“Dear sister!” I heard Miss Carr murmur; and then she turned from Linny, who left her and glanced at me.
“Mrs Hallett,” I said simply, “this is Miss Carr.”
I hardly knew what I said, for Miriam was so changed. There was a look of tenderness in her eyes, and a sweet smile just dawning upon her lip as she advanced towards the invalid’s chair, and bent down to kiss her; but with a passionate look of jealousy and dislike, Hallett’s mother shrank from her.
“Don’t touch me!” she cried. “I knew that you were here, but I could not leave my chair to curse you. Murderess, you have killed him! You are the woman who has blasted my poor boy’s life!”
A piteous look of horror came into Miss Carr’s face, and she sank upon her knees by the great cushioned chair.
“Oh, no, no!” she said piteously. “Do not accuse me. You do not—you cannot know.”
“Know!” cried Mrs Hallett, whiter than ever with the feeling of dislike and passion that animated her; “do I not know how you have robbed me of my poor dying boy’s love; how you have come between us, and filled his head with foolish notions to invent—to make money—for you?”
“Oh, Mrs Hallett, for shame!—for shame!” I exclaimed indignantly.
“Silence, boy!” she cried, looking at me vindictively. “Do you think I do not know all because I sit helpless here? You, too, have helped to encourage him in his madness, when he might have been a professional man by now. I know all, little as you think it, even how you, and this woman, too, fought against me. That child might have been the wife of a good man now, only that he was this wretched creature’s lover.”
“Mother,” cried Linny passionately, “are you mad? How dare you say such things!”