But as he apprehensively opens the _salon_ door, he sees that his fears are unfounded. They have not yet gone to luncheon; they are all sitting in much the same attitudes as he had left them, except that Sybilla is eating or drinking something of a soupy nature out of a cup. There are very few hours of the day or night in which Sybilla is not eating something out of a cup. There is that about the entire idleness of the other couple which gives him a fright. Are they too unhappy? Have they heard too bad news to be able to settle to any occupation? Urged by this alarm, his question shoots out, almost before he is inside the door: "Has not he come yet? Has not the doctor come yet?" "He has been and gone; you see, you have been such a very long time away," replies Cecilia. She has no intention of conveying reproach, either by her words or tone; but to his sore conscience it seems as if both carried it. "And what did he say?" "He did not say much." "Does he--does he think that it is anything--anything serious?" "He did not say." "Do you mean to tell me"--indignantly--"that you did not ask him?" "If you had been here," replies Cecilia, with a not inexcusable resentment, "you might have asked him yourself." "But did not you ask him?" in too real anxiety to be offended at, or even aware of, her fleer. "Did not he say?" "I do not think he knew himself." "But he must have thought--he must have had an opinion!" growing the more uneasy as there seems no tangible object for his fears to lay hold of. "He says it is impossible to judge at so early a stage; it may be a chill--I told him about that detestable excursion yesterday, and he considered it quite enough to account for anything--it may be measles--they seem to be a good deal about; it may be malaria--there is a good deal of that too." "And how soon will he know? How soon will it declare itself?" "I do not know." "But has he prescribed? Is there nothing to be done--to be done _at once_?" asks Jim feverishly, chafing at the idea of this inaction, which seems inevitable, with that helpless feeling which his own entire ignorance of sickness produces. "Do not you suppose that if there was we should have done it?" cries Cecilia, rendered even more uncomfortable than she was before, by the contagion of his anxiety. "We are to keep her in bed--there is no great difficulty about that, poor soul; she has not the least desire to get up; she seems so odd and heavy!" "So _odd and heavy_?" "Yes; I went in to see her just now, and she scarcely took any notice of me; only when I told her that you had been to inquire after her, she lit up a little. I believe"--with a rather grudging smile--"that if she were dead, and someone mentioned your name, she would light up." A sudden mountain rises in Jim's throat. "If she is not better to-morrow, Dr. Coldstream will send a nurse." "But does he think it will be necessary?" "He does not know."