She took Cinthia’s cold, unresisting hand, and led her along the corridor; continuing in an explanatory manner:
“He should have come to you, but the shock of his broken love dream almost stretched him dead at my feet. I had to call in a physician, but he is better now.”
She pushed open a door, and led Cinthia in. She saw Arthur lying on a lounge, with a ghastly face and closed eyes.
“Are you asleep, my son? because, after all, it will be better for you to tell Cinthia yourself. She can not believe me.”
He started and opened his dark-blue eyes. When they fell on the placid sorrowful face of his lost little love, the burning tears sparkled into them and rolled down upon his cheeks. Years of anguish could not have changed him more than this keen stroke of an hour ago.
“Cinthia”—he breathed hollowly, and she came and bent over him, impulsively slipping her little hand into his as he went on—“Cinthia, do not think me false or fickle, or turned against you by the arbitrary wishes of our parents. I never loved you better than in this hour when I must part from you forever. Cinthia, it is the most fortunate thing in the world that my mother chanced on us in time to prevent our mad marriage. A great gulf is fixed between us that neither our love nor our hopes can ever cross. My mother has telegraphed for your father to come and take you home, and we must bid each other an eternal farewell.”
Cinthia felt herself sinking, falling; but an arm slipped round her waist, and Mrs. Varian, with a sigh, pillowed the unconscious head against her breast.
CHAPTER XVI.
“OH, WHAT A TIME!”
Mrs. Flint was at her wits’ end to know what to do for the strange woman whom her brother had mistakenly brought home as his daughter.
The upshot was that she simply did nothing at all but to sit still and stare, and wonder where the woman came from, how Everard came to bring her home, and what had become of Cinthia.