Before making answer, Gerelda raised the beautiful pearl and gold prayer-book and kissed it.
She tried to speak the words: "I will;" but all in an instant her lips grew stiff and refused to utter them.
No sound save a low gasp broke the terrible stillness.
She had kissed the little prayer-book as she had so laughingly and thoughtlessly promised to do, ere she uttered the words that would make her Hubert Varrick's wife. And what had happened to her? She was gasping for breath—dying!
The little book fell unheeded at her feet, and her head drooped backward.
With a great cry, Hubert Varrick caught her.
"It is only a momentary dizziness," said Varrick, half leading, half carrying her into the anteroom and up to the window, and throwing open the sash.
"Rest here, my darling, while I fetch you a glass of water," he said, as he placed her in a chair and rushed from the room.
The event just narrated had happened so suddenly that Mrs. Northrup and those in the outer apartment were for the time being fairly dazed, unable to move or stir.
And by the time they had recovered their senses Hubert had reappeared with a glass of water in his hand.