Philip dropped into an armchair. His forehead was bathed in perspiration. He was seized with a convulsive trembling, caused by the rage that he felt at not being able to avenge there and then the outrageous conduct of General Sabaroff towards his wife. If he had known at that moment where to find the Russian, he would have gone straightway and had it out with him. He went through a torment of impotent fury and disappointment at thinking that his arrival had been but a few moments too late.

"Fool that I was!" he cried, "what have I done? Then Dora thinks"—he dared not utter his thought—"and, if so, I am guilty in her mind of the vilest, the most despicable act that a man can commit—it is a frightful idea! And yet my indifference, my insistence that Dora should receive that man, when she implored me not to oblige her to submit to his company—Sabaroff loves her still then? Or does he, too, believe that he was encouraged by me? Oh, but the thought is horrible! The idea of it is maddening. Fool that I have been!"

For the first time he saw the enormity of his conduct. He called himself coward and criminal. In that dreadful hour he awoke from his dream and became himself again. The veil fell from his eyes, the transformation was complete. To do him justice there was no more inventor, no more blindly ambitious seeker after wealth, but the Philip of former days with no thought but for Dora. He would have given, that night, his last farthing for a smile from her!

Philip rose suddenly from his seat. He must take a resolution on the spot. He was face to face with a vital crisis on which all his future life depended. His first impulse was to go to Dora and throw himself at her feet to implore her pardon. "No," he said to himself, "as long as that contract exists, there is nothing to be done." He held it in his hands, that paper which had cost Dora so much. It burned to the touch. He looked at it twice, and he read it through. His mind was at once made up—tear up the thing, and fling it in the face of Sabaroff!

During this time there was much movement, much sound of coming and going on the staircase and in the hall. Suddenly Philip recognised the voice of Dr. Templeton saying, "It is the only way to save her, at least the only hope." Upon this a servant came rapidly downstairs, and Philip stopped him in the hall to ask—

"Where are you going?"

"To St. George's Hospital," was the reply.

"For Miss Eva? Is she worse?"

"Yes, sir; it appears that they are going to perform tracheotomy," said the man, who had heard the word and repeated it correctly.

Philip flew upstairs. When he reached the door of Eva's room, saw the child half choking and unconscious, and saw Dora kneeling by the bedside, he dared not enter, but stood in the doorway—heart-broken, pale, and immobile as death. That which crowned his misery and despair was the fact that Dora had not thought of sending down for him in such a moment as this. With difficulty he repressed the sob that rose from his heart. He realised then all the depth of the abyss that separated him now from his wife and child, an abyss of his own digging. No, he, adoring Eva as he did, dared not penetrate into the room where she lay.

Almost immediately a surgeon and two students arrived from the hospital. Philip let them pass, and then took up his post of observation again; but when he saw them open the case that contained the shining steel instruments and little sponges, the needles and all the apparatus for their operation; when he saw the surgeon sign to Dora to rise and, by a touch firm and gentle, direct her to leave the bedroom, Philip could bear up no longer, all his courage forsook him. He fled to the library, and there let his choking tears have way. Wretched and forsaken, he broke down utterly.

"O God!" he cried, "it is too much; I have not deserved such punishment."

Gabrielle was a great help to the doctors, and prompt and reliable in her movements—a nurse of the first order. She watched with a calm, clear vision the work of the bistoury on the little throat, and knew exactly when to hand the implements necessary, as the work proceeded, and earned the compliment of the surgeon thereupon; but it was not merely her nurse's intelligence that was at work, it was her love for the child she ached to save.

The preparation being completed, the surgeon with a hand at once deft and rapid, introduced the tube into the trachea. Eva opened her eyes almost immediately. A flush of living colour returned to her face, and she breathed freely again. The tube was then bandaged into place, and a long silk hankerchief tied firmly round the throat. Soon the child's face lost its aspect of deathly struggle, and put on a smiling look of profound relief and happy peace. Her countenance lit up with a seraphic light; it was as though the child's soul had just been wafted back to its dwelling-place from a visit to paradise.

When all was done, Dora was fetched and shown the success of the operation.

"Then she is saved!" she cried, clasping her hands and lifting to heaven a glance of thanksgiving.

"Not yet," said the doctor; "there remains the morbid action to cure; but there is hope, every hope. Only you must watch the child with extreme attention; she must not be left for a moment. She must not be allowed to move for some time. If the tube got displaced, or if the heart, which is very feeble, should receive the least shock, everything would be over in a moment. But," added he, "I confide your child to this lady's care," indicating Gabrielle; "I have seldom met with a nurse so gifted. Rely in all security upon her; I have given her my instructions, and she knows to the full the importance of them."

The surgeon bowed to Dora, and departed.

Dora returned to the bedside on tiptoe, and, placing her finger on her lips, made signs to Eva that she was to keep perfectly quiet; then, throwing her a kiss and a smile of a guardian angel, she sat down beside the child. Her face betrayed no sign of weakness, expressed neither grief nor despair; it was scarcely sad. She had the look of a man who throws himself into the sea, to try and save some beloved friend in deadly peril of drowning.

Philip did not go to bed. He begged Gabrielle to come two or three times during the night to tell him how the child fared, and he remained in the library. Dora watched all night by Eva's bed. She was valiant, and inspired others with her own brave spirit. She had thrown aside the thought of all that had happened in the drawing-room a few hours before; far, indeed, from her thoughts was the man who had insulted her, and who no longer existed in her thoughts—the distracted mother had swamped the indignant woman. It was with death that she had to fight now, and she fought with a sang-froid and a courage that were the astonishment and admiration of all who surrounded her.

The morning and the afternoon passed without new disquieting symptoms arising, and at night the doctor left his patient going on satisfactorily.

The following morning, about seven o'clock, Dora, worn out with excitement, had fallen into a dose.

Gabrielle went to tell Philip that Eva also was sleeping, and that such sleep was a very good sign. Their hopes rose considerably. Philip could not resist the longing he had to go and look upon his wife and child, both sleeping calmly at last, unconscious of pain and anxiety. He crept stealthily upstairs, opened very softly the door of the dear child's room, and with loving eyes looked towards the bed. Unhappily, Eva had just woke up. She saw in the doorway her father whom she loved, and had not seen for several days; she raised herself eagerly and tried to call, "Daddy." The little form fell back heavily upon the pillow.

When Gabrielle came into the room again, Dora was still sleeping. Eva slept too, but it was the sleep from which none waken.