“Nonsense, Nina! Don't talk in that way, my dear girl! I cannot spare you. This voyage was all that was wanted to set you up. You are only suffering from langour and weakness. In a few days you will be yourself again.”
She shook her head gently, and turning her face toward him replied, while tears welled up in her large, soft eyes and glittered like diamonds in the moonlight.
“I have only one wish, Frederick. I want you to return to—to—my husband—all that I have taken from him. My own fortune and my jewels you must keep. They are yours. I have written a kind of last will or testament this afternoon, leaving to you all I have. But it has long been a subject of bitter remorse to me that I should have taken away one penny of what belonged to him. Will you promise me, dear, to fulfil my last wishes in this matter?”
“Why, of course—certainly; anything you please, my dear girl. But for my sake stop talking of so terrible a possibility as your leaving me. I cannot bear it.”
Raising her small, emaciated hand to his lips he kissed it tenderly. As he lifted his eyes once more to her face he was startled by the change he saw there. Her thin and delicate features had become drawn and haggard, and her eyes were dull as if a film had gathered over them.
He started up alarmed. He was not himself that night and he felt ashamed of the softness which had crept unawares into his head. He bent over the dying woman and moistened her parched lips with a few drops of brandy and water. She looked up at him somewhat revived and murmured wistfully:
“Take me in your arms, darling. I shall die easier so.”
He knelt down beside her and gently drew her head onto his shoulder. For a few minutes there was perfect silence. Then, suddenly, Nina threw her arms around his neck, gasping: