Minutes passed, and there was apparently no change in Alice. That she still lived was only evident from a faint pulsation which the clever physician could barely detect in her wrist, and every moment he expected that even that faint, fluttering spark would go out in death.
The lingering sunset began to fade. Some of the neighbors came in with hushed footsteps and sympathetic faces. On the dark, frowning face of Mr. Finley a light of satisfaction began to dawn.
When twilight began to darken the summer sky, he slipped from that solemn chamber, where they were watching for death to come in and dispossess the mother’s heart of its treasure, and disappeared from the scene.
He made his way quickly to Franklin Street, and rang the bell at Colonel Falconer’s door. When a servant appeared he pushed past him and unceremoniously entered the wide hall.
“Tell Mrs. Falconer that a man is waiting with an important message from her husband,” he said boldly.
The servant showed him into a small reception room, and disappeared, while Finley waited—rather nervously, it must be confessed, for he was by no means certain that Colonel Falconer was out. What if he should appear, and kick the lying intruder out of doors?
But fortune favored him, for in a very few moments the rustle of a woman’s garments was audible, and then Pansy appeared before him, simply clad in a pale-gray traveling dress, and with a tear-stained face and swollen eyes. She closed the door carefully behind her, then started back as she beheld her visitor.
“You!” she exclaimed, in horrified tones.
He rose and bowed profoundly.
“I came to bring you the sad news of poor Alice, but I see from your face that you have already heard,” he said pointedly.