“Yes,” she answered, “I shouldn’t have left her before you came; but I knew you were here; I heard your horse’s tread a moment ago. She’s asleep. Good night. Take courage and have a brave heart,” she said, pressing his hand a moment in both hers, and was gone.
The room was as he had pictured it; order restored and the fire blazing brightly. On the table was a pot of hot tea and a tempting little supper laid. But he pushed it all aside and buried his face down upon the table into his folded arms, groaning aloud. Physical suffering; thwarted love, and at the same time a feeling of self-condemnation, made him wish that life were ended for him.
Fanny awoke close upon morning, not knowing what had aroused her. She was for a little while all bewildered and unable to collect herself. She soon learned the cause of her disturbance. Hosmer was tossing about and his outstretched arm lay across her face, where it had evidently been flung with some violence. She took his hand to move it away, and it burned her like a coal of fire. As she touched him he started and began to talk incoherently. He evidently fancied himself dictating a letter to some insurance company, in no pleased terms—of which Fanny caught but snatches. Then:
“That’s too much, Mrs. Lafirme; too much—too much—Don’t let Grégoire burn—take him from the fire, some one. Thirty day’s credit—shipment made on tenth,” he rambled on at intervals in his troubled sleep.
Fanny trembled with apprehension as she heard him. Surely he has brain fever she thought, and she laid her hand gently on his burning forehead. He covered it with his own, muttering “Thérèse, Thérèse—so good—let me love you.”[Back to Table of Contents]
X
Perplexing Things.
“Lucilla!”
The pale, drooping girl started guiltily at her mother’s sharp exclamation, and made an effort to throw back her shoulders. Then she bit her nails nervously, but soon desisted, remembering that that also, as well as yielding to a relaxed tendency of the spinal column, was a forbidden indulgence.
“Put on your hat and go on out and get a breath of fresh air; you’re as white as milk-man’s cream.”
Lucilla rose and obeyed her mother’s order with the precision of a soldier, following the directions of his commander.