fore
she sank under it. In that hope I spoke."

"When you told me she was dangerously ill," said Kirke, "did you mean
danger to her reason or to her life?"

"To both," replied Mr. Merrick. "Her whole nervous system has given way;
all the ordinary functions of her brain are in a state of collapse.
I can give you no plainer explanation than that of the nature of the
malady. The fever which frightens the people of the house is merely the
effect. The cause is what I have told you. She may lie on that bed for
weeks to come; passing alternately, without a gleam of consciousness,
from a state of delirium to a state of repose. You must not be alarmed
if you find her sleep lasting far beyond the natural time. That sleep
is a better remedy than any I can give, and nothing must disturb it. All
our art can accomplish is to watch her, to help her with stimulants from
time to time, and to wait for what Nature will do."

"Must she remain here? Is there no hope of our being able to remove her
to a better place?"

"No hope whatever, for the present. She has already been disturbed, as
I understand, and she is seriously the worse for it. Even if she
gets better, even if she comes to herself again, it would still be a
dangerous experiment to move her too soon--the least excitement or alarm
would be fatal to her. You must make the best of this place as it is.
The landlady has my directions; and I will send a good nurse to help
her. There is nothing more to be done. So far as her life can be said
to be in any human hands, it is as much in your hands now as in
mine. Everything depends on the care that is taken of her, under your
direction, in this house." With those farewell words he rose and quitted
the room.

Left by himself, Kirke walked to the door of communication, and,
knocking at it softly, told the landlady he wished to speak with her.

He was far more composed, far more like his own resolute self, after his
interview with the doctor, than he had been before it. A man living in
the artificial social atmosphere which _this_ man had never breathed
would have felt painfully the worldly side of the situation--its novelty
and strangeness; the serious present difficulty in which it placed him;
the numberless misinterpretations in the future to which it might lead.
Kirke never gave the situation a thought. He saw nothing but the duty
it claimed from him--a duty which the doctor's farewell words had put
plainly before his mind. Everyth