She turned away her head slightly, and made no answer.
“I, who am utterly alone here,” said he, in a broken voice. “Is this, too, like my old comrade's sister?” There was a peevishness in the way he spoke this of which he seemed himself to be ashamed the moment the words were uttered; and he quickly added, “What a fellow I am to say this to you!—you, who have done so much for me,—you, who promised to be a daughter to my poor mother when I am gone!”
“But you are not to take this gloomy view,” said she, hastily; “the surgeons all pronounce you better; they agree that your wounds progress favorably, and that, in a week or two, you may be removed to Constantinople, and thence to England.”
He gave a faint, sickly smile of most melancholy meaning.
“And what will not the cheery, bracing air of those Welsh mountains do, aided by the kind care of that best of nurses, a fond mother?”
“And where will you be by that time?” asked he, eagerly.
“Journeying away eastward to some far-away land, still more friendless!” said she, sadly.
“This, then, is the sum of all my good fortune, that when life opens fairly for me, it shall be bereft of all that I care for!” cried he, wildly.
Terrified by the excited tone in which he spoke, as well as by the feverish lustre of his eyes, Sybella tried to calm and soothe him, but he listened—if, indeed, he heard her—with utter apathy.
“Come!” cried he, at last, “if your resolve be taken, so is mine. If you leave for India, I shall never quit the Crimea.”