"No, no. Good-bye, my dear. Tell Felix—he must come—"
Cecilia controlled herself to say so much. Then to the doctor: "Yes—take her, please."
Lettice was hurried away. The haste seemed to her cruel; and she could not see the mercifulness which would hide from her the sight of her sister's suffering. The whole interview with its abrupt termination half crushed her, and she lay for hours after, her face hidden, unable to look up or to bear being spoken to. But Cecilia Anderson was nearly at the end of her voyage. One more sharp tempest, and then her little vessel reached the harbour. Before midnight she had passed away.
The telegram announcing what had happened came heavily upon Felix. He had not allowed himself to think of danger, had not pictured to himself the possibility of any such ending. A letter written on the evening of Thursday, to tell of the fresh attack, did not arrive until after the brief message which said that all was over.
Felix had never known sorrow since his father's death, and then he had been a mere child. The cold touch of bereavement bewildered him. To hear of other people losing their friends was a matter of course, easily dismissed with a pitying word or two; but that he should lose Cecilia—Cecilia, with whom every inch of his life was associated, who had been parent, sister, protector, everything to him—that his Cecilia should have passed away beyond reach, into the world of the unseen, seemed incredible, even horrible. He felt a kind of indignant wrath that death should meddle with him and his, doing away with the pleasant future which he had pictured. Why should he suffer thus, when other people had their sisters spared to them?
Felix did not this time rush off to Mr. Kelly. He went to his work as usual, scarcely half-an-hour late, for the telegram had arrived early: and except that he looked pale and stern, no one would have supposed anything unusual to have occurred. It never so much as came into his mind to ask to remain away from work. Nothing could have been more distasteful than to sit still and think.
The shock did not affect his health; it only caused a species of mental dizziness. Life seemed to wear vague aspect, with all its ordinary curves altered, like the changed slant of a landscape, looked upon from the position of one lying prone on a hill-side. Such disorganised glimpses came to him from time to time, through unbending attention to work; and waves of angry sorrow rose, when by sheer force of habit his mind reverted to its accustomed aim—that little future home, which Cecilia now would never need. Yet none of his accounts were wrong.
A letter came from Prue next morning, containing many details. She spoke of the last meeting between the sisters, and she mentioned slightly Cecilia's agitation: but the direct message to Felix himself was through Lettice, and with that Prue would not meddle. The funeral was to be on Monday afternoon: and Dr. Bryant had telegraphed that he would be present.
"Mr. Anderson of course would go also. Could he not stay at the Farm from Saturday till Tuesday or Wednesday?"
"No: certainly not!" Felix decided this at once, with his unnecessary vehemence, crushing the sheet in his hand. Even for Lettice's sake, he would not be indebted to the Valentines further than was unavoidable. Things were bad enough already. If he had not feared to show disrespect to Cecilia's memory, he would have stayed away altogether. The thought of seeing Dr. Bryant would alone have been almost enough to deter him. But he knew what would be said: and a weak little pencil scrawl from Lettice implored him to go.