d in a perfectly
natural tone:

'Amy, do you know that Biffen and I are going to Greece?'

She believed he spoke consciously, and replied:

'You must take me with you, Edwin.'

He paid no attention to this remark, but went on with the same deceptive
accent.

'He deserves a holiday after nearly getting burnt to death to save
his novel. Imagine the old fellow plunging headlong into the flames to
rescue his manuscript! Don't say that authors can't be heroic!'

And he laughed gaily.

Another morning broke. It was possible, said the doctors (a second had
been summoned), that a crisis which drew near might bring the favourable
turn; but Amy formed her own opinion from the way in which the
nurse expressed herself. She felt sure that the gravest fears were
entertained. Before noon Reardon awoke from what had seemed natural
sleep--save for the rapid breathing--and of a sudden recollected the
number of the house in Cleveland Street at which Biffen was now living.
He uttered it without explanation. Amy at once conjectured his meaning,
and as soon as her surmise was confirmed she despatched a telegram to
her husband's friend.

That evening, as Amy was on the point of returning to the sick-room
after having dined at her friend's house, it was announced that
a gentleman named Biffen wished to see her. She found him in the
dining-room, and, even amid her distress, it was a satisfaction to her
that he presented a far more conventional appearance than in the old
days. All the garments he wore, even his hat, gloves, and boots,
were new; a surprising state of things, explained by the fact of his
commercial brother having sent him a present of ten pounds, a practical
expression of sympathy with him in his recent calamity. Biffen could
not speak; he looked with alarm at Amy's pallid face. In a few words she
told him of Reardon's condition.

'I feared this,' he replied under his breath. 'He was ill when I saw him
off at London Bridge. But Willie is better, I trust?'

Amy tried to answer, but tears filled her eyes and her head drooped.
Harold was overcome with a sense of fatality; grief and dread held him
motionless.

They conversed brokenly for a few minutes, then left the house, Biffen
carrying the hand-bag with which he had travelled hither. When they
reached the hotel he waited apart until it was ascertained whether he
could enter the sick-room. Amy rejoined him and said with a faint smile:

'He is conscious, and was very