M.de Chateauvieux was standing on the stairs, his smoothly-shaven, clear-cut face drawn and haggard, and a stoop in his broad shoulders which Kendal had never noticed before.

Kendal sprang up the steps and wrung his hand.
M.de Chateauvieux shook his head almost with a groan, in answer to the brother's inquiry of eye and lip, and led the way upstairs into the forsaken _salon_, which looked as empty and comfortless as though its mistress had been gone from it years instead of days.

Arrived there, the two men standing opposite to each other in the streak of dull light made by the hasty withdrawal of a curtain, Paul said, speaking in a whisper, with dry lips: 'There is no hope--the pain is gone; you would think she was better, but the doctors say she will just lie there as she is lying now till--till--the end.' Kendal staggered over to a chair and tried to realise what he had heard, but it was impossible, although his journey had seemed to him one long preparation for the worst.

'What is it--how did it happen ?' he asked.
'Internal chill.

She was only taken ill the day before yesterday, and the pain was frightful till yesterday afternoon; then it subsided, and I thought she was better--she herself was so cheerful and so thankful for the relief--but when the two doctors came in again, it was to tell me that the disappearance of the pain meant only the worst--meant that nothing more can be done--she may go at any moment.' There was a silence.