"Nay—not die together, Rose: don't say die together, darling."
"Why?"
"That would be too early—for you, at least."
"You deem me less prepared than yourself, Denzil. Perhaps I am; yet what have I to live for now?"
"Do not talk so, Rose."
"God will take pity on us, Denzil, and will make you well and whole yet," she would reply, and kiss the aching head that rested on her kind and tender bosom; and with all the young girl's love, something of the emotion almost of maternal care and protection stole into her heart, as she watched him thus; he clung to her so, and was so gentle and so helpless.
"If—if—after this" (he did not say, "after I am gone," lest he should pain her even by words)—"if, Rose, after all this, you should ever meet my sister—my dear little Sybil—you will tell her of me—talk to her about me, talk of all I endured, and be a sister to her, for my sake—won't you, Rose?"
"I will, Denzil—I shall, please God."
"Oh yes—yes; one who has been so good to me, could not fail to be good to her, and to love her for her own sake—for mine perhaps."
And then Denzil would look half vacantly, half wildly up to the ceiling, and marvel hopefully yet apprehensively in his heart where was now that homeless sister, so loved and petted at Porthellick, and whom we last saw crouching by the old cottage door near the stone avenue, on that morning when her mother died, and when the cold grey mist was rolling from the purple moorland along the green slopes of the Row Tor and Bron Welli.