Afterwards

Here, with a little ingenuity, a bed was made up of chairs and cushions, which Molly was too worn out to resist; and having seen her sink at once into an uneasy slumber, the two returned to the larger room, where the others still held whispered conclave.

"Dr. Anstice"--Iris laid her hand on his arm, her voice full of the sweetest contrition--"you have had nothing to eat and you must be famished."

"I'm not hungry," he assured her truthfully; but she refused to listen to his protests; and calling Mrs. Wood to her assistance she soon had a meal ready for him. Although the resources of the establishment were limited to tinned food and coffee boiled over a little spirit stove, Anstice was in no mood to criticize anything which Iris set before him. Indeed he could hardly take his eyes from her as she ministered to him; and the food he ate might have been manna for anything he knew to the contrary.

Having finished his hasty meal and assured his kind hostesses that he felt a hundred per cent better thereby, Anstice turned to Mr. Wood with a new seriousness.

"It is nearly eleven o'clock," he said, "and I suppose we should be thinking of taking up our positions? If you and Mr. Garnett are ready, I'll call Hassan to take charge of the other window for a little while, and have a look at my patient yonder."

The other men agreed; and Anstice left them stationing themselves at their posts while he entered the next room and relieved the frightened Rosa from her task of watching the invalid.

As he approached Cheniston's side he saw that as yet no fatal change had occurred. Bruce still lay in a kind of stupor, half-sleep, half-unconsciousness; but his pulse was not perceptibly weaker, and for a wild moment Anstice considered the possibility of his patient's recovery--a possibility which, however, he dared hardly entertain as he looked at the haggard face, the sunken eyes, the peeling lips.

When Iris entered a minute or two later Anstice gave her a few directions, bidding her call him immediately should Bruce awaken; and as she acquiesced and sat down on the hard chair lately vacated by the maid, Anstice looked at her with a feeling of rather helpless compassion.

"Mrs. Cheniston, I'm so awfully sorry to have to ask you to sit up. You're worn out, I know, and I wish you could get some sleep."

"Oh, don't bother about me!" She smiled up at him, and his heart contracted within him at the look of fatigue in her face. "I'm immensely strong, you know--and I can sleep to-morrow. Only"--the smile faded out of her eyes, leaving them very sad--"do you think there is any possibility of Bruce being better in the morning?"