Towards her father Inez’s manner was different. She seldom spoke to him, but she allowed him to sit by her and once she took his hand with a look in her eyes which he could not misunderstand, and he said to her, “Yes, daughter, I promise before Heaven that work is finished for me and Tom, too. I can answer for him.”
Fanny’s step was heard outside and he stopped abruptly, but Inez seemed brighter and better for what he had said. He was constantly in the sick room, frequently sitting in the shadow where he could see not only the fever stained face with the sunken eyes in which the shadow of a great horror was still visible, but the fair, blue eyed girl who filled him with pride and an intense desire to take her in his arms and call her his daughter.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE SISTERS.
Ten days passed and there was no real improvement in Inez. Occasionally she would rally and inquire about the household matters, showing that she had some interest in them, but these moments were always followed by sinking spells when life seemed nearly extinct. The doctor was greatly perplexed.
“A strong girl like her ought not to be so affected by a scare,” he said. “I don’t understand it. She seems to have lost her grip and makes no effort to get hold of it, and then the weather is against her.”
It was very hot those July days, hotter and dryer than it had been in the valley for years, and Fanny began at last to droop in the heat and confinement. They sent to Stockton for a nurse and this relieved Fanny from her constant watch in the sick room, where Inez lay a part of the time half unconscious of what was passing around her and talking very low to herself. Once Fanny thought she caught the word Ridgefield and wondered how Inez knew anything of that place.
“I mean to ask Mr. Rayborne,” she thought, and went to find him.
The sun was setting and a cool breeze was blowing down from the mountains and she stepped out upon the piazza for a moment to enjoy it. While there she heard Mr. Rayborne and Tom enter the sitting room from the kitchen. They were talking of her, and Tom’s voice was rather loud as he said, “I think it a shame that for the whim of a proud woman you cannot tell her that you are her father and Inez her half sister! Do you think she would be ashamed of you? She is not that kind.”
For a moment Fanny felt as if she, too, had heart disease. She could not move and there was a prickly sensation in her hands and feet. Then she recovered herself, and in a moment was confronting Mr. Rayborne with the question, “Are you Mark Hilton, and is Inez my half sister?”
Mark could not reply, but Tom did it for him. “I am bound by no promise,” he said, “and will tell you the truth. He is Mark Hilton, your father, if Helen Tracy is your mother. He was not killed in the mines, and Inez is your half sister. She knows it and your mother knows it, but would only permit you to come here on the condition that you were kept in ignorance of the relationship. I am hampered by no conditions. I have told you and it may save Inez’s life.”