Tenderly he placed his cool hand upon her brow.
"But surely she will live!" he cried in blank despair.
"The doctor has grave doubts," her sister replied. "She had such deep and constant anxiety regarding your absence, Mr. Durrant, that her constitution has become undermined. And now she has caught this terrible chill which has developed into acute pneumonia."
"But people get over pneumonia!" he exclaimed. "Surely Marigold will recover."
"The doctor told me this morning that the malady is of the most virulent type. There are few recoveries."
"Few recoveries!" he echoed, while at the same time the poor girl was murmuring something incoherent regarding "Gerald."
"Yes. He said that if she got well again it could be only by a miracle. The serum might do its work, but—well, Mr. Durrant, I must tell you what he really said—he told me that he regarded the case as hopeless. The crisis will be the day after to-morrow."
"The day after to-morrow," he said. "And she will not recognise me till then!"
All that the poor fellow had been through—the tortures and horrors of that bondage in which everyone believed him to be mentally irresponsible—were as nothing. He loved Marigold Ramsay with the whole strength of his gallant manhood. His soul was hers. They were soul-mates, and yet she was slowly slipping away from him just at the moment of his return and his intended triumph.
Her sister led him downstairs. In the modest, well-kept little dining-room below they had a further conversation.