When Maggie entered her friend’s room, she saw, to her surprise, that Annabel was lying on her bed with flushed cheeks. Two hours before she had been, to all appearance, in brilliant health; now her face burned with fever, and her beautiful dark eyes were glazed with pain.
Maggie rushed up and kissed her. “What is it, darling,” she asked; “what is wrong? You look ill; your eyes have a strange expression.”
Annabel’s reply was scarcely audible. The pain and torpor of her last short illness were already overmastering her. Maggie was alarmed at the burning touch of her hand; but she had no experience to guide her, and her own great joy helped to make her selfish.
“Annabel, look at me for a moment; I have wonderful news to give you.”
Annabel’s eyes were closed. She opened them wide at this appeal for sympathy, stretched out her hand, and pushed back a tangle of bright hair from Maggie’s brow.
“I love you, Maggie,” she said, in that voice which had always power to thrill its listeners.
Maggie kissed her friend’s hand, and pressed it to her own beating heart. “I met Geoffrey Hammond to-day,” she said. “He gave me a letter; I have read it. Oh, Annabel, Annabel! I can be good now. No more bad half-hours, no more struggles with myself. I can be very good now.”
With some slight difficulty Annabel Lee drew her hot hand away from Maggie’s fervent clasp; her eyes, slightly distended, were fixed on her friend’s face; the flush of fever left her cheeks; a hot flood of emotion seemed to press against her beating heart; she looked at Maggie with passionate longing.
“What is it?” she asked, in a husky whisper. “Why are you so glad, Maggie? Why can you be good now?”
“Because I love Geoffrey Hammond,” answered Maggie: “I love him with all my heart, all my life, all my strength, and he loves me; he has asked me to be his wife.”