She came to the bedside of the dying woman. As soon as her eyes fell on the gray, pinched face, Beatrix knew that Celia Ray's journey here was nearly done.
"What can I do for you?" she cried eagerly.
Celia opened her feeble arms.
"Come to me, my baby!" she cried. "Come to the one who has loved you so! Beatrix the clouds are lifting from your life; you will soon be very happy. Tell me, do you hate Serena?"
Beatrix shuddered.
"No; I hate no one," she returned gravely. "It is very wrong to do so. Let us hope that Serena will be sorry for what she has done."
"She will never be sorry—never, until she dies!" panted the dying woman, wildly. "I know her; she is a wicked, cruel woman. She has tried to break your heart, my darling; for she hated you for your beauty, and because Keith Kenyon loved you. She is hard and heartless, cruel and vindictive—a wicked woman—and she deserves her downfall. Beatrix, here is the paper that the notary executed to-night, also some other papers of great importance. I leave all with you. You will open them one month after I am dead. By that time, so Doctor Darrow says, Keith will be fully restored to his former strength and health, and I—shall be forgotten in my lonely grave."
"No, no!" sobbed Beatrix, a strange, desolate feeling touching her tender heart with a pang of suffering, a curious sensation that in some way this woman's life, sad, lonely, ever reaching out for something, one thing unattainable, was in some way connected with her own, "you shall not be forgotten. I will do all that I can."
"I understand. Then my baby will go to see the lonely grave sometimes where poor Celia sleeps—even the name upon the stone a false one. Listen, child; I am not poor, and what I have is all for you."
"But your sister, Mrs. Lynne—" began Beatrix, hurriedly.