is always talking about
in his delirium--"

"It _is_," whispered Constance.

For a moment they looked one another in the eyes; then a delicate colour
stole over the woman's face.

"I'm afraid--I'm afraid that my boy is not making the fight he could
make," she whispered.

"Why not?"

She was speechless.

"Why _not_!" ... And in a lower voice: "This corridor is a
confessional. Miss Palliser--if that helps you any."

She said: "They were in love."

"Oh! Are they yet?"

"Yes."

"Oh! _She_ married the other man?"

"Yes."

"Oh!"

Young Lansdale wheeled abruptly and entered the sick-room. Shiela
returned in a few minutes with her nurse, a quick-stepping, cool-eyed
young woman in spotless uniform. A few minutes afterward the sounds
indicated that oxygen was being used.

An hour later Miss Race came into the hallway and looked at Shiela.

"Mr. Hamil is conscious," she said. "Would you care to see him for a
second?"

A dreadful fear smote her as she crouched there speechless.

"The danger of infection is slight," said the nurse--and knew at the
same instant that she had misunderstood. "Did you think I meant he is
dying?" she added gently as Shiela straightened up to her slender
height.

"Is he better?" whispered Constance.

"He is conscious," said the nurse patiently. "He knows"--turning to
Shiela--"that you are here. You must not speak to him; you may let him
see you for a moment. Come!"

In the shadowy half-light of the room Shiela halted at a sign from the
nurse; the doctor glanced up, nodding almost imperceptibly as the girl's
eyes fell upon the bed.

How she did it--what instinct moved her, what unsuspected reserve of
courage prompted her, she never understood; but looking into the
dreadful eyes of death itself there in the sombre shadows of the bed,
she smiled with a little gesture of gay recognition, then, turning,
passed from the room.

"Did he know you?" motioned Constance.

"I don't know--I don't know.... I think he was--dying--before he saw
me--"

She was shuddering so violently that Constance could scarcely hold her,
scarcely guide her down the stairs, across the lawn toward her own
house. The doctor overtook and passed them on his way to his own
quarters, but he only bowed very pleasantly, and would have gone on
except for the soft appeal of Constance.

"Miss Palliser," he said, "I _don't_ know--if you want the truth. You
know all that I do; he is conscious--or was. I expect he w