My dear Eliot,

It _is_ serious. Dr. Ransome and Dr. Harper say so. They think
now it's acute gastritis. I wish you'd come down. Jerrold is
heart-breaking. He won't see it; because he couldn't bear it if
he did. I know Auntie wants you.

Always very affectionately yours,

Anne.

She addressed the letter to Dr. Eliot Fielding, for Eliot had taken his
degree.

And on that to-morrow of Jerrold's Eliot had come. Jerrold told him he
was a perfect idiot, rushing down like that, as if Daddy hadn't an hour
to live.

"You'll simply terrify him," he said. "He hasn't got a chance with all
you people grousing and croaking round him."

And he went off to play in the lawn tennis tournament at Medlicote as a
protest against the general pessimism. His idea seemed to be that if he,
Jerrold, could play in a lawn tennis tournament, his father couldn't be
seriously ill.

"It's perfectly awful of Jerrold," his mother said. "I can't make him
out. He adores his father, yet he behaves as if he hadn't any feeling."

She and Anne were sitting in the lounge after luncheon, waiting for
Eliot to come from his father's room.

"Didn't you _tell_ him, Anne?"

"I did everything I know.... But darling, he isn't unfeeling. He does it
because he can't bear to think Uncle Robert won't get better. He's
trying to make himself believe he will. I think he does believe it. But
if he stayed away from the tournament that would mean he didn't."

"If only _I_ could. But I must. I _must_ believe it if I'm not to go
mad. I don't know what I shall do if he doesn't get better. I can't live
without him. It's been so perfect, Anne. It can't come to an end like
this. It can't happen. It would be too cruel."

"It would," Anne said. But she thought: "It just will happen. It's
happening now."

"Here's Eliot," she said.

Eliot came down the stairs. Adeline went to him.

"Oh Eliot, what do you think of him?"

Eliot put her off. "I can't tell you yet."

"You think he's very bad?"

"Very."

"But you don't think there isn't any hope?"

"I can't tell yet. There may be. He wants you to go to him. Don't talk
much to him. Don't let him talk. And don't, whatever you do, let him
move an inch."

Adeline went upstairs. Anne and Eliot were alone. "You _can_ tell," she
said. "You don't think there's any hope."

"I don't. There's something quite horribly wrong. His temperature's a
hundred and three."

"Is that bad?"

"Very."