But their eyes had not deceived them. It was indeed Royall Sherwood, stepping with old-time grace and lightness, and Aunt Alice met him at the door and led him in.
They waited with bated breath five minutes, and they came upstairs together.
Royall Sherwood did not seem to see any one but the wreck of beautiful Daisie, lying so still and silent on the bed. He went and stood by her, gazing in horror at the wasted face and form, and the shorn head whence all the golden curls had been clipped away so as to apply ice to the burning brain.
“Can this be Daisie—my wife, Daisie!” he muttered, in grief and dread, and fell on his knees, his arms clasping the unconscious girl, his slight frame heaving with emotion.
They stood around in reverent silence till the storm of grief spent itself, and he looked up indignantly, crying:
“Why was I not told of this? How dared you keep it from me that she was dying?”
They could pardon his anger for the sake of his grief, and very gently they explained the reason.
But Royall Sherwood would not be pacified. He insisted that he had been badly treated—that they should not have listened to a sick girl’s ravings—that his place was by her side.
But, as if disturbed by his complaints, Daisie moved restlessly, threw her wasted arms about, and called pleadingly:
“Dallas! Dallas! Dallas!”