“No, no, no,” she wailed. “Hush, hush! You must not wake poor mamma?”
“Let me call up Mary.”
“No, no,” she sobbed; “sit still—sit still, Antony dear; you have always been to me like a brother, and you have known all. I have no girl friends of my own age, but I can talk to you.”
“No; let’s talk of something else,” I said earnestly. “You must not think about the past.”
“I must think about it, or I shall die,” she said, adding pathetically, “no, no, don’t get up. I shall be better now. There, you see, I have left off crying.”
She seemed to make an effort over herself, and in a few minutes she looked up at me smiling, but her poor face was so wasted and thin that her smile frightened me, and I was again about to call for help.
“No, no,” she said; “I am better now. Antony dear, I could not get well, but felt as if I was wasting away because I could not see him. Oh, Antony, I did love him so, and I felt obliged to obey him in all he wished. But it was because I thought him so fond and true. I have felt all these long months that he loved me very dearly, and that if I could only see him—if I could only lay my head upon his arm, and go to rest, I should wake up well. I always thought that he loved me very dearly, and that some day he would come and say I was to be his wife. Stephen thought I hated him for his cruel ways, but I did not, I could not. I do not even hate him now. I am only sorry.”
“But you don’t want to see him again, Linny?” I said.
“No, no: not now,” she replied with a shudder. “I know now that he never loved me. I never understood it all before, Antony. I pray God I may never see his face again.”
There was something very impressive in her words, and, closing her eyes, she lay back there so still that I thought she was asleep, but the moment I tried to withdraw my hand she clung to it the more tightly, and looked up at me and smiled.