The countess entered the dying man's room with hushed footsteps, and, going up to the side of the bed, she gazed down with steel-cold eyes at the white face upturned to meet her own. Suffering had already done much to refine and ennoble a face which at one time had lacked little on the score of manly beauty. The hard, worldly lines had been smoothed out, and with them had vanished a certain sensuous fulness of outline which of late years had developed itself more and more. But when the earl's eyes met those of the countess they lighted up with somewhat of their old gay, malicious twinkle.
"I am grieved to find you in this condition," said her ladyship.
"And I am grieved to be so found. Mais c'est la fortune de la guerre, and it were useless to repine. I regret that I am not in a condition to entertain your ladyship more becomingly."
"You do not suffer much pain, I hope?"
"None whatever now, and that's the deuce of it. While there was pain there was hope now there is neither, and here I am, left in the lurch."
"While there's life one should never give up hoping."
The earl made a slight grimace.
"I know, and your ladyship, after your interview with Dr. Ward, doubtless knows, that there is but one thing now to look forward to. But I shall not be so ill-mannered as to be long a-dying."
There was silence for a little while. The countess seated herself on a chair by the bedside. Presently the dying man said, in a musing sort of tone, "Perhaps I may fall across Cousin Charley when I get out yonder. Who knows? If we should meet, I wonder whether he will recognize me, and whether he will be sorry that he did not lend me that three thousand pounds which would have made my life such a different one. In any case I won't forget to give your ladyship's love to him."
The countess moved uneasily on her chair.