It touched her deeply to hear that stifled sobbing, and she longed to speak some comforting words; but she knew it was not best, but lay still till the passion exhausted itself and Mrs. Varian was passive once more awaiting the doctor’s return. It was an hour before he returned, and said: “I have succeeded in sending off the telegram, and I find Mr. Dawn in a comatose state from which nothing perhaps can rouse him till to-morrow. It would be quite useless your going to him.” “Yet, doctor, I must look upon his face to-night!” And she raised herself in bed, throwing out beseeching hands. “I will wait then in the corridor for you and your maid,” he replied, withdrawing. Janetta quickly attired her mistress in a comfortable robe, and gathered her dark, streaming tresses into a loose knot. Giving her the support of her arm, she led her out to the old doctor, who quickly came forward to meet them. “I have just sent the sister--old Mrs. Flint--to bed, as she will not be needed now,” he said, leading Mrs. Varian into his patient’s room. She needed his arm, for she trembled like a leaf in a gale. All her pride was trampled in the dust by the love of old days that rushed over her like a storm, laying waste all the barriers that anger and scorn had raised between her heart and the man lying there so deathly white and still, as if hovering Death had already claimed him for his victim. Doctor Deane drew forward a large arm-chair to the side of the bed, placed Mrs. Varian in it, and abruptly withdrew, beckoning Janetta to follow. “You may wait outside the door while I go in to see another patient. I think the lady would prefer to be alone for a time,” he said; for he also had his suspicions of something uncommon in the past of his two strange patients. He was right. Mrs. Varian was glad at last to be alone with Everard Dawn. She gazed with despairing eyes at his bandaged head, silent, pallid lips and closed blue eyes. She bent her haughty head and pressed her fevered lips on the cold white hand that lay outside the cover, murmuring passionate words: “Oh, Everard, it is Pauline! Do you not know it is Pauline? Oh, do not die without one word to me, one word of love and pity--you who used to love me so! Is all the old love dead? Oh, you wronged me bitterly, Everard, but I can not hate you any longer. The old love rises in me like an ice-bound stream released by the sunlight, and drowns me in its overflow. Oh, Everard, my loved and lost!” CHAPTER XXXVII. BEYOND FORGIVENESS. Janetta, close against the door outside, caught low, passionate murmurs from within in her mistress’s voice, and guessed that she was pouring out her heart’s wild grief in the insensate ears of the unconscious man. It was pitiful, and tears overflowed Janetta’s eyes. For some time the low murmuring continued, then all grew still as death. She waited awhile, then fearful that the lady had fainted again, opened the door and went softly in.