“I am so glad, my dear,” she murmured, while her gentle eyes filled with tears, “so very, very glad. And I like him extremely. He is the ideal son I always wished to have. I cannot tell you what a relief it all is to my mind. He is my own relation, too. I have not felt so happy for many, many years.”
“What do you mean, mamma dear?” stammered Stella, feeling terribly guilty.
“Ah, my child, you know well enough. And now I will tell you something, dear; if I have often seemed rather selfish in the way in which I have taken care of myself, and tried to avoid excitement and ward off attacks of illness, it has been because of my awful dread of leaving you with him—your father. Heaven knows, I have been always a poor companion for a lovely, bright, young girl, and not much protection for you against his anger. But still, you have always felt, have you not, that your mother was with you, that she loved you, and sympathized with you, and suffered with you? You have never felt the bitter loneliness of being without a friend to love you among enemies? When I have been feeling tired, ill, and worn out, I have said to myself, ‘I must not give way; I must not die until my Stella is happily provided for.’ I could not die and leave you with him. But now if, as Lord Carthew suggests, the marriage takes place almost immediately—and, indeed, what is there to hinder it?—I shall have my mind at peace, knowing that you will be safe under the protection of a good man’s love. I can die quietly, happily, and thankfully, remembering that.”
“Don’t, don’t talk about dying!” cried Stella, bursting into a flood of tears, and covering Lady Cranstoun’s wasted hands with kisses. “I could not lose you—you must not die! And—and I don’t love Lord Carthew. I never shall. I know he is good and clever, and all that you say, but—but I cannot marry him!”
Lady Cranstoun sat upright on her sofa, looking very white and wan.
“Don’t, darling, for my sake, be capricious any more,” she whispered. “As to disliking him because he is a viscount instead of a farmer, as you thought at first, that is foolish and beneath you. You are only joking, my dear, are you not? You would not disappoint me so bitterly, after all our talk this morning, about that voyage to the Cape, and how I was to come and stay with you, and—and——”
The words died upon her lips. An ashen gray tint spread over her face, and she fell back among her cushions in a fainting-fit. Her feeble frame was not equal to the strain of the day’s excitement, culminating in the shock of Stella’s refusal to carry out the contract to which she seemed so willing a party in the morning, and on which Lady Cranstoun had set her heart.
Stella overwhelmed herself with reproaches as she assisted Margaret to restore the invalid to consciousness. The gentlemen were still in the dining-room; they were, indeed, discussing the question of marriage settlements in a highly amicable manner. But to Stella’s great relief, Dr. Morland Graham returned from town just at the moment when his patient recovered consciousness, and by his advice she was taken off to bed, where she soon fell asleep, worn out by the fatigue and excitement of the day.
“I want to talk to you about your dear mamma,” said Dr. Graham, in his most benevolent professional manner, as he accompanied Miss Cranstoun back to the drawing-room. “I don’t think even you quite realize her extreme weakness. Her heart is in such an enfeebled state that she must on no account be exposed to the slightest shock. She may die in a fainting-fit similar to the one she had to-night, and the finest medical skill in the world would not save her. She must not be thwarted or disappointed, if her life is to be prolonged, say for a year or two longer. May I ask whether there was any apparent reason for her last seizure?”
“Yes,” answered Stella, after a moment’s hesitation. “We—we were talking about an offer of marriage which I have just received.”