"Dr. Franks, how can you speak so? You know I would not harm one hair of her dear, kind head," Reine says, with subdued indignation.
"I know," he says, gently for him, usually so brusque and careless. "But she will grieve for you so. She has grown to love you as a daughter. She has no one else to cling to—she is sensitive and loving, who has buried all she loves, and is so ill and lonely."
"What would you have me do?" Reine asks, irresolute and pained.
"Stay with her till the last, if that were possible," he answers. "It cannot be for long. Do you know that her days are numbered?"
She starts, and trembles.
"No, I thought that this genial climate was to restore her health," she exclaims.
"We hoped it, but all has failed," he answers, sadly. "She fails daily and rapidly. There is no power in medicine, no magic in these balmy airs to lengthen her life. She is surely fading from us."
The dark eyes brim over with sorrow.
"How long?" she asks, faintly.
"I cannot tell," he answers, sadly. "Her disease is too insidious for one to say with any certainty. It may be hours, days, weeks, months, for who can prognosticate surely the coming of that dread enemy that flatters only to destroy."