The effort of undressing, however, so exhausted her and awoke such torturing pains that, when at last she got to bed, she lay there, panting, reduced to a state of utter prostration. Thus Holles and the physician found her on their return. Dr. Beamish placed upon a table at the foot of the bed all the things that Holles would require, and, repeating his injunctions, took his leave at last. The Colonel went with him to the door of the house. This was standing open, and by the light of a lantern held by the watchman the examiner was completing the rudely wrought inscription, _Lord have mercy upon us_, under the ominous red cross which he had daubed above. Bidding Holles a good-night and a stout courage, the physician and the examiner departed together. The watchman, who remained to hinder any unauthorized person from passing in or out, then closed the door. Holles heard the key being turned on the outside, and knew himself a prisoner in that infected house for weeks to come, unless death should chance to set him free meanwhile. Quickly now, urged by the thought of his task, utterly disregarding the dull aching of his bruised head, he mounted the stairs again. A memory flashed through his mind of those three gallants whom her cries had attracted to her rescue, and who would have delivered her from his clutches, but that he had scared them away with the lie--as he supposed it then--that she was infected with the plague. Had their rescue succeeded, in what case would she be now? Would there be one at hand to fight such a fight as that for which he was braced and ready; to give his life at need, freely and without a pang, that he might save her own? Out of the anguish of his soul, out of the depths into which he was plunged, he thanked God for this fight that lay before him, for this disposition which made good come out of evil. He found her in a state of lethargy which, whilst leaving her a full consciousness of all that had occurred and was occurring about her, yet robbed her of all power of speech or movement. Lying there, her head supported by the pillows, which it had been the doctor’s last service to adjust, her wide, fevered eyes followed every movement of the Colonel’s as, stripped now of his doublet, he went briskly about the business of preparation. Anon under the pain which his ministrations caused her, she sank into unconsciousness, and thence into a raving delirium which for days thereafter was to alternate with periods of lethargic, exhausted slumber. CHAPTER XXII THE CRISIS For five days, which to Randal Holles were as five years of mortal anguish, she lay suspended between this world and the next. The lightest straw of chance would suffice to tip against her the fearful balance of the scales, the slightest lack of care and watchfulness might result in the snapping of the slender thread by which life was still tethered to her exhausted, fever-wasting frame.