"It is probably overwork," he said. "We've all done what we could to spare her, but a child like this shouldn't be put at drudgery, even to satisfy the most jealous or selfish man. You've had a china cup, my lad, and you've used it as if it was tin. And it's broken, that's all." Francis looked down at Marjorie, holding her head in his arms. It lay back limply. Her eyes were half open, and her heart, as he put his hand over it, was galloping. Her cheeks were beginning to be scarlet, and her hand, when he reached down and touched it, burned. He looked up at Pennington with an unconscious appeal, unmindful of the older man's harsh words. "Do you think she'll die?" he asked. "I have no way of knowing. If she does, you have the consolation of knowing that you've done what you could toward it." "Oh, my God, don't, Pennington!" cried out Francis, clutching Marjorie tighter unconsciously. "It's as true as gospel. But let up now. Get somebody. Do something, for heaven's sake! You know about medicine a little, don't you?" "Take her inside and put her to bed," Pennington commanded shortly. "I'll take your motor-cycle and go for Mother O'Mara. I can get a doctor from there by to-morrow, perhaps." Francis gathered the limp little body up again without a word. Only he turned at the door for a last appeal. "Can't you tell at all what it is?" "Fever, I think. She's caught malarial fever, perhaps. She wouldn't have done if she'd been stronger. Take her in." So Francis carried his wife over the threshold, into the little brown room he had decked for her so long ago, and laid her down again. Her head fell back on the pillow, and her hands lay as he dropped them. He stood back and looked at her, a double terror in his heart. She would never love him again. How could she? And she would die--surely she would die, and he had killed her. "I'm--going," she said very faintly, as a sleep-talker speaks. She was not conscious of what she said, but it was the last straw for Francis. He had not slept nor eaten lately, and he had worked double time all day to keep his mind from the state of things, ever since he had brought her back. So perhaps it was not altogether inexcusable that he flung himself on the floor by the bedside and broke down. He was aroused after awhile by the touch of Marjorie's hand. He lifted his head, thinking she had come to and touched him knowingly. But he saw that it was only that she was tossing a little, with the restlessness of the fever, and his heart went down again. He pulled himself up from the bedside, and went doggedly at his work of undressing her and putting her to bed.