"Let the consequences be what they may I cannot longer endure her appeals; she must know the truth," she said to Lily one morning some weeks after. "Mother—Pearl cannot send him to you—how gladly he would do it if he could; but it is too late!"
"Too late?"
"Yes, Mother; the war you know. It has destroyed Rosedale, scattered the servants and—"
"Charles?"
"Charles has fallen into the ruin."
"Charles? Will he not come?"
"Never Mother; he is dead! And we are alone!"
"Dead! Dead! And he will not come! Gone! All, all gone!" and the white fingers linked themselves together, twisting and untwisting with a slow nervous motion as they lay upon her lap, while her large eyes never moved their gaze from the face before her.
"Dead! Dead!" she murmured.
"Pearl will be here by and by, and he will love you and be as true a son as my brother would have been. Let us wait and watch for him now."