And so the days went on until two weeks were gone, and then one April morning it was whispered among the few guests remaining in the hotel, that death was again in the house, and more trunks were packed in haste, and more people left, until the fourth floor was almost as silent as the room in which Daisy lay dead, with a strange beauty in her face, to which had returned, as it sometimes does, all the freshness and loveliness of youth, so that she looked like some fair young girl as she lay upon her pillow, with her hands upon her bosom, just as she had folded them, when at the last she said to those around her:
"It is growing late. I think I will retire; good-night;" then, clasping her hands together, she began the prayer of her childhood: "Now I lay me down to sleep," repeating the whole distinctly, while, with the words, "I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take," she went to meet the God who is so pitiful and kind, and who knew all the good that was in her, and knew, too, what thoughts of remorse for the past and prayers for forgiveness had been in her heart during the few lucid intervals which had been given to her. She had been delirious most of the time, and in her delirium had talked of things which made poor Bessie shudder, they revealed to her so much more of her mother's past than she had ever known.
Monte Carlo was the field to which her fancy oftenest took flight, and there, at the gaming-table she sat again, going through the excitement of the olden time, losing and winning—winning and losing—sometimes with Teddy at her side, and sometimes with men of a baser, lower type, with whom she bandied jests, until the scene was too horrible even for the iron-nerved Flossie to endure. Then, there were moments of perfect consciousness, when she knew and spoke rationally to those about her, and tried to comfort Bessie, who insisted upon having a lounge taken into the room so that she might see her mother, if she could not minister to her.
Once, startled by the expression of the faces around her, Daisy said:
"Why do you all look so sorry? Am I very sick? Am I going to die? Oh, am I going to die? I cannot die. I cannot! Don't let me die! Don't; don't."
It was like the cry of a frightened child begging a reprieve from punishment, and that piteous "Don't! don't!" rang in Bessie's ears long after the lips which uttered the words were silent in death.
During their journeyings together, Daisy had shown the best there was in her and had really seemed trying to reform. When, on her return from America, she had suggested that they go abroad, saying she would sell her diamonds to defray the expenses, Bessie had refused at first, and had only consented on condition that her mother abandoned all her old habits of life, and neither played nor bet, nor practiced any of her wiles upon the opposite sex for the purpose of extorting money from them. And all this Daisy promised.
"I'll be as circumspect as a Methodist parson's wife," she said; and she kept her word as well as it was possible for her to do.
She neither played, nor bet, nor coaxed money from her acquaintances by pretty tales of poverty, and if she sometimes bandied familiar jests with her gentlemen friends, Bessie did not know it, and there was springing up in her heart a strong feeling of respect for her mother who, just as the new life was beginning, was to be taken from her.
"Oh, mamma," she sobbed, putting her poor, pale, face close to that of the dying woman, for Neil had taken her in his arms and laid her beside her mother "oh, mamma, how can I give you up." Then, as the greater fear for her mother's future overmastered every other feeling, she said: "Speak to me, mother; tell me you are not afraid; tell me you are sorry; tell me, oh, my Heavenly Father, if mother must die, forgive her all the past and take her to Thyself."