It was no easy matter now to dress the wasted figure; but Pauline seemed to have the strength, the energy of twenty nurses. She was always willing, always cheerful, always ready; night and day seemed alike to her; she would look at her hands, and say:
"Oh! Elinor, I wish I could give you one-half my strength—one-half my life!"
"Do you? Pauline, if you could give me half your life, would you do so?"
"As willingly as I am now speaking to you," she would answer.
They dressed the poor lady, whose delicate beauty had faded like some summer flower. She sat at the window in a soft nest of cushions which Pauline had prepared for her, her wasted hands folded, her worn face brightened with the summer sunshine. She was very silent and thoughtful for some time, and then Pauline, fearing that she was dull, knelt in the fashion that was usual to her at Lady Darrell's feet, and held the wasted hands in hers.
"What are you thinking about, Elinor?" Pauline asked. "Something as bright as the sunshine?"
Lady Darrell smiled.
"I was just fancying to myself that every blossom of that white magnolia seemed like a finger beckoning me away," she said; "and I was thinking also how full of mistakes life is, and how plainly they can be seen when we come to die."
Pauline kissed the thin fingers. Lady Darrell went on.
"I can see my own great mistake, Pauline. I should not have married Sir Oswald. I had no love for him—not the least in the world; I married him only for position and fortune. I should have taken your warning, and not have come between your uncle and you. His resentment would have died away, for I am quite sure that in his heart he loved you; he would have forgiven you, and I should have had a happier, longer life. That was my mistake—my one great mistake. Another was that I had a certain kind of doubt about poor Aubrey. I cannot explain it; but I know that I doubted him even when I loved him, and I should have waited some time before placing the whole happiness of my life in his hands. Yet it seems hard to pay for those mistakes with my life, does it not?"