"I want to tell you," her mother had said. What was it she wished to tell her daughter? What was the meaning of those strange words that seemed so incoherent and without sense?
"The pendant—take—the—emerald—tell Arthur——"
But no glimmer of consciousness crossed the still white face; the eyes that had last looked at the sunny sky of June, and the nodding roses, opened no more upon this world's sunshine and flowers, the faltering voice was silenced for ever; and in the grey dawn of morning Christina's mother had passed to the land where she and the man she loved would part no more.
The vision faded. Christina was back again in the present—the dull light of the oil lamp shining on the jewel she held—in the clammy cold of a November evening, that was as far removed from the sunny sweetness of June, as her sordid room was removed from the rose-scented fragrance of her old home.
"I wonder what she wanted to tell me," the girl mused again; as she had mused countless times before; "what could she have meant when she said those words:
"The pendant—take—the—emerald—tell Arthur——"
"I wonder who Arthur could have been."