And now a cloud of heavy sorrow and foreboding hung over the little village. All its inhabitants were oppressed by a dreary sense of helpless wretchedness and personal loss. Maryllia was not dead,--but it was to be feared that she was dying,--slowly, and by inches as it were, yet nevertheless surely. A great specialist had been summoned from London by Dr. Forsyth, and after long and earnest consultation, his verdict upon her case had been well-nigh hopeless. Thereupon Cicely Bourne was immediately sent for, and arrived from Paris in all haste, only to fall into a state of utter despair.
For there seemed no possible chance of saving the dear and valuable life of her beloved friend and protectress to whom she owed all her happiness, all her future prospects. And thus confronted with a tragedy more dire and personal than any she had ever pictured in her wildest imaginative efforts, she sat by Maryllia's bedside, hour after hour, day after day, night after night, stunned by grief, watching, weeping, and waiting for the least glimmer of returning consciousness in that unconscious form which lay so terribly inert, like a figure of life-in-death before her, till she became the mere gaunt, little ghost of herself, her large melancholy dark eyes alone expressing the burning vital anguish of her soul. A telegram conveying the sad news of her niece's accident had been sent to Mrs. Fred Vancourt at the Gezireh Palace Hotel, Cairo, to which, with the happy vagueness which so often characterizes the ultra-fashionable woman, Mrs. Fred had replied direct to Maryllia herself thus: "So glad to know where you really are at last, but sorry you have met with a spill. Hope you have a good doctor and nurses. Will write on return from expedition to Luxor. Lord Roxmouth much regrets to hear of accident and thinks it lucky you are back in your own home."
Of course this 'sympathetic' message was not read by its intended recipient at the time of its arrival. Maryllia lay blind, deaf and senseless to all that was going on around her, and for many days gave no sign of life whatever save a faint uneasy breathing and an occasional moan. Cicely was left alone to face all difficulties, to receive and answer all messages and to take upon herself for the time being the ostensible duties of the mistress of Abbot's Manor. She bent her energies to the task, though she felt that her heart must break in the effort,--and with tears blinding her eyes, she told poor Mrs. Spruce, who was quite stupefied by the sudden crash of misfortune that had fallen upon the household, that she meant to try and do her best to keep everything going on just as Maryllia would wish it kept, "till--till--she gets better,"--she faltered sobbingly--"and you will help me, dear Mrs. Spruce, won't you?"