“But,” continued Alva, “the crisis passed the day they reached London, and my brother is slightly better. The physicians say he may recover—unless he has a relapse.”
Floy could not answer one word. It was all that she could do to keep her reeling senses from failing altogether.
St. George, her heart’s love, her idol, ill unto death, and parted from her by the breadth of the terrible sea! Oh, it was cruel, cruel!
And she dared not cry out to this woman, his own sister:
“Pity me, sympathize with me, for I love him; he is my own, my own, and if he dies my heart will break!”
Not one word of grief must she utter unless the tidings came that he was dead.
Then she might open the flood-gates of her love and despair, for betrayal would not matter when he was gone.
But she sat like a stone in the twilight of the room, so cold, so white, so still, and waited for Alva to say more.
Alva was in a bitter mood, that came to her sometimes when the memory of her past was revived.
She had been struggling to repress herself, but all in vain, for now, half forgetting Floy’s presence, she cried out with passionate indignation: