Strange to say, a newspaper man noticed the splendid power of his performance that night and wrote of it with uncommon discernment--a _provincial_ critic, by the way. In London at the time they were always urging Henry Irving to produce new plays by new playwrights. But in the face of the failure of most of the new work, and of his departing strength, and of the extraordinary support given him in the old plays (during this 1902 tour we took £4,000 at Glasgow in one week!), Henry took the wiser course in doing nothing but the old plays to the end of the chapter. I realized how near, not only the end of the chapter but the end of the book was, when he was taken ill at Wolverhampton in the spring of 1905. We had not acted together for more than two years then, and times were changed indeed. I went down to Wolverhampton when the news of his illness reached London. I arrived late and went to an hotel. It was not a good hotel, nor could I find a very good florist when I got up early the next day and went out with the intention of buying Henry some flowers. I wanted some bright-colored ones for him--he had always liked bright flowers--and this florist dealt chiefly in white flowers--_funeral_ flowers. At last I found some daffodils--my favorite flower. I bought a bunch, and the kind florist, whose heart was in the right place if his flowers were not, found me a nice simple glass to put it in. I knew the sort of vase that I should find at Henry's hotel. I remembered, on my way to the doctor's--for I had decided to see the doctor first--that in 1892 when my dear mother died, and I did not act for a few nights, when I came back I found my room at the Lyceum filled with daffodils. "To make it look like sunshine," Henry said. The doctor talked to me quite frankly. "His heart is dangerously weak," he said. "Have you told him?" I asked. "I had to, because the heart being in that condition he must be careful." "Did he understand _really_?" "Oh, yes. He said he quite understood." Yet a few minutes later when I saw Henry, and begged him to remember what the doctor had said about his heart, he exclaimed: "Fiddle! It's not my heart at all! It's my _breath_!" (Oh the ignorance of great men about themselves!) "I also told him," the Wolverhampton doctor went on, "that he must not work so hard in future." I said: "He will, though,--and he's stronger than any one." Then I went round to the hotel. I found him sitting up in bed, drinking his coffee. He looked like some beautiful gray tree that I have seen in Savannah. His old dressing-gown hung about his frail yet majestic figure like some mysterious gray drapery. We were both very much moved, and said little. "I'm glad you've come. Two Queens have been kind to me this morning. Queen Alexandra telegraphed to say how sorry she was I was ill, and now you--" He showed me the Queen's gracious message. I told him he looked thin and ill, but _rested_.