Cynthia's look was piteous; but for the moment she did not move.

"Would it not be better for a qualified nurse to be obtained for my brother?" said Mrs. Vane. "This young--lady"--a perceptible pause occurred before the word--"has had no experience in nursing; and it is surely not necessary----"

"Oh, doctor," the girl burst out, "must I not stay? I cannot go away when he calls for me like that!"

Her hands were strained on her bosom; her eyes had the hungry look of a mother who hears her child cry aloud and cannot go to him. The doctor shot a look at her pale tortured face, and observed the cold composure of the finely-dressed lady in the arm-chair, and the subdued uneasiness of the old gentleman in the background. He began to suspect a tragedy--at any rate, a romance.

"Go to him at once," he said to Cynthia, pointing to the bed-room door, "and keep him quiet at any cost. A trained nurse would not do him half the good that you can do him, if you choose. And now, madam," he continued rather sternly, as Cynthia disappeared with a joyful face into the other room, "may I ask what this interference with my orders may mean?"

"I am Mr. Lepel's sister," said Flossy coldly, "and it was I who sent for you, Doctor Middlemass. I think I have some right to take an interest in my brother's condition."

"Certainly, madam"--the doctor spoke with portentous grimness and formality--"but--excuse me--no right to tamper with any of my prescriptions. I prescribed Miss West to my patient; and she was doing him all the good in the world when I went away. He has got another fever-fit upon him now, a little higher temperature, and we shall not be able to do anything more for him at all. If you do not wish my orders to be followed, madam, have the goodness to send for another doctor and I will throw up the case."

"You misunderstand, sir--you misunderstand!" said the General fussily, coming forward with his most imposing air. "My wife and I, sir, have not the slightest desire to interfere. We only wish to know what your prescriptions are. That young woman, sir, has no right to be here at all."

"From what I have been told," said the doctor dryly, "I should have said that she had the greatest possible right to be here; but, however, that is no business of mine. She has a wonderfully soothing effect on Mr.

Lepel's condition, and, as long as she is here, he is quiet and manageable. Listen! He is scarcely speaking at all now; her presence and her touch have calmed him at once. It would be positive madness to take her away!"

"Would it not be well," said Mrs. Vane quietly, "to send a trained nurse here too? There is a woman whom I know; she would be very glad to come, and she would relieve that young lady of the more painful and onerous portions of her task. I mean, dear," she said, looking towards her husband, "old Mrs. Meldreth's daughter--Sabina. She is an efficient nurse, and she has nothing to do just now."

"Has she had experience in cases of brain-disease?" said Doctor Middlemass snappishly.

"I really do not know." She knew perfectly well that Sabina's knowledge of nursing was of the most perfunctory kind. "She has had experience of all kinds of illness, I believe, and she is thoroughly trustworthy. She could be installed here as an attendant on Miss--Miss West."

Attendant! "As spy" she meant, on all poor Cynthia's movements.

"I should like to see the woman first," said the doctor bluntly. He was not easy to manage, as Flossy swiftly perceived. "If she is competent for the task, I have no objection--Miss West must not be allowed to overdo herself; but I myself should prefer to send a person who is accustomed to deal with illnesses of this kind."

"As you please, of course," said Flossy. She saw that it would be of no use to press Sabina Meldreth upon him, much as she would have liked to secure the services of a spy and an informer in the house. As she paused, the General came forward.

"I should like to know, sir," he said, bristling with indignation, "what you mean by saying that that young lady--that girl--has a right to be here? I do not understand such language?"

"Why, of course she has a right to be here," said the doctor, staring at him in a purposely matter-of-fact way, "since she is the lady that he is engaged to marry."

"Marry! Bless my soul--no such thing!" roared the General, utterly forgetting that there was an invalid in the adjoining room. "Why, he's going to marry my----"

"Dear Richard, hush, hush!" said his wife, laying her hand entreatingly upon his arm. "Don't make such a noise--think of poor Hubert!"

"Kindly moderate your voice, sir," was the doctor's dry remark. "My patient will hear you if you don't take care."

"It does not matter to me whether he hears me or not," the General began; but Flossy's hand tightened its grasp upon his arm in a way which he knew that he must obey.

The General was a docile husband, and his protest died away in inarticulate angry murmurs.

"Don't trouble about it, General--I will arrange everything," said his wife caressingly. "Go over to the window again and leave me to speak to Doctor Middlemass for a moment;" and, as the General retired, still growling, she half smiled, and raised her eyes to the doctor's face as if she invited sympathy.

But Doctor Middlemass looked as unresponsive as a block of wood.

"I must go to my patient," he said, "It was to see him, I presume, that I was summoned?"

"Not entirely," said Flossy very sweetly. "We wanted to know whether it was absolutely necessary that Miss West should stay with my brother."

"Absolutely necessary, madam!"

"Then of course we should not think of objecting to her presence, which, I must tell you, is painful to us, because----"

"Excuse me, madam," said the doctor, who was certainly a very uncivil person, "if I say that these family-matters are of no interest to me, save as they affect my patient."

