"Yes sir, very--very ill." "Humph!" thought Beaumont, "got the jumps, I expect. What is the matter with him?" he asked aloud. "He lost his way in the snow storm last week," explained Margery deliberately, "and nearly died, but Farmer Sanders found him on the bridge and brought him here." "Oh! and is he here still?" "He is, sir. He was quite delirious, sir--raved awful. Dr. Blank's been attending him, and Miss Mosser." "The blind organist--why has she turned nurse?" Margery smiled in a mysterious manner. "Well, folks say one thing and some folks say another," she replied, folding the table-cloth, "but I think she's in love with him; anyhow, as soon as she heard he was ill she came here like a mad woman, with Miss Busky, and both of 'em have been nursing him ever since." "How good of them," said Beaumont ironically, "and is he better?" "He's sensible," answered Margery cautiously, "but very weak. I don't know as he'll live." "I'd like to see him. You know I'm a friend of his--do you think I could go up to his room?" "I don't know, sir," returned Margery stolidly. "I'll ask Miss Mosser." "Do, that's a good girl, he replied, and Margery departed. "Poor Nestley," muttered Beaumont to himself, lighting another cigarette, "it was rather a shame of me to have led him on like I did, but if I hadn't he would have interfered with my plans concerning old Garsworth, so I had to--self-preservation is the first law of nature. Come in," he called out, as a knock came to the door. "Come in, Margery." It was not Margery, however, but Cecilia Mosser, who entered, with a pale sad face and a painfully-strained look in her sightless eyes. "Mr. Beaumont," she said, in her low sweet voice. "I am here, Miss Mosser," he replied, rising from his seat. "What can I do for you?" "Nothing," she replied, groping her way to the table and standing beside it. "Are you alone?" "Quite alone," returned Beaumont politely. "You wish to see Dr. Nestley?" "If I may be permitted." "You will not be permitted," answered Cecilia slowly; "he is still very weak, and the sight of you would make him ill again." "And why?" asked Beaumont, rather annoyed at the firmness of her tone; "surely a friend----" "A friend," she interrupted, in a low vibrating tone. "Yes, a friend who is one in name only." "I don't understand you," said Basil politely. "What do you know of the friendship existing between myself and Dr. Nestley?" "I know everything--yes everything--in his delirium he revealed more than he would have done----" "Delirium--pshaw!" "What he said then was confirmed by his own lips afterwards when he was sensible," she answered in a perfectly cool manner, "and I know how much your friendship has cost him--how you tried to drag him down to the lowest depths of iniquity. God knows for what end----" Beaumont laughed in a sneering way, and leaned his shoulders comfortably against the mantelpiece.