s?"

"A few telegrams will settle that. I shall take you to Geneva to-morrow.
We shall get doctors there."

A little smile played about her mouth--a smile which did not seem to
have any reference to his words or to her next question.

"Nobody thinks of the book now, do they, William?"

"No, Kitty, no! It's all forgotten, dear."

"Oh, it was abominable!" She drew a long breath. "But I can't help it--I
did get a horrid pleasure out of writing it--till Venice--till you left
off loving me. Oh, William! William!--what a good thing it is I'm
dying!"

"Hush, Kitty--hush."

"It gives one such an unfair advantage, though, doesn't it? You can't
ever be angry with me again. There won't be time. William, dear!--I
haven't had a brain like other people. I know it. It's only since I've
been so ill--that I've been sane! It's a strange feeling--as though one
had been <i>bled</i>--and some poison had drained away. But it would never do
for me to take a turn and live! Oh no!--people like me are better safely
under the grass. Oh, my beloved! my beloved! I just want to say that all
the time, and nothing else--I've hungered so to say it!"

He answered her with all the anguish, all the passionate, fruitless
tenderness and vain comfortings that rise from the human heart in such a
strait. But when he asked her pardon for his hardness towards the Dean's
petition, when he said that his conscience had tormented him
thenceforward, she would scarcely hear a word.

"You did quite right," she said, peremptorily--"quite right."

Then she raised herself on her arm and looked at him.

"William!" she said, with a strange, kindled expression. "I--I don't
think I can live any more! I think--I'm dying--here--now!"

She fell back on her pillows, and he sprang to his feet, crying that he
must go for Fraeulein Anna and a doctor. But she held him feebly,
motioning towards the brandy and strychnine. "That's all--you can do."

He gave them to her, and again she revived and smiled at him.

"Don't be frightened. It was a sudden feeling--it came over me--that
this dear little room--and your arms--would be the end. Oh, how much
best! There!--that was foolish!--I'm better. It isn't only the lungs,
you see; they say the heart's worst. I nearly went at Vevey, one night.
It was such a long faint."

Then she lay quiet, with her hand in his, in a dreamy, peaceful
state, and his panic subsided. Once she sent messages to Lady
Tranmore--messages full of sorro