"Ellen is dying," returned Walter, "and they have sent for me."
"Ellen dying!" and the man, who a moment before had spoken so jeeringly, staggered into a chair as if smitten by a heavy blow.
"I did not suppose he cared so much for her," thought Walter, and in a kinder tone he told what he knew, and passing William the note intended for Jessie, he bade him take it to her that night, and tell her to meet him at the depot in the morning. "And William," said Walter, fixing his eye earnestly upon his cousin, "what message shall I take to Ellen for you? or will you go too?"
For a moment William hesitated, while his better nature battled with his worse, urging him to give up the game at which he was playing, and comfort the dying girl he had so cruelly deceived, and acknowledge to the world how dear she was to him; then, as another frightful thought intruded itself upon him, he murmured, "I can't, I can't," and with that resolution he sealed his future destiny. "No, I cannot go," he said, and thrusting the note into his pocket went out into the open air, a harder man, if possible, than he had been before. "Jessie must not go to Deerwood if I can prevent it," he thought to himself. "Nellie may tell her all, and that would be fatal to my plans."
So he resolved not to call at Mr. Graham's that night, and in case an explanation should afterward be necessary, he would say that he had sent the note by a boy, who, of course, had neglected to deliver it.
Accordingly the next morning Walter and his grandmother waited impatiently for Jessie at the depot, and then, when they found she was not coming, took their seats in the cars with heavy hearts, for both knew how terrible would be the disappointment to Ellen, who loved Jessie Graham better almost than herself.
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"Where's Jessie? Didn't I hear her voice in the other room?" the sick girl asked, when, one after the other, Mrs. Bellenger and Walter bent over her pillow and kissed her wasted face.
"She isn't here," said Walter, and the color faded from Ellen's face as she replied:
"Isn't here? Where is she, Walter?"