"You can't do any good here, Miss Carruthers," said the old woman; and Clare thought she had never heard her speak so sternly and harshly. "I don't know that any one can do any good; but you can't anyhow, and the fever may be catching."
Clare's eyes filled with tears, not only because she loved Mrs. Carruthers, not only because another trouble was added to the crushing misery that had fallen upon her, but also because it hurt her gentle nature keenly to feel herself of no account.
"No," she said, in a low voice, "I know I am of no use, Mrs. Brookes. I am not her child. If I were, I should not be expected to leave her. And," she added bitterly, for the first time treading on the forbidden ground, "more than that, if it were not for me, her son might be with her now, perhaps."
"Hush, hush, pray," whispered Mrs. Brookes, with a frightened glance at the bed; "don't say that word! She may hear and understand more than we think."
Clare looked at her in bewilderment, but obeyed her, and asked no questions.
"These came just now," she said, "my uncle desired me to give them to you."
She put the letters into the old woman's hand, and crossed the room, leaving it by the opposite door, which communicated with Mrs. Carruthers's dressing-room. As she passed through the inner apartment, which opened on the corridor, she observed that the portrait of George Dallas, which had hung upon the wall as long as she remembered the room, was no longer there.
The hidden anguish in her own heart, the secret which was crushing her own young spirit, made the girl quick to see and interpret any sign of similar sorrow and mystery.
"Mrs. Brookes has taken away her son's picture," Clare thought, us she slowly descended the stairs, "and she dreads his name being mentioned in her presence. Dr. Munns asked if she had had a shock, and seemed to impute her illness to something of the kind. There is something wrong with George Dallas, and the two know it."
When Miss Carruthers left her, Mrs. Brookes broke the seal of one of the letters without a moment's hesitation, and read its contents, standing shielded from any possible observation by the invalid by the curtains of the bed. The letter contained only a few lines: