‘Fred is gone to tell them. Sit down, my dear; take off your bonnet, you are heated, you will be better able to go to him, if you are quiet.’
She passively submitted to be placed on a chair, and to remove her bonnet; and seeing some dressing apparatus through an open door, Maurice brought her some cold water to refresh her burning face. She looked up with a smile, herself again. ‘There thank you, Maurice: I wont be foolish now.’
‘God support you, my dear!’ said her brother, for the longer the Colonel tarried, the worse were his forebodings.
‘Perhaps the doctor is there,’ she proceeded. ‘That will be well. Ask him everything, Maurice. But oh! did you ever see any one so much altered as poor Fred! He looks twenty years older! Ah! I am quite good now! I may go now!’ she cried, as the door opened.
But as Frederick returned, there was that written on his brow, which lifted her out of the childishness of her agitation.
‘My dear Albinia,’ he said in a trembling voice, ‘Mr. Kendal cannot leave him to come to you. He has been much worse since last night,’ and as her face showed that she was gathering his meaning, he pursued in a lower and more awe-struck tone: ‘We think he is sensible, but we cannot tell. It could not hurt him for you to come in, and perhaps he may know you, but are you able to bear it? Is she, Maurice?’
‘Yes, I am,’ she answered; and the calm firmness of her tone proved that she was a woman again. Her hand shook less than did that of her cousin, as silently and reverently he took it, and led her into another room on the same floor.
There, in the subdued light, she saw her husband, seated on the bed, holding in his arms his son, who lay lifted up and supported upon his breast, with head resting on his shoulder, and eyes closed. There was no greeting, no sound save the long, heavily drawn, gasping breaths. Mr. Kendal raised his eyes to her; she silently knelt down and took the wasted hand that lay helplessly on the coverlet, but it moved feebly from her as though harassed by the touch.
‘Gilbert, dear boy,’ said his father, earnestly, ‘she is come! Speak to him, Albinia.’
She hardly knew her own voice as she said, ‘Gilbert, Gibbie dear, here I am.’