"Miss Meldreth, how dare you try to deceive a dying woman?" said the Rector, so sternly that even Sabina quailed a little before the deep low tones of his voice. "Yes, Mrs. Meldreth, Miss Enid Vane is here, and you can say all that you wish to say to her."
"I am here, nurse," said Enid gently—she had always been in the habit of addressing Mrs. Meldreth by that title. "Do you want me?"
"Oh, my dearie," said the old woman dreamily, "and have you come to me after all? Sabina there, she tried to keep you away; but I had my will at last. Polly told you that I wanted you, didn't she, Miss Enid dear?"
"Yes, nurse, she told me."
"I'll pay Polly Moss out for that!" Sabina was heard to mutter between her closed teeth. But Enid took no notice of the words.
"I'd something to say to you, my dearie," said Mrs. Meldreth, whose voice, though feeble, was now perfectly distinct; "and 'dearie' I must call you, although I haven't the right to do it now. I held you in my arms, my dear, five minutes after you came into this here wicked world, and I've allus looked on you as one o' my own babies, so to speak."
The delicate color had flushed Enid's cheeks a little, but she answered simply, "Yes, dear nurse;" and, leaning down, she kissed the old woman's forehead.
The caress moved the Rector strangely. His heart gave an odd bound, the blood began to course more rapidly through his veins. He was a clergyman, and he was in the presence of a dying woman; but he was a man for all that, and at the moment when Enid's pure lips were pressed to her old nurse's brow, his whole being was stirred by a new emotion, which as yet he did not suspect was known amongst men by the name of love.
Sabina Meldreth had withdrawn from her station at the foot of the bed; she had moved softly to the side, and now stood by her mother's pillow, opposite to Enid, with her eyes fixed watchfully, balefully, upon her mother's face. But Mrs. Meldreth seemed unconscious of her daughter's gaze.
"I've something to say to you, my pretty," she said, with long pauses between the sentences—longer and longer as the laboring breath became more difficult and the task of speech more painful. "Sabina would nigh kill me if she knew. But I can't die with this thing on my mind. If I've wronged you and yours, and my own flesh and blood as well, I want to make amends."