"You have done something for her?"
"Oh, yes--Tochatti and I have done all we can, but"--for a second Chloe's face quivered--"we can't do anything more, and I'm afraid if something isn't done soon----"
The child on the bed gave a sudden convulsive cry, and Chloe's white face grew still paler.
"You see--she's in horrible pain, and--oh, why doesn't the doctor come? We've rung up again and again, and they've never answered!"
"Shall we go and fetch him, Chloe? The car's here, and we'll bring him back in no time!" He turned to Iris. "You'll come?"
She hesitated.
"Won't you go--and I'll stay here?"
Chloe looked up at that.
"No, Iris. I don't want you to stay--yet. Go with Bruce, and when you come back you shall stay--if you will."
"Very well." Iris deemed it best to do as she was requested. "We will go--immediately--we shall soon be back."
They ran downstairs together as swiftly as they had run up a few minutes earlier; and in an incredibly short space of time the car was flying through the sweet night air once more.
Arriving at the Gables they could win no response to their ringing; but it was imperative they should gain an entrance; and so it came about that the first time Iris entered Anstice's house she entered it unheralded, and unwelcomed by any friendly greeting.
So, too, it came about that when Anstice at last awoke to the fact that there were other human beings in the house beside himself he realized, with a pang of consternation and amazement sufficiently sharp to pierce even through the fog which clouded his spirit, that one of his uninvited guests was the girl from whom, a few short hours earlier, he had parted, as he thought, for ever.
He half rose from the couch on which he crouched, and stared at the advancing figures with haunted eyes.
"I ... I ..." His voice, husky, uncertain, brought both his visitors to a halt; and for a wild moment he fancied that after all they were no real beings, only more than usually vivid shadows, projected visions from the whirling phantasmagoria of his brain. The light behind them, streaming in through the open door, confused him, made him feel as though this were all a trick of the nerves, a kind of chaotic nightmare; and with a muttered curse at his own folly in imagining for one moment that Iris Wayne herself stood before him, he fell back on the couch and closed his aching eyes wearily.