“Cecil!” she murmured, in a thrilling voice, and Phebe moved to the door and threw it wide open.
“Come in,” she said, and there entered Doctor Laurens!
There was no one behind him, for he closed the door and crossed over to the side of the waiting girl.
CHAPTER XXX.
“Sister,” he said, gently, bending down and lifting her wasted little hand to his lips.
She let him kiss it in dead silence. Her face had grown ashy white, the light had faded from her eyes, the color from her lips.
“Sister,” he repeated again, holding her hand and looking anxiously into her changed face; but Molly’s lips moved nervously without giving forth a sound.
“Doctor Laurens, she’s disappointed. She thought you would bring her husband,” Phebe said, bluntly.
“I did. I thought she knew,” he replied, in surprise; and he continued, tenderly; “Yes, I have brought him back to you, little girl, after a hard chase, and may the Lord deliver me from ever again having to follow a man who has run away from his own misery. Jove! but he gave me a run, although I captured him at last, on one of the coldest peaks of Switzerland.”
Phebe rejoined, impatiently: