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CHAPTER XXVIII

AT lunch that day there came a telegram from Mr. Hume. Its contents were as follows:--

"Left tickets for the Hydra on my study stable by mistake. Please send them into town to my office by special messenger."

Mary had already gone to London, and Ethel had accompanied her. Mrs. Hume and Kate were the only people seated at the luncheon table.

"I will go to the study and look for them," said Kate. She left the room, returning in a few minutes.

"I cannot find them," she said; "where did he say he had left them?"

"On his study-table; I had better go, my dear."

Mrs. Hume went, and Kate played with her food. Presently the good lady of the house came back.

"It is most strange," she remarked; "where can they be? They are certainly not on his study-table."

"Oh, he must have taken them after all," said Kate; "did you search anywhere else in the room?"

"Yes, I looked in all the likely places. What is to be done? This is Tuesday; the Hydra sails on Thursday morning; the only chance of selling the tickets is to-day. I will go and have another search."

"I will go with you," said Kate. "Two pairs of eyes are better than one."

The two women went back to the study and both searched and searched. Kate pretended to be intensely anxious.

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"It would he provoking if we lost all that money," she said; "not that money counts for much now."

"You seem in better spirits, Kate," said her aunt suddenly.

"I think it is Nurse Bryan," answered the girl; "she is so strong and capable. I began by hating her, but she made the room so nice; she has put it into quite apple-pie order. You never saw anything like the look the bed has now, and Ralph is not nearly so restless. I expect his temperature will go down presently, and, oh, I cannot help being more hopeful. Everything seemed in such a muddle before the nurses came."

"These trained nurses are invaluable," said Mrs. Hume; "in times of serious illness what should we do without them? Now, my dear, what about the tickets?"

"We cannot find them," said Kate. "Probably Uncle Robert slipped them into his waistcoat-pocket and has either dropped them or will find that he has them after all."

"Well, I will wire to him at once," said Mrs. Hume. She sat down and filled in a telegraph form. Kate stood near whilst her aunt wrote the necessary words.

"Tickets not in your study. Kate and I have searched everywhere."

This little missive was soon speeding on its way, and Kate went slowly upstairs.

"They cannot suspect me," she thought. "No one saw me go to the study; no one saw me leave it. No one could think that I should wish to have the tickets kept, and they may be a way out, yes, they may be a way out if need requires it."

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When Kate got upstairs she was met by Nurse Bryan on the threshold of the sick-room.

"I should like the doctor to be sent for," said the nurse; "the patient's temperature is going up. This is a serious case. Don't be frightened, madam, I have nursed cases as bad, but if a messenger could be sent for Dr. Thornton it would be a matter of satisfaction to me."

Kate, her heart beating wildly and for the moment losing complete sight of herself and her own danger, flew downstairs. She rushed into her aunt's presence.

"Oh, Aunt Susannah," she said, "he is worse, even nurse seems frightened. Oh, do please send for Dr. Thornton immediately. If you have no messenger I will run for him myself. Oh, do please, please be quick."

"George shall go at once, my dear. Ring the bell, Kate. Oh, my dear child, try to--"

"Try to exercise self-control, you mean. Oh, I am all right, but it is his life--don't keep me, Aunt Susannah."

She flew from the room, rushed upstairs, and notwithstanding a warning glance from the nurse ran up to the sick-bed. Her husband was sitting up, the nurse had her arms round him, he was struggling against her and was looking round him with wild eyes.

"Where's Kitty? come to me, Kitty, where are you? It isn't true, is it, Kitty?"

"Oh, my darling, what isn't true?" said Kate. Her voice trembled. Had Ralph secret suspicions of her, and was he going to let out his innermost thoughts in this awful delirium. But no, the sick man had no suspicions of his wife; she was his own, his darling, his white Kitty, the one woman without speck or flaw.

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"Is it true that you are consumptive?" he said; "it will kill me if you die. Stay with me, Kitty, stay with me--what, you won't! then I will make you."

He struggled to get out of bed. Now Kate assisted the nurse in forcing the sick man to lie down.

"It is I, Ralph, I," she said.

"You, who are you?" he answered. Her words arrested him, he looked up into her face. "You are not my Kate, you are a devil. Go away, I want Kitty, my own Kitty, not you."

"Oh, nurse, what am I to do?" said the poor wife.

"Nothing, dear, nothing; he does not know what he is saying. Ah, thank God, here comes the doctor."

The firm step of the medical man was heard as he crossed the floor.

"Come, come, what is this?" he said, "I say, Henley, you must lie quiet, my man. Now then, that is better." His sharp terse voice seemed to pierce through the delirium in which the poor patient was wandering.

"Come," said the doctor, "ah, that is right." He laid his hand with a certain force on the patient's forehead, took the wrist between his finger and thumb and felt the flying pulses.

"I will give him a sedative," he said to the nurse "go out of the room and bring in my bag. Mrs. Henley, perhaps you had better not remain here."

"You cannot send me away," said Kate. She was crouching down near the foot of the bed, her face looked wild with agony.

"Don't let him see you, then," said the doctor in a low tone.

She slipped a little behind where a curtain hid her, and yet where she could peep at her husband. Already | | 286 the wild paroxysm was leaving him, his eyes were closing, and that dreadful semi-slumber, which is worse than no slumber at all, took possession of him. The doctor, who had put a few drops of a certain medicine into a glass, now administered the draught to the patient.

"This will make him sleep," he said. "Nurse, I want to speak to you."

The nurse stepped round to the doctor's other side. Still holding his hand across the sick man's brow, the doctor asked her one or two questions. Kate strained her ears to listen. What were those two talking about; those two who were nearly driving her mad just now, who between them were holding her husband's life in their hands, who were thrusting her outside; she who had been his nearest, his dearest, his best beloved, pushed away now by the doctor and nurse? Oh, it was past enduring!

For the present she had forgotten all her own imminent and awful danger. She could think of nothing but Ralph. If he died. after all nothing mattered, she might go where she pleased, she might be arrested, locked up, charged with her crime, doomed to penal servitude, anything--anything might happen to her, and she would not care.

"Oh, it may be best for him to die," she thought for one swift moment of agony, "then he would always think of me as his white Kitty, white as snow."

"Mrs. Henley, can I speak to you for a moment?" said Dr. Thornton. The sick man was now sleeping, the nurse resumed her place at his side. Thornton and Kate went out on the landing.

"I cannot conceal from you," said the physician, "that your husband is not only ill, but he is in danger."

"But, oh, it is not hopeless?" said Kate.

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"In cases of this sort, fever cases, we always say, where there is life there is hope," said the doctor, in a reverent tone, "but I must acquaint you, Mrs. Henley, with the fact, that unless we can bring the fever down and very quickly, too, his strength will not stand it. I mean immediately to telegraph to town, to Dr. Bennett Shaw, the great fever specialist."

"Do so," said Kate; "how soon can he be here?"

"I shall ask him to come the first possible moment. I intend to remain in the house for a little, I need not be in the sick-room, and yet I want to be within call. Where would you like me to stay?"

"We have furnished a room here as a sitting-room; will you come in?" said Kate. She went before the doctor who followed her.

"Now, try and rest yourself. Be assured that all that can be done will be done," said the man of science, looking kindly at the agitated face of the young wife.

"Oh, don't think of me, I am nothing, worse than nothing, only," said Kate impulsively, "don't take him quite away from me."

"What do you mean?"

"I cannot explain, but you and that nurse--"

"Nurse Bryan She is one of the very best nurses on my staff, a most admirable, kindly, excellent woman."

"Oh I know, I know, but she nurses him, and you try to cure him, and I am pushed aside, and it drives me nearly wild."

"My poor girl," said the doctor, trying to conceal his own impatience at what he considered the weakness of Kate's words, "in a case of this kind one must forget one's self; the thing is to get your husband well. Now, for instance, what would you have done in a | | 288 paroxysm like what has just occurred? You would not have had strength enough to keep him in bed, he might have got to the window and jumped out. See for yourself how far better it is in cases of severe illness that the patient should be nursed by strangers."

"It is horribly cruel, all the same," said Kate. She left the room. On the landing Marryat met her. Marryat looked self-important and at the same time troubled.

"Mrs. Henley," she said, "can I speak to you?"

"I don't think you can, Marryat, I am too much upset. If you have anything special to say I will--"

"It is," said Marryat, "very special; there is a lady downstairs who wants to see you."

"A lady? Whom?"

"I don't know her name, but she says that you saw her a week ago in Mortimer Street. She wants to see you, and immediately."

"The false Dr. Agnes Stevenson," thought poor Kate. "She has come for her money, the thousand pounds I promised her before we left the country. Yes, yes, dreadful as things are I must see her at any cost."

"Where is she, Marryat?" asked Kate aloud.

"I have shown her into Mr. Hume's study; it seems the only place for her to be in."

"Oh, I must see her, and quite by herself," said Kate. "Go down and tell her so. Ask her to go outside; say I will meet her in the shrubbery; show her the shrubbery, Marryat; be quick, be clever, rouse yourself, don't allow any one to suspect; I will pay you anything. I must see her quickly, you understand, Marryat. I will meet her in the shrubbery."

"Yes, madam, I think I can manage," said Marryat in a grave voice. She slowly left the room. Kate put on her hat and jacket, and ran downstairs.