Winn sat down and steepled his fingers. “I need your full attention, my lord. We are presented with two options.”

Quill took Gabby’s limp hand in his.

“A stimulant is the most obvious solution,” Winn noted. “But I must say that given your wife’s utter lack of response to coffee, I am not convinced that stronger stimulants will be efficacious.”

“The danger?”

“Her heart may fail,” Winn said bluntly.

Quill clutched Gabby’s hand.

“The second option is far more experimental, but I believe it would be my choice. I would suggest that we give her a small dose of laudanum. Laudanum is an interesting drug,” he said meditatively, “soporific in small doses and poisonous in large doses. And highly addictive, of course,” he added.

“What would be the good of administering a soporific? She’s already asleep.”

“A soporific sometimes counters a sleep-inducing poison. We do not understand the mechanism behind it.”

“And the danger?”

“No danger, really,” Winn said. “But if it doesn’t work, the stimulants certainly will not. She will fall into a deeper sleep, if possible. And a sleep so deep…I will leave you to make a choice, my lord.”

“No,” Quill said, his voice harsh. “I’ve made my choice. Give her the laudanum.”

“You do understand that the chances of the medicine being effective are very small?”

Quill simply nodded, and Winn opened up his small bag. Quill watched silently as the doctor gave his wife a dose of laudanum.

“When will we know?”

“Quite soon,” Winn said placidly. “May I suggest that you give your wife some more water, my lord?”

Quill spooned the water into Gabby’s mouth, suspecting that the doctor was merely keeping him occupied.

An hour passed. Quill sat by the bedside watching Gabby’s face for any change in color, for any sign that she was waking up. A heavy sense of doom was sinking into his heart.

Slowly it dawned on him that she wasn’t entirely there. Her body had become a shell, discarded by the beautiful self that was Gabby.

“My wife is dead,” he said hoarsely, after two hours.

Winn shook his head. He was standing at the foot of the bed. “She is not dead, my lord.”

But Quill hardly heard him. “I should like you to leave now,” he said numbly. “The laudanum has been ineffective. I would like to…to be alone with her for the little time we have left together.”

Winn opened his mouth and then thought better of it. “I shall wait downstairs,” he said. “Please call me if you require any assistance.”