"There, he's coming now!" and Edith dropped the hand she held, as if fearful lest the Frenchman should suspect.
This was not the proper feeling, she knew, and returning to the house, she shut herself up in her room, crying bitterly because she could not make herself feel differently!
The twelfth came at last, not a balmy, pleasant day as May is wont to bring, but a rainy, dreary April day, when the gray clouds chased each other across the leaden sky, now showing a disposition to bring out patches of blue, and again growing black and heavy as the fitful showers came pattering down. Edith was sick. The strong tension of nerves she had endured for four long weeks was giving way. She could not keep up longer; and Richard breakfasted and dined without her, while with an aching head she listened to the rain beating against her windows, and watched the capricious clouds as they floated by. Many times she wished it all a dream from which she should awaken; and then, when she reflected that 'twas a fearful reality, she covered her head with the bed-clothes and prayed that she might die. But why pray for this? She need not be Richard's wife unless she chose—he had told her so repeatedly, and now she too said "I will not!" Strange she had not thus decided before and stranger still that she should be so happy now she had decided!
There was a knock at the door, and Grace Atherton asked to be admitted.
"Richard told me you were sick," she said, as she sat down by Edith's side; "and you do look ghostly white. What is the matter, pray?"
"One of my nervous headaches;" and Edith turned from the light so that her face should tell no tales of the conflict within.
"I received a letter from Arthur last night," Grace continued, "and thinking you might like to hear from Nina, I came round in the rain to tell you of her. Her health is somewhat improved, and she is now under the care of a West India physician, who holds out strong hopes that her mental derangement may in time be cured."
Edith was doubly glad now that she had turned her face away, for by so doing she hid the tears which dropped so fast upon her pillow.
"Did Arthur mention me?" she asked, and Grace knew then that she was crying.
Still it was better not to withhold the truth, and bending over her she answered,