Within two minutes the Mercury was attracting the attention of the police as it whirled through the traffic towards Westminster Bridge. Dale's face was set like a block of granite. He had risked a good deal in leaving his master at the point of death at Calais; he was now risking more, far more, in rushing back to Calais again without having discharged the duty which had dragged him from that master's bedside. But he thought he had secured the best physician London could bring to the sufferer's aid, and the belief sustained him in an action that was almost heroic. He was a simple-minded fellow, with a marked taste for speed in both animals and machinery, but he had hit on one well-defined trait in human nature when he decided that if a man is dying for the sake of a woman the presence of that woman may cure when all else will fail. CHAPTER XVI THE END OF ONE TOUR: THE BEGINNING OF ANOTHER Cynthia found him lying in a darkened room. The nurse had just raised some of the blinds; a dismal day was drawing to its close, and more light was needed ere she could distinguish marked bottles, and doses, and the rest of the appurtenances of dangerous illness. An English nurse would have forbidden the presence of a stranger; this French one acted with more discretion if less of strict science. "Madam is his sister, perhaps?" she whispered. "No." "A relative, then?" "No; a woman who loves him." That heartbroken admission told the whole tale to the quick-witted Frenchwoman. There had been a duel; one man was seriously injured; the other, she had heard, was also receiving medical attention in another hotel--the _temoins_, wistful to avoid the interrogation of the law, had so arranged--and here was the woman who had caused the quarrel. Well, such was the will of Providence! These things had been since man and woman were expelled from Paradise--for the nurse, though a devout Catholic, suspected that Genesis had suppressed certain details of the first fratricide--and would continue, she supposed, until the Millennium. She nodded cheerfully. "There is every reason to hope, but he must not be disturbed--not excited, that is," she added, seeing the wan agony in Cynthia's face. The girl tiptoed to the side of the bed. Medenham's eyes were closed, but he was muttering something. She bent and kissed his forehead, and a strange smile broke through the tense lines of pain. Even in his semi-conscious state he felt the touch of those exquisite lips. "My Lady Alice!" he said. She choked back a sob. He was dreaming of "Comus"--standing with her in the ruined banqueting hall of Ludlow Castle. "Yes, your Lady Alice," she breathed. A slight quiver shook him. "Don't tell Cynthia," he said brokenly. "She must never know.... Ah, if I hadn't slipped, I would have quieted his viperish tongue.... But Cynthia must not know!" "Oh, my dear, my dear, Cynthia does know! It is you who know not. Kind Heaven, let him live! Grant that I may tell him all that I know!"