“If I can—what—David?” she repeated, confused, her beautiful eyes wide and anxious.
“She wants you to forgive her, Gabrielle,” David answered.
Gabrielle still appeared bewildered; she looked from one face to another.
“Yes, I will, of course I will,” she said, quickly and simply.
“Then tell her so, Gabrielle.”
Gabrielle bent her gaze upon her aunt’s sunken face, a blot against the white pillows, and Flora fixed upon her the tragic look of her darkening eyes.
“I am sorry, Aunt Flora,” Gabrielle stammered, in tears. “I know—I know how hard it must have been for you. I am so sorry.”
“You will forgive me, Gabrielle?” Flora whispered, feverishly. “In all the years to come you will not hate me? You have grown to be a lovely woman—I did not harm you. I might have harmed you—but it was Sylvia, in the end, who paid for what I did.”
“I will never hate you,” Gabrielle said, slowly and steadily, like a child repeating a lesson.
“It was because I loved him so,” said Flora’s drawn, dark mouth, in a whisper. She sank back, seemed to be sinking away from earth and the things of earth altogether. “God bless you, Gabrielle, you have made it easy for me to die,” she added, in the mere breath of a voice.