“I don’t know.  I want you to tell me.  That’s what I’ve come for.  I’m frightened.”

“D’you mean, is she worse?”

She did not answer him.  She looked at him as if she were trying to read in his eyes something that he was trying not to tell her.

“Yes,” he said, “she is worse.”

“I know that,” she said impatiently.  “I can see it.  You’ve got to tell me more.”

“But I have told you.  You know I have,” he pleaded.

“I know you tried to tell me.”

“Didn’t I succeed?”

“You told me why she was ill—­I know all that——­”

“Do sit down.”  He turned from her and dragged the armchair forward.  “There.”  He put a cushion at her back.  “That’s better.”

As she obeyed him she kept her eyes on him.  The book he had been reading lay where he had put it down, on the hearthrug at her feet.  Its title, “Etat mental des hysteriques;” Janet, stared at him.  He picked it up and flung it out of sight as if it had offended him.  With all his movements her head lifted and turned so that her eyes followed him.

He sat down and gazed at her quietly.

“Well,” he said, “and what didn’t I tell you?”

“You didn’t tell me how it would end.”

He was silent.

“Is that what you told father?”

“Hasn’t he said anything?”

“He hasn’t said a word.  And you went away without saying anything.”

“There isn’t much to say that you don’t know——­”

“I know why she was ill.  You told me.  But I don’t know why she’s worse.  She was better.  She was quite well.  She was running about doing things and looking so pretty—­only the other day.  And look at her now.”

“It’s like that,” said Rowcliffe.  “It comes and goes.”

He said it quietly.  But the blood rose into his face and forehead in a painful flush.

“But why?  Why?” she persisted.  “It’s so horribly sudden.”

“It’s like that, too,” said Rowcliffe.

“If it’s like that now what is it going to be?  How is it going to end?  That’s what you won’t tell me.”

“It’s difficult——­” he began.

“I don’t care how difficult it is or how you hate it.  You’ve got to.”

All he said to that was “You’re very fond of her?”

Her upper lip trembled.  “Yes.  But I don’t think I knew it until now.”

“That’s what makes it difficult.”

“My not knowing it?”

“No.  Your being so fond of her.”

“Isn’t that just the reason why I ought to know?”

“Yes.  I think it is.  Only——­”

She held him to it.

“Is she going to die?”

“I don’t say she’s going to die.  But—­in the state she’s in—­she might get anything and die of it if something isn’t done to make her happy.”

“Happy——­”

“I mean of course—­to get her married.  After all, you know, you’ve got to face the facts.”