"My son—how is he?"
"He is still very ill," replied the general's wife, whom her daughter had not even thought of embracing. "Come. He is in his old room."
Mme. Meyrin heard no more. She ran across the great vestibule and up the staircase leading to the first floor of the right wing of the building, and thence, not noticing the servants, who looked at her in astonishment and bowed respectfully as she passed, she hurried to the room which she herself had had arranged in the olden time for the heir to the name of Olsdorf.
As she entered the room Dr. Psaroff, leaning over the child, was watching with anxious looks the convulsions he was struggling in.
"My son," murmured Lise, falling on her knees beside the bed, "my son!"
The doctor made a sign to her not to trouble him and to be calm. The crisis was serious; it was needful that he should study its every phase.
The sick child, with convulsed limbs and eyelids of a bluish black, tried to lift his hands to his head, where he felt intolerable pains. His low groans were mingled with incoherent words.
Vera, whom Mme. Meyrin did not see, was standing behind the physician. In the fatigued face of Soublaieff's daughter could be read the effects of sleepless nights and grief. For three days she had not had an hour's sleep, for Dr. Psaroff's arrival had added to her fears. The young prince was suffering from an attack of meningitis which might become tuberculous, and consequently contagious and mortal.
Vera had thereupon telegraphed to the prince at Singapore, where she thought he was likely to be. Then, as it was impossible that Pierre Olsdorf should arrive in time to embrace his son if he was to succumb, she had not hesitated to send to Mme. Meyrin the telegram which had brought her thither. She did not think she had the right to deprive a child of the last caresses of its mother.
Within the last twenty-four hours, however, the skillful physician was somewhat more hopeful. The abundant bleedings he had practiced, notwithstanding the tender years of the patient, seemed to have given some relief. Still, the doctor refused to pronounce a final opinion. All fear of new complications was not over.