“Oh! I implore you, tell me what did she say?”
“My dearest girl! nothing that it is well you should hear.”
“Nay, then! I adjure you to tell me! By your soul’s truth, I adjure you to tell me!” she persisted wildly.
“She told you, dearest Garnet, that you were the daughter of my late husband; but——”
“Stay! am I so?” interrupted Garnet, in a voice of indescribable anguish.
“Yes—I believe so,” replied Alice gently.
She dropped the hand she had grasped with such strength, and stood as if suddenly turned to stone, for an instant—and then springing forward with the wild energy of desperation, she exclaimed:
“Unsay those words—or see me die before you.”
Alice suddenly threw her arms around the form of the stricken girl, and, catching her wild eyes, gazed into them deeply and tenderly as though she would have transfused all her own sweet love and resignation into that rampant soul, and said:
“Dearest child! She told you only what we knew, and still loved you. Dearest child! you are my husband’s daughter, and Elsie’s younger sister—and we love you.”