But nature was too weak to rally, and after that one sign the sick girl lay quiet and motionless as ever, and only the ticking of the clock broke the deep silence of the room. I wondered did that ticking disturb her. It would have worried me, and I should have been forever repeating the monotonous one-two, one-two, which the pendulum seemed to be saying. Did my thought communicate itself to her the girl on my pillow, with a face like my face, and which yet was not mine? Perhaps, for she did at last move uneasily, and the pale lips whispered: “One-two, one-two! it keeps going on forever and ever, and makes me so tired. Stop it, Tom.”
He knew what she meant, and the clock which had not run down in years was silenced at once, while Tom’s face grew bright and hopeful, for she had spoken, and called him by his name.
Outside there was the sound of carriage wheels stopping before the door—a pull at the bell, a hurried conversation in the hall below, Miss Keith’s voice sounding flurried and confused, the other voice self-assured, surprised, and commanding; and then footsteps came up the stairs, and Archie’s mother, Mrs. Browning, was standing on the threshold, red, tired, panting, and taking in rapidly every portion of the room, from the cheap hearthrug and carpet to the tall man by the bedside, and the pallid face on the pillows. At sight of that her countenance changed sensibly, and she exclaimed:
“I did not suppose it so bad as this.”
Then Tom, who had arisen from his seat, spoke a little sternly, for he was angry at the intrusion:
“Madam, don’t you know Miss Burton is very sick and cannot see strangers?”
“Yes, I know;” and Archie’s mother pressed close to the girl on the pillow, trailing her India shawl on the floor directly across Tom’s feet. “She was engaged to read to me every day for two hours, and I waited for her to come or send some message, till at last I concluded to drive round and see what had become of her. You are her cousin, I believe? I am Mrs. Browning.”
She said the last name as if between Mrs. Browning and the cousin there was a vast difference, but if Tom recognized it, he did not seem to notice it; he merely said:
“Yes, I am her cousin, and you were to have been her mother-in-law?”
“Yes, Archie was my son. If he had lived he would have been heir of Briarton Lodge; both the young lords are dead.”