"If there's trouble, dear, will you come to us? We want you to look on our house as a refuge, any hour of the day or night."
Anne stared at her friend. There was something ominous and dismaying in her solemn tenderness, and it roused Anne to wonder, even in her grief.
"You cannot help me, dear," she said. "No one can. Yet I had to come to you and tell you—"
"Tell me everything," said Mrs. Eliott, "if you can."
Anne tried to steady her voice to tell her, and failed. Then Fanny had an inspiration. She felt that she must divert Anne's thoughts from the grief that made her dumb, and get her to talk naturally of other things.
"How's Peggy?" said she. She knew it would be good to remind her that, whatever happened, she had still the child.
But at that question, Anne released Mrs. Eliott's hand, and laid her head back upon the cushion and cried.
"Dear," whispered Mrs. Eliott, with her inspiration full upon her, "you will always have her."
Then Anne sat up in her corner, and put away her tears, and controlled herself to speak.
"Fanny," she said, "Dr. Gardner has seen her. He says I shall not have her very long. Perhaps—a few years—if we take the very greatest care—"