CHAPTER XXXII.
“My child!”
The feeble call startled Olive out of a dream, wherein she was walking through one of those lovely visionary landscapes—more glorious than any ever seen by day—with her mother and with Harold Gwynne.
“Yes, darling,” she answered, in a sleepy, happy voice, thinking it a continuation of the dream.
“Olive, I feel ill—very ill! I have a dull pain here, near my heart. I cannot breathe. It is so strange—so strange!”
Quickly the daughter rose, and groped through the faint dawn for a light: she was long accustomed to all offices of tender care by night and by day. This sudden illness gave her little alarm; her mother had so many slight ailments. But, nevertheless, she roused the household, and applied all the simple remedies which she so well knew how to use.
But there must come a time when all physicians' arts fail: it was coming now. Mrs. Rothesay's illness increased, and the daylight broke upon a chamber where more than one anxious face bent over the poor blind sufferer who suffered so meekly. She did not speak much: she only held closely to Olive's dress, sorrowfully murmuring now and then, “My child—my child!” Once or twice she eagerly besought those around her to try all means for her restoration, and seemed anxiously to expect the coming of the physician. “For Olive's sake—for Olive's sake!” was all the reason she gave.
And suddenly it entered into Olive's mind that her mother felt herself about to die.
Her mother about to die! She paused a moment, and then flung the horror from her as a thing utterly impossible. So many illnesses as Mrs. Rothesay had passed through—-so many times as her daughter had clasped her close, and dared Death to come nigh one who was shielded by so much love! It could not be—there was no cause for dread. Yet Olive waited restlessly during the morning, which seemed of frightful length. She busied herself about the room, talking constantly to her mother; and by degrees, when the physician still delayed, her voice took a quick, sharp, anxious tone.
“Hush, love, hush!” was the soft reproof. “Be content, Olive; he will come in time. I shall recover, if it so please God.”