Poor Maude! She was weak and sick, and impulsive and mistaken in the nature of Harold's feelings for her; so judge her not too harshly, my prudish reader, if she at last did what Arthur would have called 'throwing herself at his head.'
'I can guess what you mean,' she said, after a long pause, during which he did not speak. 'I have long suspected that you cared for me just as I care for you, and have wondered you did not tell me so, but supposed that you refrained because I was rich and you were poor; but what has that to do with those who love each other? I am glad you have spoken; and you have made me very happy; and even if we can never be more to each other than we are now, because I may die, as I sometimes fear I shall—'
'Oh, Maude, Maude, you are mistaken. I—,' came from Harold like a cry of horror as he wrenched away his hand lying between hers, and to which her slender fingers hung caressingly.
What could she mean? How had she understood him? he asked himself, while great drops of sweat gathered upon his forehead and in the palms of his hands, as like lightning the past came back to him, and he could see as in a printed page that what he had thought mere friendship for himself was a far different and deeper feeling, while he unwittingly had fanned the flame; and was now reaping the result.
'What can I do?' he said aloud, unconsciously, while from the depths of the chair on which Maude was leaning back so wearily came a plaintive voice like that of a child:
'Ring the bell, and give me my handkerchief.'
He was at her side in a moment, bending over her, and looking anxiously into the pallid face from which the bright color had faded, leaving it gray, and pinched, and drawn, it seemed to him. Had he killed her by blurting out so roughly that she was mistaken; and thus filling her with mortification and shame? No, that could not be, for as he brought her handkerchief and bent still closer to her, she whispered to him:
'I am not mistaken, Hally. I am going to die, but you have made the last days of my life very, very happy.'
She thought he was referring to herself and her situation when he told her she was mistaken, and with a smothered groan he was starting for the camphor, as she bade him do, when the door opened, and Mrs. Tracy herself appeared.
'What is it?' she asked, sharply; then, as she saw Maude's face she knew what it was, and going swiftly to her, said to Harold: