"Yes," said Cynthia, without hesitation.

"If you keep him as quiet as that, you will save his life," said the doctor; and then he beckoned Jenkins out of the sick-room, and gave him various stringent orders and recommendations--to all which Jenkins lent an attentive if a somewhat puzzled ear.

The doctor looked in again before he went away. Mr. Lepel was lying back on his pillows, perfectly motionless and silent; Miss West, kneeling beside the bed, still kept one hand on his, while with the other she put cooling applications to his head or merely laid her hand upon his forehead. As long as she was touching him the patient seemed perfectly content. And again the doctor nodded--and this time he also smiled.

So passed the hours of that long summer day.

CHAPTER XL.

When the light was fading a little, there was a new sound in Hubert Lepel's sick-room--the rustle of a silk dress, the tripping of little high-heeled shoes across the floor. Cynthia looked round hastily, ready to hush the intruder; for Hubert was much quieter than he had been, and only murmured incoherent sentences from time to time. A fresh outburst of delirium was of all things to be warded off if possible, and there was a faint hope that he might sleep. If he slept, his life, humanly speaking, was saved. But it was hardly likely that sleep would come so soon.

Cynthia looked round, prepared to rebuke the new-comer--for she had taken upon herself all the authority of nurse and queen-regent in the sick man's room; but her eyes fell upon a stranger whose face was yet not altogether unknown to her. She had seen it years before in the Beechfield lanes; she remembered it vaguely without knowing to whom it belonged. In her earlier years at school that face had stood in her imagination as the type of all that was cold and cruel and fair in ancient song or story, fable or legend. It had figured as Medusa--as Circe; the wonderful wicked woman of the Middle Ages had come to her in visions with just such subtle eyes, such languorous beauty, such fair white skin and yellow hair; the witch-woman of her weirdest dream had had the look of Florence Lepel; just as Hubert's far different features, with the dark melancholy expression of suffering stamped upon them, had stood for her as those of Fouque's ideal knights, or of Sintram riding through the dark valley, of Lancelot sinning and repenting, of saint, hero, martyr, paladin, in turn, until she grew old enough to banish such foolish dreams. She had been a strangely imaginative child; and these two faces seemed to have haunted her all her life. That of her hero lay beside her, stricken with illness, fevered, insensible; that of the evil woman--for this Cynthia instinctively believed Florence Vane to be--confronted her with a strange, mocking, malignant smile.

Cynthia put up her hand.

"Hush!" she said quietly. "He is not to be disturbed."

"Are you the nurse?" said Mrs. Vane's cool light voice.

"I am a friend," replied Cynthia quietly. "If you wish to talk to me, I will come into the other room."

"Upon my word, you take things very calmly!" said Florence. "I really never dreamt---- It is a most embarrassing situation!"

But she did not look embarrassed in the least; neither did Cynthia.

A heavier step on the boards now made itself heard, and the General's face, ruddy and framed in venerable gray hairs, pressed forward over his wife's shoulder.

"Oh, dear--oh, dear--this is very bad!" he grumbled, either to himself or to Flossy. "Poor lad--poor lad! He looks very ill--he does indeed!"

Flossy came closer to the bed. As soon as she drew near, her brother seemed to grow uneasy; he began to turn his head from side to side, to move his hands, and to mutter incoherent words.

"You disturb him," said Cynthia, looking at Mrs. Vane. "The Doctor says that he must be kept perfectly quiet. Will you kindly go into the other room, and, if you want me, I will come to you."

"We are not particularly likely to want you, young woman," said Florence coldly. "If you are not a qualified nurse, I do not see why you should try to turn Mr. Lepel's own sister out of the room. It is your place to go--not mine."

For all answer, Cynthia turned again to Hubert, and began applying ice to his fevered head. She seemed absorbed by her task, and took no further notice of the visitors. For once Flossy felt herself a little quelled.

She turned to Mrs. Jenkins, who had followed her into the room.

"Has not the doctor procured a proper nurse yet for Mr. Lepel?" she said.

Mrs. Jenkins fidgeted, and looked at Cynthia.

"The young lady," she said at last, "seems to be doing all that is required, ma'am. The doctor says as we couldn't do better."

"In that case, my dear," said the pacific General, "I think that we had better not interfere with existing arrangements. We will go back to the hotel and inquire again in the morning."

"Go back to the hotel, and leave that person in possession?" cried Flossy, with fine and virtuous scorn. "Are you mad, General? I will not put up with such a thing for a moment! She will go out of this house before I go!"

These words reached Cynthia's ears. The girl simply smiled. The smile said, as plainly as words could have done, that she would not leave Hubert Lepel's rooms unless she was taken away from them by force.

Meanwhile Mrs. Jenkins was whispering and explaining, the General was expostulating, and Flossy waxed apparently more and more irate every moment. Cynthia, with her hand on Hubert's pulse, felt it growing faster; his incoherent words were spoken with energy; he was beginning to raise his head from the pillow and gaze about him with wild excited eyes. She turned sharply towards the visitors.

"Go into the other room at once!" she said, with sudden decision. "You have aroused him already--you have done him harm! Keep silence or go, if you wish to save his life!"

The passionate ring of her voice, low though it was, had its effect. The General stopped short in a sentence; Mrs. Jenkins looked at the bed with a frightened air; Flossy, with an impatient gesture, walked towards the sitting-room. But at the door she paused and looked back at Cynthia, whose eyes were still fixed upon her. What there was in that look perhaps no one else could see; but it magnetised Cynthia. The girl rose from her knees, gently withdrew her hand from Hubert's nerveless fingers, and signed to Mrs. Jenkins to take her place. Then, after watching for a moment to see that the patient lay quietly and did not seem distressed by her departure, she followed Mrs. Vane into the other room. The General hovered about the door, uncertain whether to go or to remain.

The two women faced each other silently. They were both beautiful, but they bore no likeness one to the other.

There could not have been a more complete contrast than that presented by Florence Vane and Cynthia Westwood as they confronted each other in the dim light of Hubert's sitting-room. Cynthia stood erect, looking very tall and pale in her straight black gown; her large dark eyes were heavy from fatigue and grief, her lips had taken a pathetic downward curve, and her dusky hair had been pushed back carelessly from her fine brow. There was a curious dignity about her--a dignity which seemed to proceed chiefly from her own absence of self-consciousness, swallowed up as this had been in the depth of a great sorrow. Opposite to her stood Florence, self-conscious and alert in every nerve and vein, but hiding her agitation under an exterior of polished grace and studiedly haughty courtesy, her fair beauty framed in an admirable setting of exquisite colors and textures, her whole appearance indescribably dainty and delicate, like that of some rare Eastern bird which hesitates where to set its foot in a strange place.

Thus the two saw each other; and Flossy felt vaguely that Cynthia ought to be at a disadvantage, but that in some strange and miraculous manner she was not. Indeed it was Cynthia who took the lead and spoke first.

"If you wish to speak to me," she said, "I am here; but I cannot leave Mr. Lepel for long."

"I have no wish to speak--necessity alone compels me," said Mrs. Vane, giving the girl a haughty stare from under her half-closed eyelids. "I am compelled, I fear, to ask you a few questions. I presume that a nurse is coming?"

"I think not. The doctor said that he need not send one so long as Jenkins and I were here."

"And pray how long do you mean to remain here?"

"As long as he has need of me."

"You are under a mistake," said Mrs. Vane loftily. "Mr. Lepel did not send for you, I believe?"

"He called for me in his delirium," answered Cynthia, whose eyes were beginning to be lighted up as if from an inward fire. "He is quiet only when I am here."

Flossy laughed derisively.

"A good reason! Is he not quiet now, with the woman Jenkins at his side?

You will perhaps allow that his relatives--his family--have some right to attend to him during his illness; and I must really say very plainly--since you compel me to do so--that I should prefer to see him nursed by a professional nurse, and not by a young girl whose very presence here is a scandal to all propriety."

Cynthia drew herself up to her full height.

"I think I can scarcely understand you," she said. "I am acting under the doctor's orders, and am here by his authority. There can be no scandal in that. When Mr. Lepel is conscious and can spare me, I will go."

"Spare you! He will be only too glad to spare you!" cried Mrs. Vane. "I do not know what your connection with him has been--I do not want to know"--the insinuation conveyed by her tone and manner was felt by Cynthia to be in itself an insult; "but this I am fully convinced of, that my poor brother could not possibly have known that you were the daughter of that wretched criminal, Andrew Westwood--the man who murdered Sydney Vane! If he had known that, he would never have wished to see your face again!"

She saw the girl wince, as if she had received a cut with a whip, and for a moment she triumphed.

The General, who was just inside the room, listening anxiously to the conversation, now came to her aid. He stepped forward hurriedly, his face growing crimson, his lower jaw working, his eyes seeming to turn in his head as he heard the words.

"What is that? What--this young person the daughter of Westwood the murderer? Abominable! What business has she here? It is an insult to us all!"