CHAPTER XLVII.
“He has given his life in saving mine. Oh, would that I had died for thee—my Harold—my Harold!”
This was evermore Olive's cry during the days of awful suspense, when they knew not but that every hour might be Harold's last. He had broken a bloodvessel in the lungs; through some violent mental emotion, the physician said. Nothing else could have produced such results in his usually strong and manly frame.
“And it was for me—for me!” moaned Olive. “Yet I doubted him—I almost called him cruel. Oh, that I should never have known his heart until now!”
Every feeling of womanly shame vanished before the threatening shadow of death. Night and day, Olive hovered about the door of Harold's room, listening for any sound. But there was always silence. No one passed in and out except his mother,—his mother, on whom Olive hardly dared to look, lest—innocent though she was—she might read reproach in Mrs. Gwynne's sorrowful eye. Once, she even ventured to hint this.
“I angry, because it was in saving you that this happened to my son? No, Olive, no! Whatever God sends, we will bear together.”
Mrs. Gwynne said this kindly, but her heart seemed frozen to every thought except one. She rarely quitted Harold's chamber, and scarcely noticed any person—not even Olive.
One night, or rather early morning, during the time of great crisis, she came out, and saw Olive standing in the passage, with a face whereon was written such utter woe, that before it even the mother's sorrow paled. It seemed to move Mrs. Gwynne deeply.
“My dear, how long have you been here?”