“I don’t like the look of you, Daisie. You’ve been failing steadily ever since you came here, ten days ago. I don’t believe you’ve ever smiled since you came, and you don’t eat as much as a bird. Now you don’t feel well enough to rise from your bed, your face is red and feverish, and your pulse fairly frightens me. I’m going to send for Doctor Burns, and write for your husband to come.” “No, no--you must not let Mr. Sherwood know unless I should be dying, and--there’s no such luck as that. The wretched are long-lived,” bitterly. “But you may send for Doctor Burns, Aunt Alice, for I believe you are right. I am going to be ill.” She fell back among her pillows, shut her eyes, and seemed to sleep; then, before the doctor came, she had lapsed into delirious babblings. While he sat by the bed, watching her with the greatest uneasiness, she had a lucid interval, in which she begged him not to let Royall know of her illness. “He is not strong, and the shock might kill him. You can take care of me,” she said pleadingly. But when she was quiet again, he whispered to her aunt and Annette: “But, good heavens, this is brain fever! I fear that she will die!” CHAPTER XXXVI. THE STRENGTH OF LOVE. The anxious days came and went until Daisie had been ill almost two weeks, with scarcely a conscious moment; but still no word went to Royall Sherwood of her illness, because of the promise she had extracted not to let him know unless she was actually dying. And, though the fever rose to its greatest height, and her delirious ravings made their hearts ache with the fear that she could not live, still the crisis had not come yet, and the letter was not sent. There was no lack of skillful nursing, no lack of medical care, no lack of love, for Aunt Alice and Annette gave her all their time; but it almost seemed as if nothing could hold Daisie back from the land of shadows to which she was hastening. She had no hold on life, because she was weary of it. On that beautiful day when the sun came out so brightly, and the blue waves lapped the golden shore at Gull Beach, Doctor Burns thought he saw a subtle change in his patient, whether for better or worse he could not yet say, but he told them that the crisis would come that night. “Had we not better telegraph Mr. Sherwood now?” he asked anxiously. “No; I would wait the result of the crisis,” Annette answered, so decidedly that he hesitated and gave in. About sunset he came again, but he found no change in his patient, who still remained in the stupor that had fallen on her at noonday. The trained nurse had gone out for a breath of fresh air, and Annette sat by the window, watching the sunset lights upon the sea, her eyes sad and her bright face pale with anxiety. Doctor Burns sat down at her side, and whispered abruptly: “I have news for you. Royall Sherwood’s Fifth Avenue residence was burned to the ground just before daylight this morning.” Annette gave a wild start of surprise, and he added: