"You needn't 'Dolly' me, or try to take his part, either. I have my opinion, and always shall. He cannot see Maude, and you may tell him so," turning now to the servant who had brought Harold's message, and who softened it as much as possible.
Harold had half expected a refusal, and was prepared for it. Taking a card from his pocket, he wrote upon it:
"Dear Maude:—I am going away for a few weeks, and am very sorry that I cannot see you; but your mother knows best, of course, and I must not do anything to make you worse. I shall think of you very often, and hope to find you much better when I return.
"Harold."
"Will you give this to her?" he said to the girl, who answered that she would, and who took it to her young mistress late in the afternoon, while the family were at dinner, and she was left in charge of the invalid.
"Mr. Hastings sent you this," she said, handing the card to Maude, into whose face the bright color rushed, but left it instantly as she read the few hurried lines.
"Going away! Gone! and I didn't see him!" she exclaimed, regardless of consequences. "And mother did it. I know she did. I will talk," she continued, as the frightened girl tried to stop her, and then ran for Mrs. Tracy, who came in much alarm, asking what was the matter.
"You sent Harold away. You didn't let him see me, and he is—" Maude gasped, but could get no farther, for the paroxysm of coughing which came on, together with a hemorrhage which made her so weak that they thought her dying all night, she lay so white and still, and insensible, save at times when her lips moved, and her mother heard her whisper:
"Send for Harold."