“No, no, don’t think!” cried the little lady, almost angrily. “You shall not sacrifice yourself for my sake! I will not be the means of dragging you from your peaceful happy home—the home you love—and from the people who love you for your gentle ways! Henry Bolter, am I to think you cruel and selfish instead of our kind old friend?”
“No, no, my dear Mary!” cried the doctor, excitedly. “Selfish? Well, perhaps I am, but—”
“Hush!” said the curate softly; and again, “let me think.”
A silence fell upon the little group, and the chirping of the birds in the pleasant country garden was all that broke that silence for many minutes to come.
Then the Reverend Arthur rose from his seat and moved towards the door, motioning to them not to follow him as he went out into the garden, and they saw him from the window go up and down the walks, as if communing with all his familiar friends, asking, as it were, their counsel in his time of trial.
At last he came slowly back into the room, where the elderly lovers had been seated in silence, neither daring to break the spell that was upon them, feeling as they did how their future depended upon the brother’s words.
They looked at him wonderingly as he came into the room pale and agitated, as if suffering from the reaction of a mental struggle; but there was a smile of great sweetness upon his lips as he said, softly:
“Harry, old friend, I never had a brother. You will be really brother to me now.”
“No, no!” cried his sister, excitedly. “You shall not sacrifice yourself like this!”
“Hush, dear Mary,” he replied calmly; “let me disabuse your mind. You confessed to me your love for Harry Bolter here. Why should I stand in the way of your happiness?”