'Oh! God!—but what?'
'Wounded, I fear, to death. Keep his sister from knowing it too suddenly.'
That was almost impossible. Lady Westhaven had at first sat down in the drawing room in that breathless agony which precluded the power of enquiry; then losing her weakness in desperation, she ran down, determined to know the worst, and was already on the stairs.
Emmeline, white and faint, leaned on Godolphin—'Where is he, where is my brother?' cried Lady Westhaven.
Godolphin beckoned to the servants to assist him in getting her up stairs. After a moment, they were all in the drawing room.
'Tell me,' cried she, with an accent and look of despair—'Tell me for I will know! You have seen my brother; he is killed! I know he is killed!'
'He is alive,' answered Godolphin, hardly bearing to wound her ears with such intelligence as he had to deliver—'at least he was alive when I left him.'
'Was alive! He is wounded then—and dying!'
'It were useless and cruel to deceive you. I greatly fear he is.'
Uttering a faint shriek, Lady Westhaven now sprung towards the door, and protested she would go to him wherever he was. Emmeline clung about her, and besought her to be patient—to be pacified.