receiver.
“Mr. Gaunt, I must thank you most——”
“Get out of the way, man. My wife’s ill,” Gaunt cried roughly, and seizing his hat, hastened from the room.
CHAPTER III
“Can nothing be done?” Gaunt asked in a voice that was hoarse from the supreme effort made to control it.
“We have done everything possible. The issue is out of our hands,” Sir Felix Hellier answered, with the ever ready sympathy which had helped him to attain so eminent a position in his profession.
“Will she die?”
Now there was only a great despair in Gaunt’s voice. The physician looked keenly at the famous millionaire; noted the lines of suffering on his strong face, and wondered. To the world, John Gaunt was a hard man, one whose only object in life was the attainment of wealth—one who would sacrifice ruthlessly to gain that end.
Twelve months ago he had surprised every one by marrying the beauty of the season—Lady Mildred Blythe—and the general comment was that the bridegroom was moved by social ambition; while the bride wished to exchange a life of aristocratic poverty for one of unlimited wealth.
And now the wife lay on a bed of sickness, fighting for her life; while the son which she had given to her husband slumbered peacefully in an adjoining room.