“I am very glad,” she said dreamily, “for I should be sorry if anything else took place.”
“What! should you be jealous, Linny?”
“No,” she said decidedly, “only very, very sorry for her. Oh! Antony,” she said, bursting into passionate tears, “I was very ignorant and very blind.”
“Linny, Linny, my child, what is the matter?” cried Hallett, entering the room, and flying with all a woman’s solicitude to the couch, to take the light wasted form in his arms. “Heaven help me, she’s worse. The doctor, Antony, quick!”
“No, no, no,” cried Linny, throwing her arms round her brother’s neck; “I am better, Steve, better now. It is only sorrow that I have been so blind.”
“So blind, my darling?”
“Yes, yes,” she sobbed excitedly, pressing her brother’s dark hair from his forehead, and covering his face with her kisses, “that I was so blind, and weak, and young. I did not know who loved me, and who did not; but it’s all over now, Steve dear. Dear brother, it’s all over now.”
“My darling,” he whispered, “let me send for help!”
“No, no,” she cried, “what for? I am better—so much better, Stephen. That is all taken off my mind, and I have nothing to do now but love you, love you all, and get well.”
Poor little thing! She lay there clasped in her brother’s strong arms, sobbing hysterically, but it was as if every tear she shed washed away from her stricken mind a portion of the canker that had been consuming her day by day.