"But they do affect your patient, doctor. I think it was the worry of the affair that brought on this illness. We have found out that this Miss West's name is really 'Westwood,' and that she is the daughter of the dreadful man who shot my husband's brother Beechfield some years ago. Perhaps you remember the case?"

"Oh, yes--I remember it!" said the doctor shortly. "That's the daughter?

Poor girl!"

"It is naturally unpleasant to think that my brother--a cousin also of the General's--should be contemplating a marriage with her," said Mrs.

Vane.

"Ah, well--perhaps so! We are all under the dominion of personal and selfish prejudice," said Doctor Middlemass.

"I hoped that this illness might break the tie between them," sighed Flossy pensively.

"So it may, madam--by killing him. Do you wish to break it in that way?"

"This doctor is a perfect brute!" thought Mrs. Vane to herself; but she only looked in a reproachful manner at the "brute," and applied her handkerchief delicately to her eyes. "I trust that there is no likelihood that it may end in that way. My poor dear Hubert," she sighed, "if only you had been warned in time!"

Perhaps this display of emotion softened Doctor Middlemass' heart, or perhaps he was not so insensible to Mrs. Vane's charms as he tried to appear; at any rate, when he spoke again it was in a qualified tone.

"I trust that he will get over this attack. He is certainly a little better than I expected to find him; but I cannot impress your mind too strongly with the necessity for care and watchfulness. Anything that tends to tranquilise the mind of a person in his condition must be procured for him at almost any risk. When the delirium has passed, an ordinary nurse may be of greater use than Miss West; but at present we really cannot do without her. You heard for yourself how he called her when she went out of the room?"

"Yes, I heard. Then shall I send the woman of whom I spoke, doctor? She might be a help to Miss West, whose work I of course would rather assist than retard in any way."

"You can thoroughly rely upon her?" said the doctor dubiously.

"Thoroughly. She is a most valuable person."

"She might come for a day or two, and we shall see whether she is of any use or not. Will you send for her?"

Yes, Mrs. Vane would send. And then the doctor went to look once more at Hubert, of whose condition he again seemed somewhat doubtful; and afterwards he took his leave. When he had gone, Mrs. Vane also departed, taking her docile husband back with her to the Grosvenor Hotel. She had gained her point and was secretly triumphant; for she had secured the presence of a spy upon Cynthia, and could depend upon Sabina Meldreth to give a full account of Miss West's habits and visitors.

Flossy had great faith in her system of espionage. She sent Parker at once with a note summoning Sabina to the hotel, and there she laid her plans. Sabina was to go that very night to Mr. Lepel's rooms, and was to make herself as useful as she could. It was presumed that Cynthia had not seen with sufficient clearness for the encounter to be a source of danger the woman in black who had followed Westwood to Kensington Gardens. Sabina was told to keep herself in the background as much as possible--to be silent and serviceable, but, above all, to be observant; for it was likely that Westwood would try to communicate with his daughter, and, if he did so, Sabina would perhaps be able to track him down.

Flossy had completely lost all fear for herself in the excitement of her discoveries. It seemed to her that she and her secret were entirely safe. Nobody, she thought, had ever known of her understanding with Sydney Vane in days gone by; nobody had any clue to the secret of his death; so long as Hubert was silent, she had nothing at all to fear; and Hubert had succumbed to her for so long that she did not dread him now.

Nothing seemed to her more unlikely than that after so many years he should deliberately divest himself of name and fame, clear Westwood's reputation at the cost of his own, and sacrifice his freedom for the sake of a scruple of conscience. Flossy did not believe him foolish enough or self-denying enough to do all that--and in her estimate of her brother's character perhaps, after all, Flossy was very nearly right.

Sabina Meldreth presented herself to Cynthia and Mrs. Jenkins that evening, and was not very graciously received. However, she proved herself both capable and willing, and was speedily acknowledged--by Mrs.

Jenkins, at least--to be "a great help in the house." Cynthia said nothing; she hardly seemed to know that a stranger was present. Her whole soul was absorbed in the task of nursing Hubert. When he slept, she did not leave the house; she lay on a sofa in another room. She could not bear to be far away from Hubert; and more and more, as the days went on and the delirium was not subdued, did she shrink from the knowledge that any other ears beside her own should hear the ravings of the patient--should marvel at the extraordinary things he said, and wonder whether or no there was any truth in them.

"He talked in this way because he has brooded over my poor father's fate!" Cynthia said to herself, with piteous insistence. "He must have been so much distressed at finding that I was the daughter of Andrew Westwood that his mind dwelt on all the details of the trial; and now he fancies almost that he did the deed himself. I have read of such strange delusions in books. When he is better, no doubt the delusion will die away. It shows how powerfully his mind was affected by what I told him--the constant cry that he sees no way out of it shows how he must have brooded over the matter. No way out of it indeed, my darling, until the person who murdered Mr. Vane is discovered and brought to justice! And I almost believe that my father is right, and that the murderer, directly or indirectly, was Mrs. Vane."