His face fell; but he asked, “Coming back—when?”
She shook her head, and her eyes filled with tears, as she wrote: “Sirenwood is to be put up to auction.”
“Your sister?” began Frank, and then his eye fell on her crape trimmings. He touched her sleeve, and made a low wail. “Oh! is every one dead?”
It was the first perception he had shown of any death, though mourning had been worn in his room. His mother leant down to kiss him, bidding Lena tell him the truth; and she wrote:
“I am left alone with poor papa. Let me go—now you can do without me.”
“Can I?” he asked, again grasping her hand.
She pointed to his mother and Anne; but he repeated, “You—you!”
“When you are better we will see how it is to be,” she wrote.
He looked sadly wistful. “No, I can’t now. Something was very wrong; but it won’t come back. By and by. If you wouldn’t go—”
But his voice was now more weak and weary, tired by the effort, and a little kneeling by him, allowing his tender touch, soothed him, enough to say submissively, “Good-bye, then—I’ll come for you”—wherewith he faltered into slumber.