“Ah, my bonnie Dianas,” cried the old man; “this is good of you to come and see me before you go down. Why, how bright and handsome you both look.”
Saxa went straight up to the couch, took the two hands extended to her, and bent down and kissed the sufferer; and for the first time now the hardness of her task became plain, and she began to shrink from hurting the poor weak invalid, lying so helpless there.
“Dana, my pet,” he said, kissing the younger sister in turn; and then excitedly: “Why your hands are damp and cold. What is it? There is something wrong.”
They looked at each other as if to say—“You tell him.”
Ralph Elthorne saw it, and his facial muscles twitched, and an angry look came into his eyes, but he passed it off with a forced smile.
“Now, now,” he cried; “none of that, my dears. It’s nothing. We’ve had many a run together, and I’ve only had a fall. Don’t you two begin any of that nonsense. I was a bit hurt, but I’m Ralph Elthorne still: daddy to you, my darlings, in name only yet, but it’s going to be real before long, you know. I’m not ill, only a bit crippled for the present. I’m not an invalid, my dears, so out with it—what is it?”
There were words in his little speech which made their task more difficult still, and they glanced at each other again.
“Come, Saxa,” he cried—“come, Dana, let’s have it. You don’t want to make me angry?”
“No, no,” cried Saxa, and she sank upon her knees by him, and laid her head upon his shoulder.
“Then speak out. There’s something serious on the way. Ah, I see! Isabel! She has not gone—absurd! She was here just now.”