"Your brow is hot and feverish," said she, rising to depart. "I caution you to calm yourself and take some rest, or severe sickness will prostrate you ere long."
"And why should I fear sickness or death," asked Louise, in a hopeless tone, "when the only calm for me is the calm of the grave, the only rest its dreamless slumbers?"
Mrs. Stanhope gazed on the suffering face with tearful pity, and turned away. On opening the hall door, she encountered Col. Malcome, pacing to and fro on the icy piazza. He started suddenly on beholding her, and asked if she came from Mrs. Edson. Mrs. Stanhope answered affirmatively.
"And how have you left her?" inquired he, with an expression of strong anxiety and emotion on his features.
"She seems deeply afflicted," returned Mrs. Stanhope.
"Does she still persist in refusing to see her friends?" asked he.
"She is thus disposed, I regret to say," was Mrs. Stanhope's reply.
"Would you do me the favor to return, and entreat her to grant me a few moments in her presence?" inquired he, in an earnest tone.
"I will perform your request with pleasure," she said; "but I fear I shall bring you naught but a gloomy refusal." Thus saying, she reëntered the apartment of Louise.
"I am come with a petition, Mrs. Edson," she remarked, approaching her side, and laying a hand softly on the bowed head. "Will you grant it your favor?"