"It is Sally!" cried the old man, rising to his feet. "I remember Sally's cough, and in the night I hear it."
There was a moment's silence. Then in the schoolroom Edith coughed. The grandfather came close to his daughter. "There," he whispered, "that is Sally. And you told me she was dead."
Mrs. Avory rose tremblingly to her feet. In her eyes was the vision of her tragic children, all torn to death by the shuddering and insidious Ill that crouched in their breasts and clutched at their throats, and sprang upon them and strangled them when they reached the threshold of their youth. And now Edith, too? Edith, her last-born!
She raised her eyes of Madre Dolorosa to her father's face. Then she fell fainting before him, her grey head at his feet.
Out in the fields, that were alight with daisies, Nino took Valeria's hand and drew her arm through his. "Little cousin," he said, "do you remember how I loved you when you were twelve years old, and scorned me?"
"Yes," laughed Valeria; "and how I loved you when you were sixteen, and had forgotten me."
"But, again," said Nino, "how I loved you when you were eighteen, and refused me."
Valeria looked at him with timorous eyes. "And now I am twenty-seven and a half, and you are only twenty-three."
"True," said Nino. "How young you are! The woman I love is thirty-eight years old."