I got back as I had come, in the way that struck you as possible when you were there, and I woke my landlady getting in.

I believe I told her everything on the spot, and that it was the last sense I spoke for weeks; she nursed me day and night that I might never tell anybody else." So the story ended, and with it, as might have been expected, the unnatural strength which had sustained the teller till the last; he had used up every ounce of it, and he lay exhausted and collapsed.

Langholm became uneasy.
Severino could not swallow the champagne which Langholm poured into his mouth.
Langholm fetched the candle in high alarm--higher yet at what it revealed.
Severino was struggling to raise himself, a deadly leaden light upon his face.
"Raise me up--raise me up." Langholm raised him in his arms.
"Another--hemorrhage!" said Severino, in a gasping whisper.
And his blood dripped with the words.
Langholm propped him up and rushed out shouting for Brunton--for Mrs.
Brunton--for anybody in the house.

Both were in, and the woman came up bravely without a word.
"I'll go for the doctor myself," said Langholm.

"I shall be quickest." And he went on his bicycle, hatless, with an unlit lamp.
But the doctor came too late..