"Here, I've fetched you a bit o' cream toast and a cup o' tea, Fan," she said. "I hope you kin eat it. But, dear me, you're lookin' all tuckered out. I'll bet Don's been a-makin' you talk a heap more'n was good fer ye. Now ye jest clear out, Don, and let's see if I can't be a better nurse."
"I didn't mean to hurt her," Don said gruffly, trying to hide the pain at his heart.
"No, and you haven't," said Fan, gazing lovingly after him as he turned to go; "if I've talked too much, it was my own doing."
Don hurrying down-stairs and into the parlor, which he expected to find empty, came suddenly into the midst of a little group—his father, mother, and Mildred—conversing together in subdued tones.
He was beating a hasty retreat, thinking he had intruded upon a private interview, when his father called him back.
"We have nothing to conceal from you, Don," he said, in tremulous tones, and the lad, catching sight of the faces of his mother and sister, perceived that they had both been weeping. "I suppose you know that—" Mr. Keith paused, unable to proceed.
"Is it about Fan?" Don asked huskily. "Yes, sir; she has just told me. But oh, I can't believe it! We must do something to save her!" he burst out, in a paroxysm of grief.
"What's the matter?" cried Annis, coming dancing into the room in her usual light-hearted fashion, but startled into soberness at sight of Don's emotion and the grief-stricken countenances of the others.
Her mother motioned her to her side, and putting an arm about her, kissed her tenderly, the tears streaming over her face. "Annis, dear," she said, in broken accents, "perhaps we ought not to grieve, Fan is so happy, but it makes our hearts sad to know that very soon we shall see her loved face no more upon earth."
"Mother!" cried Annis, hiding her face on her mother's breast and bursting into wild weeping, "O mother, mother, it can't be that she's going to die! She can never bear to go away from you!"