Hardly had he laid her there when she became deathly pale, and presently a sudden crimson flow came from her white lips, staining her blanched cheek and fair clustering curls, and Blanche Clifford fainted away!
[XVI.]
THE BORDERS OF THE FAR-OFF LAND.
R. CLIFFORD again walked up and down his empty drawing-room where only the evening before he had been weaving such a bright future for himself in the companionship of his child; and now the doctors had just left him with the terrible decision ringing in his ears—that she was dying! It might be weeks, and even months; but the fragile frame could not long resist the disease that had been stealthily doing its deadly work for many weeks.
Blanche, the pride of his heart, the heir to his fortune, was passing away from him! Covering his face with his hands, the poor father seated himself on the couch where only a few hours before the bright face had been gazing into his, and the merry laugh re-echoing through the now silent, deserted room.
Blanche lay pale and feeble in her darkened chamber, while servants flitted about, whispering and ministering, and Miss Prosser sat tearfully by the bedside.
At length the closed drawing-room door opened, and the poor, grief-stricken father stood beside his child. They might leave him—he would stay and watch to-night, he said huskily, as he seated himself beside the bed. Blanche had hardly spoken since she had been taken ill; but the sound of her father's voice seemed to rouse her, and, opening her eyes, she welcomed him with her old sunny smile.
"O papa, dear, is that you? It seems such an age since I saw you. I must have been sleeping all day long. I was so tired. I think we did go too far, to-day; but it was so nice, and I did not feel at all tired at the time. But I shall be all right to-morrow, I'm sure."