[CHAPTER XLVIII.]
When Elaine went to the villa her strange, romantic history was known to all the inhabitants except Lilia. Mrs. Leslie, in her woman's wisdom, had judged it best to tell all the rest, but no one breathed it to the dying child. She alone never knew that the beautiful singer who had taken her young heart captive was her father's real wife. When he came and found her singing like an angel by Lilia's dying bed, he made no sign save by the silent gratitude in his dark eyes, and Elaine was best pleased thus.
There were several days of fluctuating hope and fear before the fair bud faded on its drooping stem. Sometimes she would have every appearance of rallying, but it was only the deceptive flattery of her insidious disease, and she would immediately fall back into the most alarming symptoms.
The day came when Mr. Stuart could bear it no longer to hear the weak voice asking for her mother, and wondering why she came not.
He told his child the truth with such infinite pity and gentleness that it softened the blow to her young heart—— told her that her mother had gone before her to the unknown Land.
Lilia bore it more bravely than he had expected.
"She has only gone before me a little," she said, sadly.
And later on she asked Mrs. Leslie for Irene.
"I loved her at first until mamma bade me not to," she said, plaintively. "Then I was cruel and unkind. Is she angry still, that she does not come to me when I am so sick?"