"No, not I!" said Constance, bravely. "The New Year, and the New World are teaching me not to mind cold which must be long borne before the year grows old. They are teaching me much else, dear lads. So good-bye, and bless you!"
"'Twould have been downright contemptible to have deserted her," said Giles and John in the same breath, and they laughed as they watched her depart.
[CHAPTER VI]
Stout Hearts and Sad Ones
Constance turned away from the boys feeling that, till the trouble hanging over Giles was settled, waking or sleeping she could think of nothing else. When she reached the community house she forgot it, nor did it come to her as more than a deeper shadow on the universal darkness for weeks.
She found that during her brief absence Edward Tilley's wife had died; she had known that she was desperately ill, but the end had come suddenly. Edward Tilley himself was almost through with his struggle, and this would leave Humility, herself a very sick child, quite alone, for she had come in her cousins' care. Constance bent over her to give her the cooling water which she had fetched her.
"Elizabeth and I are alike now," whispered Humility, looking up at Constance with eyes dry of tears, but full of misery. "Cousin John Tilley was her father, and Cousin Edward and his wife but my guardians, yet they were all I had." Elizabeth Tilley had been orphaned two weeks before, and now John Tilley's brother, following him, would leave Humility Cooper, as she said, bereft as was Elizabeth.
"Not all you had, dear Humility," Constance whispered in her ear, afraid to speak aloud for there were in the room many sick whom they might disturb.
"My father will protect you, unless there is someone whom you would liefer have, and we will be sisters and meet the spring with hope and love for each other, together."
"They will send for me to come home to England, my other cousins, of that I am sure. Elizabeth has no one on her side to claim her. But England is far, far away, and I am more like to join my cousins, John and Edward Tilley and their kind, dear wives where they are now than to live to make that fearful voyage again," moaned Humility, turning away her head despairingly.