Chapter 62 - Page 2

come to make you well, dear, if you will only look at me!"

As she took his cold limp hand and kissed it, and wiped a red splash from his soft white hair, the dying man felt, by nature's feeling, that he was being touched by a child of his. A faint gleam flitted through the dimness of his eyes, which he had not the power to close, and the longing to say "farewell" contended with the drooping of the underlip. She was sure that he whispered, "Bless you, darling!" though nobody else could have made it out; but a sudden rush of tears improved her hearing, as rain brings higher voices down.

"Dolly too!" he seemed to whisper next; and Faith made a sign to Mrs. Stubbard. Then Dolly was brought, and fell upon her knees, at the other side of her father, and did not know how to lament as yet, and was scarcely sure of having anything to mourn. But she spread out her hands, as if for somebody to take them, and bowed her pale face, and closed her lips, that she might be rebuked without answering.

Her father knew her; and his yearning was not to rebuke, but to bless and comfort her. He had forgotten everything, except that he was dying, with a daughter at each side of him. This appeared to make him very happy, about everything, except those two. He could not be expected to have much mind left; but the last of it was busy for his children's good. Once more he tried to see them both, and whispered his last message to them--"Forgive and love each other."

Faith bowed her head, as his fell back, and silently offered to kiss her sister; but Dolly neither moved nor looked at her. "As you please," said Faith; "and perhaps you would like to see a little more of your handiwork."

For even as she spoke, her lover's body was carried past the window, with his father and mother on either side, supporting his limp arms and sobbing. Then Dolly arose, and with one hand grasping the selvage of the curtain, fixed one long gaze upon her father's corpse. There were no tears in her eyes, no sign of anguish in her face, no proof that she knew or felt what she had done. And without a word she left the room.

"Hard to the last, even hard to you!" cried Faith, as her tears fell upon the cold forehead. "Oh, darling, how could you have loved her so?"

"It is not hardness; it is madness. Follow your sister," Lord Southdown said. "We have had calamities enough."

But Faith was fighting with all her strength against an attack of hysterics, and fetching long gasps to control herself. "I will go," replied Mrs. Stubbard; "this poor child is quite unfit. What on earth is become of Lady Scudamore? A doctor's widow might have done some good."

The doctor's widow was doing good elsewhere. In the first rush from the dining-room, Lady Scudamore had been pushed back by no less a person