“Ah!  Cecil, it was not her doing.”

“You don’t mean it was his own?  Papa is not afraid.  You are not afraid.  If it had been he, I wouldn’t have feared anything.  I would have nursed him day and night till—­till I made him care for me.”

“Hush, dear Cecil,” said Rosamond, with great difficulty.  “I know you would, and so would he have done for you, only the cruel fever kept you apart.”

“The fever!  He had it?”

“Yes, he had it.”

“But he is better.  I am better.  Let me be taken to him.  His mother is not there now.  I heard them say she was in Frank’s room.  Call papa.  He will carry me.”

“Oh! poor, poor Cecil.  His mother only went to Frank when he did not need her any more.”  And Rosamond hid her face on the bed, afraid to look.

Cecil lay back so white, that Grindstone approached with some drops, but this made her spring up, crying, “No, no, don’t come near me!  You never told me!  You deceived me!”

“Don’t, don’t, ma’am—­my dear Miss Charnock—­now.  It was all for the best.  You would not have been here now.”

“And then I should be with him.  Rosamond, send her away, I can’t bear her.  She sent him away from me that night.  I heard her.”

“My dear Cecil, this will not do.  You are making your father dreadfully unhappy.  Dear Raymond stayed with you till he really could not sit up any longer, and then he kissed you.”

“Kissed me!  Oh, where?  Did you see?  No, don’t ask Grindstone.  She made me think he had left me, and fancy—­oh, Rosamond! such—­ such things!  And all the time—­”

The moaning became an anguish of distress, unable to weep, like terrible pain, as the poor young thing writhed in Rosamond’s arms.  It was well that this one sister understood what had been in Cecil’s heart, and did believe in her love for Raymond.  Rosamond, too, had caressing power beyond any other of the family, and thus she could better deal with the sufferer, striving, above all, to bring tears by what she whispered to her as she held her to her bosom.  They were a terrible storm at last, but Cecil clung to Rosamond through all, absolutely screaming when Grindstone came near; poor Grindstone who had been so devoted, though mistaken.  Weakness, however, after the first violent agitation was soothed, favoured a kind of stunned torpor, and Cecil lay still, except when her maid tried to do anything for her, and then the passion returned.  When old Susan Alston came with a message, she was at once recognized and monopolized, and became the only servant whom she would suffer about her.

The inconvenience was great, but relapse was such an imminent danger, that it was needful to give up everything to her; and Mr. Charnock, regarding his daughter’s sufferings as the only ones worth consideration, seemed to pursue Rosamond the instant she had sat down by the still feeble, weary, convalescent Terry, imploring her to return to Cecil with the irresistible force of tearful eyes and piteous descriptions; and as Terry had a week’s start in recovery, and was not a widow under twenty-two, he had to submit, and lie as contentedly as he could in his solitude.