In the waiting-room, a moment later, Brune was gathering up his coat and hat.
The two ladies eyed him curiously as he took them and passed out.
“He does look a little pale, after all,” whispered one of them. A moment later he was in the street.
From the window of his consulting-room, Gerard Fane watched the tall figure striding down the pavement.
“I am sorry that man is going to die,” he said to himself.
And then he turned gravely to greet a new patient.
II
Gerard Fane's victoria drew up at the iron gate of No. 5 Ilbury Road, Kensington, at a quarter past four the following afternoon. A narrow strip of garden divided the sculptor's big red house from the road. Ornamental ironwork on a brick foundation closed it in. The great studio, with its huge windows and its fluted pillars, was built out at one end. The failing sunlight glittered on its glass, and the dingy sparrows perched upon the roof to catch the parting radiance as the twilight fell. The doctor glanced round him and thought, “How hard this man must have worked! In London this is a little palace.”
“Will you come into the studio, sir, please?” said the footman in answer to his summons. “Mr Brune is there at present.”