As soon as the doctor had gone Elza came back to Rosemary.
"Poor Maurus," she said. "Have you heard?" "What is the matter?" Rosemary asked.
"As a matter of fact, it was a fit. He had had them before, and you know he was always peculiar. And now the shock! The doctor says we shall have to be very careful with him. He must be watched and kept very quiet."
"Yes; it is that which brought on the fit. The doctor asked me if he had been more than usually agitated the last day or two."
"But he is in no danger?" Rosemary insisted.
"The doctor says not. But then he does not know. If--if the worst happens with--Philip, I don't think that Maurus will live it through."
Elza had allowed Rosemary to lead her into the drawing-room. She sank down against the cushions and Rosemary knelt beside her, with her arms round the poor woman's shoulders.
"Darling," she murmured, "is there anything I can do?"
"No, dear, nothing. What can you do? We are only atoms. So helpless! We can only suffer. I suppose that God wants some of us to suffer, and others to be happy. It seems strange and unjust, but we can't help it. We must just get through with it." Elza spoke jerkily, in a dry, cracked voice, without the slightest ring or modulation in its dull monotony.
"Am I in the way, Elza, darling?" Rosemary went on, trying with loving eyes to probe the secret thoughts that lay hidden behind that set, expressionless face. Elza turned large, round eyes upon her, and for an instant a gleam of tenderness shot through them.
"You are not in the way, darling," she said. "I don't know what I should have done this morning if you had not been there to brace me up. But it is miserable and dull for you here. Fancy you coming all the way from England into this house of misery."
"If you sent me away now," Rosemary said, "I should break my heart with longing to be near you. But--I didn't know whether you would not rather be alone----"
"Alone? I should indeed be alone if you went away. Now that the children are not here . . . and Maurus must be kept very quiet--I should be very lonely if you went."
"But Jasper will be coming soon," she said. "I am sure you won't want him."
"Lord Tarkington is so kind," Elza replied gently, "and he would be company for you. The doctor is sending me a couple of nursing sisters from Cluj, but you know what Maurus is. He gets so impatient if I am not there. So we shall not see much of one another. But it would be a comfort to me to know that you are in the house."