"I must have fainted," he whispered. "Is the man dead? I fainted twice before when I saw blood. Once at the gymnasium. Is he dead?"
"Swallow the stuff," said Leigh. "It will put you right." He looked around. The crowd bearing in its core the form of the Negro, was moving through the archway at the bottom of Welbeck Place into the Mews. "I don't know whether he is really dead or not. It looks like it. Do you feel better?"
"Thank you, I feel quite well again. Would you mind fetching a cab. Dora, I am very sorry for my miserable weakness. I could not help it. I am everlastingly disgraced. Would you be kind enough to fetch a cab?"
The request was addressed to Leigh, who glanced with pity and worship at Dora, and said, without looking away:
"Yes; I'll go for a cab. You are not able to walk yet. Stay here till I come back. Will you have more?" He turned and held out the neckless bottle to Hanbury.
"No, thank you."
Leigh threw the bottle and glass into the road and hastened off on his errand. He had no thought of serving Hanbury. If the young man had been alone Leigh would have left him where he stood until the convalescent was strong enough to shift for himself. But he was under a double spell, the spell of the extraordinary likeness between this girl, Miss Ashton, and that other girl, Miss Grace, and the spell of Miss Ashton's beauty. As a rule his thought was clear, and sharp, and particular; now it was misty, dim, glorious, vague. Edith Grace had, at first sight, wrought a charm upon him such as he had never known' before; Dora Ashton renewed and heightened the charm and carried it to an intolerable yearning and rapture. He was beside himself.
"Dora," said Hanbury, after a little while and much thought, "Will you promise me one thing?" He looked around. They were quite alone. The crowd had followed the bearers of the Negro into the mews, through which there was a short cut to an hospital.
"Yes, if I can do what you ask, Jack."
"Say nothing to a soul about my fainting. You will not tell your father or mother, or my mother? I was able to keep the other occasions quiet. If this got about I should have to clear out of London. I'd be the laughing stock of the clubs. That man need not know more than he has seen."