to keep the truth from you, Kitty, and let you buoy yourself up with
false hopes."

"He is worse," Katherine said.

"Yes, he is worse. He is a good deal weaker. I'm afraid the state of
affairs has become very grave. Evidently they are apprehensive as to
what turn the fever may take in the course of the next twelve hours."

Katherine bowed herself together as though smitten by sharp pain. Then
she looked at him hurriedly, fresh alarms assaulting her.

"You are not trying to soften the blow to me? You are not keeping
anything back?"

"No, no, no, my dear Kitty. There--see--read it for yourself. I
telegraphed twice, so as to have the latest news. Here's the last
reply."

Ormiston unfolded the blue paper, crossed by white strips of printed
matter, and laid it upon her lap. And as he did so it struck him,
aggravating his sense of sinister repetition, that she had on the same
rings and bracelets as on that former occasion, and that she wore
stone-gray silk too--a long traveling sacque, lined and bordered with
soft fur. It rustled as she moved. A coif of black lace covered her
upturned hair, framed her sweet face, and was tied soberly under her
chin. And, looking upon her, Ormiston yearned in spirit over this
beautiful woman who had borne such grievous sorrows, and who, as he
feared, had sorrow yet more grievous still to bear.--"For ten to one
the boy won't pull through--he won't pull through," he said to himself.
"Poor, dear fellow, he's nothing left to fall back upon. He's lived too
hard." And then he took himself remorsefully to task, asking himself
whether, among the pleasures and ambitions and successes of his own
career, he had been quite faithful to the dead, and quite watchful
enough over the now dying, Richard Calmady? He reproached himself, for,
when Death stands at the gate, conscience grows very sensitive
regarding any lapses, real or imagined, of duty towards those for whom
that dread ambassador waits.

Twice Katherine read the telegram, weighing each word of it. Then she
gave the blue paper back to her brother.

"I will ask you all to let me be alone for a little while, dear Roger,"
she said. "Tell Honoria, tell Ludovic, tell my good Clara. I must turn
my face to the wall for a time, so that, when I turn it upon you dear
people again, it may not be too unlovely."

And Ormiston bent his head and kissed her hand, and went out, closing
the door behind him--while the train roared southward, through the
a