"My lamb!" she stammered.
"Oh, Mary," said the man, and his tones rang with boyish note. "Mary dear, brandy! Mary, if you love me, quick."
He sat down on the side of the bed chafing Rosamond's fingers. Silently Aspasia held up a bottle of essence, taken from the dressing-table. He nodded, and she began to lave her aunt's temples, not daring to let her thoughts or eyes rest on the waxen face, on the ominous air of irrevocable repose about the long relaxed figure. She wished the silent lips did not wear that mysterious smile. Determinedly arresting her mind on those strong words: "She is not dead," she felt that so long as she could hold this confidence it would help to keep the dread angel at bay.
"I was too sudden with her," said the man again, "but when I heard her call me, I think I went mad—I had waited so long!"
Then it seemed to Aspasia that, from the first moment since he had spoken to her in the passage to-night, she had known him.
"You are Harry English," she said. And saying this, she began to cry. She looked down at the piteous fixed smile. He had waited so long! Was it not now too late?
"Oh," she said aloud, sobbing, "is it now not too late?"
Then he flung himself on his knees beside the bed, and she drew back, for none should come between them. He gathered the inanimate form into his arms; his lips were close to the deaf ear, and he was speaking into it.
"Rosamond, my wife, Rosamond, I have come back to you—come back to me. Rosamond, beloved!"
The room was suddenly full of people.