"My dear child, it seems unkind to desert you in your crippled condition, but I feel assured Peyton and Hannah will nurse you faithfully; and every moment that I can be with Douglass seems doubly precious now."
"Do you think I would keep you even if I could from him? Oh! don't you wish we were going with him to India?"
"Indeed I do, from the depths of my soul. What shall we do without our Bishop?"
Bending over the girl the mother wept unrestrainedly, but Mr.
Hargrove called from the threshold:
"Come, Elise."
As Mrs. Lindsay turned to leave the room, she beckoned to Hannah.
"Carry her upstairs and undress her; and if she suffers much pain, don't fail to send for the doctor."
A white image of hopeless misery, Regina lay listening till the sound of departing steps became inaudible, and when Hannah left the room the girl groaned aloud in the excess of her grief:
"I did not even say good-bye. I did not once thank him for all he did for me in the storm! And now I know, I feel I shall never see him again! Oh, Douglass!"
The glass door leading into the flower-garden stood open, and Mr. Lindsay who had been watching her from the cover of the clustering honeysuckle, stepped back into the room.