Her voice did not falter. "Has Mr. ----, your husband, been long ill?" "My husband's name is Louis Davenport. He has been ill a long time--years. He has been suffering from spasmodic asthma. I can gather from your manner that there is no hope." Her voice was firm and clear. No feature moved but the beautiful, flexible mouth, of which the lips were as full of colour as ever. "May I beg of you to be seated?" Dr. Santley left the position he had occupied and handed her a chair. She sank on it without speaking. She rested one of her arms on the table. He went on: "Mrs. Davenport, I am afraid the worst must be faced." "The worst!" she cried, rising and looking wildly at him, her voice now coming in a terrified whisper from between her lips, which at the moment lost their colour. "The worst! What do you mean by the worst? What do you know of the worst?" Her face showed intense eagerness, mingled with intense fear. "I am very sorry to be obliged to give you bad news." "And it is?" with still greater eagerness and fear. "That Mr. Davenport will not recover." "That he is dead?" leaning forward on the back of her chair towards him. "Unhappily, yes." "Of his old disease?" She still kept her eyes on Santley's face. "Perhaps. Did he complain to-night?" "Yes; he said he was too ill to think of lying down." "He used, no doubt, to inhale chloroform when the spasms were bad?" "Always." "Yes, I got the smell of chloroform. Well, one of these spasms may have been too severe; and now you know the worst, Mrs. Davenport." She sat down on her chair and seemed about to faint. There was wine on the table. Santley poured some into a glass and made her drink it. After a while she became composed, and the look of eagerness and dread disappeared wholly from her face, and the red returned to her lips. She was the first to speak. Her voice had regained all its old, firm serenity. Her face was calm and commanding. She looked, once more as though neither the onslaught of battle nor the wreck of worlds could disturb her. "You, sir," she said, once more addressing Santley, "I have to thank for your promptness in coming at this hour to one whom you never even heard of before. And"--turning to Paulton--"I have to thank you most sincerely for your kindness in summoning the doctor for me in my extremity." Each man protested he had in this matter done no more than his duty, and both said they sympathised with her in the awful calamity which had fallen upon her. She bowed her head in acknowledgment of their kind-hearted speeches, and went on: