"Why do you nurse Jessie so carefully? If it is destined that she should die, I wonder that you grieve when you know that her death will bring freedom to Jack Garner and love to you!"
The idea was so startling that for a time it nearly took her breath away.
"Let her drift quietly on to the end which is near. If you do not work too zealously to save her, your reward will be the heart of him whom you love at last. Take warning, and heed my words!"
Dorothy sprang from her chair, quivering with excitement.
She had been fast asleep, and the words that still rang in her ears shocked her yet, even though she knew it was but a dream—though such a vivid one—and the voice that whispered those words to her seemed so like Jack's.
Still the idea was in her head. If Jessie Staples died, her lover would be free again, and she knew what that would mean for herself.
She tried to put the thought from her, but she could not; it haunted her continually.
She tried to tell herself that even if Jessie were to die, she would never make herself known to Jack.
But, even after she had said all that, she knew in her own mind that she would be sure to let Jack know at last, for she would never realize a moment's happiness until she was once more what she had been to Jack in the past.
It had been such a slight affair that had parted them, and that had drifted two hearts asunder.