Mr. Noble sighs furiously.
"I wish that I had gone, no matter how hard my head ached," he says, dejectedly. "Then Mrs. Campbell would never have sent for me to come to her room."
"To come to her room!" mother and daughter echo in breathless indignation.
"Yes," answers the young man, with another sigh.
"Impertinent! What did she wish?" Mrs. Cleveland breaks out, furiously, pale to the lips.
"She wished to tell me that she was dying, and to leave her daughter in my care," he stammers, confusedly.
"Go on," Mrs. Cleveland exclaims.
"She told me that Vera was delicate, sensitive, helpless and friendless, and so good and sweet that none could help loving her. She declared she could not die in peace without leaving her in the care of a kind protector."
"A fine protector a young man would make for a young girl," Mrs. Cleveland sneers, with cutting irony.
"You do not understand, I think," Leslie answers her, gravely. "She wished me to make her my wife."