''Tis ever so, if I leave him for but half-an-hour,' said Alison, in a low voice. 'No one comes to him; they let his cup be empty and his fire go out. Oh, I've been cruel to leave him so long,' she cried, with a pang of remorse. She held the cup to his lips, and in her strong young arms raised the supine and helpless form against the pillows. Herries, inexpressibly shocked, with a sense of foreboding against which he vainly strove, watched her.
'But, Alison!' he whispered, passionately, 'this—this is your mother's duty. She's bound to it by every law of marriage—by every impulse of humanity.'
'You do not know my mother, sir,' said Alison, quietly; 'God forgive me for these unnatural words against her that bore me. But my mother has her health, and is, besides, of an impatient nature, and cannot understand that others should be sick and feeble.... I'll say no more.'
They went together to the far end of the low, long room, which was now getting dark.
'But this is monstrous!' said Herries, vehemently, 'a second sacrifice—I repeat it! You sacrificed me once to Nancy—and now you would sacrifice me to another. You cannot love me!'
'I love you,' said Alison, intently, 'I love you better than all the world—better than my poor father. But, or ever I saw your face, Archie, I knew his, and he has been a good father to me. God would surely desert me if, knowing what I do of things at home, I were to leave him in his helplessness. Archie, you'll not bring me to tempt God's anger?' It was almost a cry, but Herries would not hear the justice in it.
'Then I go,' he said, sore and angry, 'I go, uncomforted and alone.' But Alison clung to him with a sob.
'Oh, no—no—no!' she whispered, 'don't leave me, Archie—oh, not yet! I've been so long alone—so long—and never a sight of your face, and sometimes I would be nearly mad to think I might forget it. But no—I have remembered every line.'
Herries held his breath, and in the poignant sacredness of the moment his heart stood still. For never had Alison's arms held him as they did just now, or her eyes read his face; and he felt that woman's passion, unashamed, had taken the place of a girl's timid love. Her fingers touched his hair, and yet, somehow, with all its passion, it was a touch that might have been his mother's.
'You're gotten so grey, Archie,' she said, with a little tender laugh. 'You'll scarcely need the powder now!'