o Avery the suspense was well-nigh unbearable; but she dared not show
the impatience that consumed her. She had a feeling that in some fashion
the great doctor was depending upon her self-control, her strength of
mind; and she was determined that he should not find her wanting.

Yet, when she at length preceded him downstairs and into the little
sitting-room she wondered if the hammering of her heart reached him, so
tremendous were its strokes. They seemed to her to be beating out a
death-knell in her soul.

"You will tell me the simple truth, I know," she said, and waited,
straining to catch his words above the clamour.

He answered her instantly with the utmost quietness, the utmost kindness.

"Lady Evesham, your own heart has already told you the truth."

She put out a quick hand, and he took it and held it firmly,
sustainingly, while he went on.

"There is nothing whatever to be done. Give her rest, that's all;
absolute rest. She looks as if she has been worked beyond her strength.
Is that so?"

Avery nodded mutely.

"It must stop," he said. "She is in a very precarious state, and any
exertion, mental or physical, is bound to hasten the end--which cannot,
in any case, be very far off."

He released Avery's hand and walked to the window, where he stood gazing
out to sea with drawn brows.

"The disease is of a good many months' standing," he said. "It has taken
very firm hold. Such a child as that should have been sheltered and
cosseted, shielded from every hardship. Even then--very possibly--this
would have developed. No one can say for certain."

"Can you advise--nothing?" said Avery in a voice that sounded oddly dull
and emotionless even to herself.

"Nothing," said Maxwell Wyndham. "No medical science can help in a case
like this. Give her everything she wants, and give her rest! That is all
you can do for her now."

Avery came and stood beside him. The blow had fallen, but she had
scarcely begun to feel its effects. There was so much to be
thought of first.

"Please be quite open with me!" she said. "Tell me how long you think she
will live!"

He turned slightly and looked at her. "I can tell you what I think,
Lady Evesham," he said. "But, remember, that does not bring the end
any nearer."

"I know," she said.

She looked straight back at him with eyes unflinching, and after a
moment's thought he spoke.

"I think that--given every care--she may live through the summer, but I
do not consid