At the mention of Roy’s name, the dumb lips spoke with an agonized effort which brought the great sweat-drops upon cheek and brow.
“No, no, no; Ja-ack,” they said, and the sound was more like the moan of some wounded animal than like a human cry, while the eyes seemed as if trying to leap from their sockets, as they fastened themselves upon Jack.
“What, sister? What is it?” he asked, and with another mighty effort the lips moved slowly, and one by one made out the words, “Don’t—let—Roy—”
They could not articulate any more, but Jack thought he comprehended her meaning, and said, “Not let Roy see you yet? Is that it, sister?”
She clutched his hand nervously in answer to the question and held it tightly in her own. She did not want to see Roy then or ever. She could not bear it, she thought; could not endure to look upon what she had loved and lost just as it was within her reach. Guilt, remorse, and shame were busy at work, and those who watched by her little dreamed of the bitter anguish which was rending her soul and sending out that rain of perspiration which wet her night-dress about the neck, and wet her long, black hair, and the pillow on which she lay, and which was the means eventually of doing her bodily good. The profuse perspiration seemed in some way to grapple with, and partially subdue the disease, so that after an hour or more she could speak more distinctly, and the little finger of her right hand moved once as Maude was rubbing it.
“You are already better, Georgie. We will soon have you well,” Maude said encouragingly, while one of the ladies in attendance carried the good news that Georgie had spoken, to Mrs. Burton, who was in strong hysterics on the sofa in her own room, and over whom poor, ignorant Mr. Burton had emptied by turns the water-jug, the camphor-bottle, the cologne and arnica, in his awkward attempts to help her.
Limp and wet, with her false curls as straight as an Indian’s hair, and her under teeth on the floor where the hapless husband planted his boot heel upon them, and crushed them out of shape, the poor woman received the news, and in her joy went into another hysteric fit worse than any which had preceded it. Frightened now out of his wits, and taking advantage of the presence of some one with whom he could leave his spouse, Mr. Burton retreated precipitately from the room, wondering why the deuce the women wanted to raise such a row as his wife and Georgie were doing.
“Hanged if I don’t take the first train for New York, and stay there, too, when I get there,” he said, as he rushed out into the back yard, where he met Roy, just dismounting from his horse, and looking very anxious and disturbed, though not as unhappy as one might expect of a man who had just heard that his bridal, for that day at least, was impossible, and his bride a paralytic.
CHAPTER XLIII.
ROY.
