off the reckoning, he
had come down to calculating by days, by hours, by half hours, to
measuring minutes as if they had been drops of some precious liquid
slowly evaporating. And now he had let a whole week go by without
comment, while he lay in bed in his room at the Marine Hotel, doing
nothing, not even sleeping. For seven days Mr. Rickman had been ill.
The broad term nervous fever was considered to have sufficiently
covered all his symptoms.

They were not improved by the discovery that Jewdwine had failed to
give any sign; while the only reply sent by Rickman's was a brief note
from his father to the effect that Keith's letter should have his very
best consideration, and that by the time he saw him he would no doubt
be in a better position to answer it. There was a postcard written on
the twenty-first, inquiring the cause of his non-appearance on the
twentieth. This had been answered by the doctor. It had been followed
by a letter of purely parental solicitude, in which all mention of
business was avoided. Avoided; and it was now the twenty-seventh.

Rickman literally flung from his sick-bed a feverish and illegible
note to Horace Jewdwine. "For God's sake, wire me what you mean to
do," an effort which sent his temperature up considerably. He passed
these days of convalescence in an anxious watching for the post. To
the chambermaid, to the head waiter, to the landlord and landlady of
the Marine Hotel, to the friendly commercial gentleman, who put his
head twice a day round the door to inquire "'ow he was gettin' on,"
Mr. Rickman had during his seven days' illness put the same unvarying
question. These persons had adopted a policy of silence, shaking their
heads or twisting their mouths into the suggestion of a "No," by way
of escape from the poignancy of the situation. But on the afternoon of
the twenty-ninth, Mr. Rickman being for the first time up and dressed,
Tom, the waiter, replied to the accustomed query with a cheerful "No
sir, no letters; but a lady was inquiring for you this morning, sir."
In Tom's mind a lady and a letter amounted to very much the same
thing.

"Do you know who it was?"

"Yes sir, Miss Palliser."

"Miss Parry? I don't know any Miss Parry," said Rickman wearily.

"I didn't say Miss Parry, sir I said Miss Palliser, sir. Wanted to
know 'ow you was; I said you was a trifle better, sir."

"I? I'm all right. I think I shall go out and take a walk." The
violent excitement of his veins an