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Rh Basil turned as white as she, and looked much more terrified.

"When did you telephone?—perhaps you're mistaken?—what time did it begin?—why doesn't he come?" he cried. "I'll telephone again."

He did so, but the specialist was out, and wouldn't be in for an hour. Basil paced the flat in an agony of nervous helplessness. Teresa stood silently by the window, leaning against the frame, looking out on the whirl of sleet that dashed against the glass. Now and then she moved slightly, but made no sound.

The nurse arrived, and Basil dashed out, got a cab, and drove off in pursuit of the doctor; ran him down, and haled him post-haste to the flat; where he pronounced that he would not be needed for many hours to come, and to Basil's dismay went off again. Two figures flickered before Basil's eyes: the nurse, calm and smiling, in her white uniform, moving swiftly about in Teresa's room; and Teresa, in her trailing black dress, walking slowly up and down the drawing-room, and perfectly silent. She did not reply to Basil's anxious questions, and hardly looked at him. He wandered about in a lost way. Dinner stood untasted in the dining-room. He looked into Teresa's room. It was flooded with electric light. All the orange shades, and his wife's other little vanities, had been taken away.