“Master!” said the man again; but the Resident heard him not, for he was dwelling upon the tidings that he had received an hour before, that Helen’s case was utterly hopeless, and that though she might live for days or weeks, her recovery was impossible.
It was on good authority that he received those sad tidings, for they were from Dr Bolter’s lips; and he had to listen, with a composed and placid mien, when all the time he had felt as if he could have thrown himself upon the floor, and torn himself in the bitterness of his anguish.
If he could have been allowed to sit at her pillow, holding one poor wasted hand, he told himself that he could have borne it better, and watched her with patient hope. But he was shut out from her resting-place—from her heart! She had never cared for him, and his words to her had been but an empty vaunt. And yet he loved her so well, that as he thought of all the past and the bitter present, he felt that when Helen died he dared not face the empty present, and something seemed to whisper to him, would it not be better to seek in oblivion for the rest that his heart told him he should never know.
“Master!”
Louder now, and a hand was laid upon his arm.
The Resident started up, and gazed angrily at the intruder upon his sacred sorrow—so fiercely that the servant shrank away.
“What is it?” cried the haggard man, harshly. “Is—is she—dead?”
“A messenger, master, from Miss Stuart,” said the man, shivering still from the wild face and mien.
“I knew it—” moaned the Resident.
“To say, will you go directly to the doctor’s house.”