"What is it, my dear?" he asked, in a still voice. "Be calm, my child, my dear."
He took her trembling little figure by the shoulder and smoothed back the damp hair from her forehead.
"Is she dead?" he asked. "Is she gone—is Betty dead, dear?"
"Oh, my father!" sobbed poor Frances again, and seemed unable to find other words.
Elisabeth Cromwell came down the passage, and with her the Lord Claypole.
"Ah," said His Highness, "is it over? And I left her—yet only for a little—and she is gone."
His wife came and put her arms round his neck and wept on his shoulder a little, then she took his hand and led him to their daughter's chamber, followed by those two other mourners, also sick with grief and watching.
Elisabeth Claypole lay dead, she had fallen from one convulsion fit to another, and breathed her last breath, in great pain and suffering, but with a composed and cheerful mind and a serene and hopeful soul.
She was dead; very young she looked as she lay in the great bed in the darkened chamber with the shadows over her; the rich coverlet was straightened across her limbs, the sheet smoothed, the pillow shaken; she was at peace after the long tossings to and fro, the hot nights of agony, the dragging days of unconsciousness.