“My own dear grandpapa,” said Lucy, stretching out her arms to him from her bed, “how good and kind of you to come here!”
“My dear, dear child,” said he, fondly; “tell me you are not ill; tell me that it is a mere passing indisposition.”
“Not even so much, grandpapa. It is simply a headache. I was crying, and I was ashamed that you should see it; and I walked out into the air; and I came back again, trying to look at ease; and my head began to throb and to pain me so that I thought it best to go to bed. It was a letter I got,—a letter from Cagliari. Poor Tom has had the terrible fever of the island. He said nothing about it at first, but now he has relapsed. There are only three lines in his own hand,—the rest is from his friend. You shall see what he says. It is very short, and not very hard to read.”
The old man put on his spectacles and read:—
“'My very dear Lucy.'
“Who presumes to address you in this way? 'Brook Fossbrooke?' What! is this the man who is called Sir Brook Fossbrooke? By what means have you become so intimate with a person of his character?”
“I know nothing better, nothing more truly noble and generous, than his character,” said she, holding her temples as she spoke, for the pain of' her head was almost agony. “Do read on,—read on, dearest grandpapa.”
He turned again to the letter, and read it over in silence till he came to the few words in Tom's hand, which he read aloud: “Darling Lu—I shall be all right in a week. Don't fret, but write me a long—long”—he had forgotten the word “letter,”—“and love me always.”
She burst into tears, as the old man read the words, for by some strange magic, the syllables of deep affection, uttered by one unmoved, smite the heart with a pang that is actual torture.
“I will take this letter down to Beattie, Lucy, and hear what he says of it,” said the old man, and left the room.