“Why did you not keep her out of my way? Gramercy, what a fuss about a girl!”
Then he read his guilt in Heliet’s eyes, and began faltering out excuses and asseverations that he had not meant anything.
Clarice reached the foot of the stairs without heeding a word he said. But other hands, as tender as her own, were there before her.
“Little Rosie! my poor little child!” came from Earl Edmund’s gentle lips, as he lifted the bruised child in his arms. Tenderly as it was done, Rosie could not repress a moan of pain which went to the two hearts that loved her.
She was not killed, but she was dying.
“A few hours,” said the Earl’s physician, instantly summoned, “a few hours. There was nothing to be done. She would very likely not suffer much—would hardly be conscious of pain until the end came.”
The Earl bore her into his own chamber, and laid her on his bed. With speechless agony Clarice watched beside her.
Just once Rosie spoke.
“Mother, Mother, don’t cry!”
Clarice was shedding no tears; they would not come yet; but in Rosie’s eyes her strained white face was an equivalent.