‘And now I must write to that poor child, Constance. But oh, Bertha, don’t condemn hastily! Haven’t I had enough of that?’
CHAPTER XXXIII
DARKNESS
Full a week later, Frank looked up from his pillow, and said, ‘I wonder when it will be safe to have Mite back. Mary, sweet, what is it? I have been sure something was burthening you. Come and tell me. If he has the fever, you must go to him. No!’ as she clasped his hand and laid her face down on the pillow.
‘Ah, Frank, he does not want us any more!’
‘My Mary, my poor Mary, have you been bearing such knowledge about with you? For how long?’
‘Since that worst day, yesterday week. Oh, but to see you getting better was the help!’
‘Can you tell me?’
She told him, in that low, steady voice, all she knew. It was very little, for she had avoided whatever might break the composure that seemed so needful to his recovery; and he could listen quietly, partly from the lulling effect of weakness, partly from his anxiety for her, and the habit of self-restraint, in which all the earlier part of their
lives had been passed, made utterance come slowly to them.
‘Life will be different to us henceforth,’ he once said. ‘We have had three years of the most perfect happiness. He gave and He hath taken away. Blessed—’