“If all goes well, when do you expect he will be able to return to the New Theatre?”

“That,” said Maurice, remembering Miss Burgoyne’s hint, “it is quite impossible to say.”

“Thanks,” said the reporter.  “Good-night.”  And therewith Mangan returned to the sick-room.

He found that Lionel had forgotten all about having been startled into silence by the tapping at the outer door.  His heated brain was busy with other bewildering possibilities now.

“Maurice—­Maurice!” he said, eagerly.  “It is near the time—­quick, quick!—­get me the box—­behind the music—­on the piano—­”

“Look here, Linn,” said his friend, with some affectation of asperity, “you must really calm yourself and be silent, or I shall have to go and sit in the other room.  You are straining your throat every time you speak, and exciting yourself as well.”

“Ah, and it is my last chance!” Lionel said, piteously, and with burning eyes.  “If you only knew, Maurice, you would not refuse!”

“Well, tell me quietly what you want,” Mangan said.

“The box—­on the top of the piano,” Lionel made answer, in a low voice, but his eyes were tremblingly anxious.  “Quick, Maurice!”

Mangan went and without any difficulty found the box that held Nina’s trinkets, and returned with it.

“Open it!” Lionel said, clearly striving to conceal his excitement.  “Yes, yes—­put those other things aside—­yes, that is it—­the two cups—­take them separate; it isn’t twelve yet, is it?  No, no; there will be time; now put them on the table by the window there—­yes, that is it—­now pour some wine into them—­never mind what, Maurice, only be quick!”

Well, he could not refuse this appeal; he thought that most likely the yielding to these incoherent wishes would prove the best means of pacifying the fevered mind; so he went into the next room and brought back some wine, and half filled the two tiny goblets.

“Now, wait, Maurice,” Lionel said, slowly, and in a still lower voice, though his eyes were afire.  “Wait and watch—­closely, closely—­don’t breathe or speak.  It is near twelve.  Watch!  Do not take your eyes off them; and at twelve o’clock, when you see one of the cups move, then you must seize it—­seize it, and seize Nina’s hand!—­and hold her fast!  Oh, I can tell you she will not leave us any more—­not when I have spoken to her and told her how cruel it was of her to go away.  I do not know where she is now; but at twelve, all of a sudden, there will be a kind of trembling of the air—­that is Nina—­for she has been here before; how long to twelve now, Maurice?” he asked, eagerly.

“Oh, it is a long time till twelve yet,” his friend said.  “I think, if I were you, I would try to sleep for an hour or two; and I’ll go into the other room so as not to disturb you.”

“No, no, Maurice,” Lionel said, with panting vehemence.  “You must not stir!  It is quite near, I tell you—­it is close on twelve—­watch the cups, Maurice, and be ready to spring up and seize her hand and hold her fast.  Quite near twelve—­surely I hear something—­it is something outside the window—­like stringed instruments—­and waves, dark waves—­no, no!  Maurice, Maurice! it is in the next room!—­it is some one sobbing!—­it is Nina!—­Nina!”