It was a man hopeless and helpless whom the doctor sent from the room, for it was he who had done it. If he had heard her out that day she would even now be warm with life. Mechanically, he found his way to the empty drawing-room, where one lamp burned, forgotten. In the house were noises of many feet, as Davids and his men took away Marcus Wray with handcuffs on his wrists; a going to and fro of frightened servants on the staircases; then the hush of a house where a soul is passing. But Miles Cylmer knew none of these things. He was down upon his face in very hell. If it were he, not she, who must die! How should he rise and look upon the day when they came to tell him his love was dead? How should he live, when in a few days they would commit her sweet body to the dust? As though tears of blood were rising from his heart to his eyes the man looked into a red mist as some one came into the room, and he sat up. It was the doctor. “Well?” It was all Cylmer could say. “I don’t know.” His voice changed suddenly to deepest pity at the haggard face before him, livid as if with years. “My dear Cylmer, I don’t know. She is alive; but the blow must have been a cruel one. She may live for days in a stupor, as she lies now.” “And then?” “She is young and strong. She may have vitality enough----” But he could not finish. He knew that in all human probability the candle of her life would burn lower and lower, till scarcely even he would know when it was burned away. “Can I go to her? I was going to marry her.” Cylmer’s voice was perfectly steady as he rose, a strange figure in his overcoat, that he had never taken off, a scarlet stain on its fawn-colored sleeve. The doctor nodded. “She won’t know you, Cylmer--she has never opened her eyes; but she breathes still. I’ll be here till morning.” “Breathes still.” The gentle words rang in Cylmer’s ears as he went up-stairs. But yesterday she had been all his own; to-day all that pity could find to say was that. CHAPTER XXXIV. “AND WHO IS THIS?” For a day and a night he watched her as she lay. Sometimes he leaned over her in sudden fright that she had ceased to breathe; sometimes he fancied she stirred, that her eyelids quivered. But neither the good nor the bad was true. The slow hours came and passed and died, and there was no change on that quiet face. Cylmer turned away as the nurse approached the bed, bearing wine and a spoon. He hated that useless cruelty of trying to feed her. It sickened him to see the things they gave her ooze from the corners of her lips. He stood leaning by the window and watched with listless inattention a carriage driving to the door. Curious visitors came by the score, to be turned away. Cristiane had no heart to see them; Mrs. Trelane, with the prospect of going into court to account for those stolen diamonds before her, would face no one.