"Can I go to him?" Griselda said piteously.
"No; not yet—not yet. You are exhausted with all you have gone through. Your duty is to lie quiet."
Duty was ever first with Caroline Herschel herself, and she thought it should be first with others also.
Griselda struggled to her feet; but a deadly faintness overcame her, and she sank back again, crying:
"His life for me—for me! Oh! I am not worthy——" and then she burst into hysterical weeping.
"My dear Miss Mainwaring," her friend said, "the doctors say that Mr. Travers's only chance of life is to be kept quiet. If the wound bleeds again, he must die. If he is kept motionless and calm, he may live. Do you understand?"
"Yes," Griselda said; "it is always waiting with me. Look! that is my mother's wedding-ring! There is a posy inside—'Patience and Hope.' But I can only have patience; I dare not hope. Did you know that my father was the actor who died in Crown Alley?—that Norah, the beggar-child at your door in Rivers Street, is—is my sister?"
"No; I did not know it. But why should you be distressed?"
"Because I know it has been the root of all this trouble. I know it is so! That bad man's evil eye was on us in the church that day—that bright, beautiful day—when was it?"
Caroline Herschel thought she was wandering, and stroked her head, and said gently: