"Too late! too late!" murmured Mrs. Goodman in a tone of anguish.
The doctor, who had been occupied in his attentions on the invalid, glanced up and met Philippa's eyes. He recoiled as if in surprise or horror, but in an instant his professional calm reasserted itself.
No sound broke the stillness of the room except the laboured breathing of the poor old woman. Philippa gazed at the still white face, perfectly still, perfectly white, and apparently lifeless. The nurse raised herself with a sigh which seemed to intimate that all further effort was useless.
The slow minutes passed, and with each moment a greyer shadow crept like a veil over the face of the dying man.
Suddenly Mrs. Goodman spoke, sharply, and in a voice that sounded strident in the silence.
"Speak to him! call him!" she said.
A clutch of emotion strangled Philippa; her one conscious feeling was pity--pity overwhelming and profound. Pity for the soul going out into the Great Unknown, lonely, unsatisfied, craving something which it seemed that only she could supply. She fell on her knees beside the bed, and laid her warm hands on the frail white ones which were growing cold, so cold.
She felt some one remove her hat, and then again came the prompting insistent voice at her elbow.
"Call him! Call him!----Francis!"
And then she called--all her sorrow for the sick and suffering, all her potential motherhood ringing in her young voice.
"Francis!" Then louder, "Francis! Can you hear me? Francis! It is Philippa!" Again the breathless silence. Then, intent only on the task of gaining a response, she slipped her arm under the pillow, and leaning her face closer and closer, she called again and again. Did an eyelid flicker? Was it imagination, or was the deathly pallor changing slightly? Were the shadows round the drawn mouth less dark?
The doctor with his fingers on the pulse bent forward. "Again!" he said gruffly. "Once more!"
And again the girl's voice rang through the silent room in urgent appeal: "Francis! Francis!"
One long breath--another--and the eyes opened--vague, unseeing, turning this way and that until they found what they sought, and in them slowly dawned the light of recognition. A little later--low, very low--a whisper, in which content and joy triumphed over weakness--clear enough to the anxious listeners: "Phil! Darling!"
Two hours later Philippa went to her room. The doctor had gone, to return at evening; the invalid was sleeping, for the moment all was as well as could be expected, and it was considered probable that he would sleep for some hours. Her limbs were stiff and cramped from the position in which she had remained, fearing that the slightest movement on her part would snap the frail thread which we call life. When it became evident that the sleep was sound and strengthening she had crept away.