As she sits in the old arm-chair with her small head thrown wearily back, she looks almost too transparently pale and pure for an inhabitant of earth.
The blue veins show plainly as they wander beneath the white skin, the blue eyes look larger and darker by contrast with the purple shadows beneath them, the once rounded cheeks are thin and hollow.
Even the lips, once so rosy and smiling with their arch dimpled corners, have taken on an expression of pain and endurance pitiful to see in one so young and fair.
The small white hands, growing thin and weak, are listlessly folded across her lap, while she looks wearily at the smouldering ashes of a fire that had been kindled on the hearth that morning, for the September mornings are chilly and the girl's enfeebled frame feels cold keenly.
Thus the two confederates found her when, after a premonitory rap, they unlocked the door and entered. She looked up and her white face blanched still whiter at their presence, but beyond that she took no notice save in a fixed and slightly scornful curl of the lip.
"I trust that I find you well, Miss Lawrence," said her suitor, with an air of devotion.
"Is it possible I should feel well after subsisting for a month on bread and water?" asked the girl, in a languid voice of unutterable contempt.
"Lily, forgive me, but you force me to adopt these stringent measures. It is my love that drives me thus to extremes in hope of forcing your consent at last. Oh! why will you not relent and make yourself comfortable, and me the happiest of men?" cried Colville, imploringly, as he tried to take her hand in his own. But she drew it away with a gesture of contempt and repugnance to his touch and he desisted. Dr. Pratt withdrew to the window and appeared to ignore the conversation.
"Lily," continued Colville, seeing that she made no motion of replying, "you have now had a month for contemplation and sober reflection. Surely you have profited by the thoughts that must have assailed you in that time. Do you now consent to become my wife?"