"Yes, very ill," she answered, her eyes wandering away from my anxious ones looking down at her, as we stood for a moment together.
Then she gently pushed away my arm and continued her walk.
"You know my heart always does beat and hurt if I am very happy, or very excited, or any thing, but it's never been quite so bad as this before." And then, catching the distress upon my face, she added, "I daresay this is nothing. It will go off. I think it is only hysterical. Don't look so unhappy!" And a faint smile swept over her pallid face.
She made her way to the sideboard and drank some water standing there. Then she continued to move slowly round the room, both hands pressed beneath her left breast, and her delicate eyebrows contracted into one dark line across her colourless face.
"I overworked myself so tremendously just lately," she said, after a minute, "after—well, after I came to you in Paris. I shall take a long rest now. I hope I shall get strong again. When one is as delicate as this, life is not worth having."
And then, before I could answer, she stopped suddenly, and looked across the room at me with dilated eyes.
"Is there any brandy I could have?" she asked, abruptly.
My handbag stood in the corner of the room. There was a flask of brandy there. In two seconds I had got it out and was beside her with the traveling-glass half filled.
She took it with a fluttering, uncertain hand, and drank a little, but not even then did the colour come back to her lips—they were apart and grey. She set the glass down on the table with a wandering, undecided movement, and then turned towards me and linked two ice-cold hands round my neck,—
"Hold me up! I am sinking!" and her head fell heavily against my shoulder.