"I hope not. Oh, my darling, I pray that you may live."
"I think I am going to die. Will it be very soon? Would there be time to send—"
"We will send for anything or any one you want. Do you feel worse, dear? Time to send for whom?"
"For Percival."
"Harry Hardwicke has sent for him already. Perhaps he has the message by now: it is an hour and a half since the messenger went."
"When will he come?"
"To-morrow, darling."
There was a pause. Then the faint voice came again: "What time?"
Mrs. Middleton went to the door and called softly to Hardwicke. He had been looking in Bradshaw, and she returned directly: "Percival will come by the express to-night. He will be at Fordborough by the quarter-past nine train, and Harry will meet him and bring him over at once—by ten o'clock, he says, or a few minutes later."
Sissy's brows contracted for a moment: she was calculating the time. "What is it now?" she said.