She fell upon her knees at the bedside.
"I would not have cared to live if you had died," she sobbed, bitterly. "Oh, Keith—Keith! You are the very light of my life! Say that you care a little—even a little—for me!"
His face grew pallid, and an awful faintness crept over him.
"Of course I care, Serena," he faltered, brokenly. "You are like a—a sister to me."
"But I do not want to be your sister," she cried, boldly. "Let me be something nearer and dearer, Keith. Let me—"
She stopped short with a cry of horror. He had fainted dead away, and lay back upon the pillow as white as a corpse. With a wild shriek, and crying out madly that he was dead, she summoned her mother, and together they finally resuscitated him. But he was as weak and feeble as a living man could be. Should there be a second relapse, no human power could save him. When at last he had fallen into a refreshing slumber, Mrs. Lynne beckoned Serena out into the hall.
"If you have any hope of ever becoming Mrs. Keith Kenyon," she began in a dry, hard tone, "I advise you to secure him as soon as possible. Marry him as he lies upon that sick-bed, or, if that be inexpedient, make him enter into an engagement to marry you. I know Keith Kenyon. An engagement would be as sacred in his eyes as marriage itself. Do your best, Serena. If you fail to grasp this opportunity, you are lost. How can you ever content yourself to drag out your days here in this dead-and-alive place, with only a pittance to live on, with no pleasures, no society—nothing in the whole world but an endless and wearisome round of distasteful duties, no happiness, no love. And you do love Keith Kenyon, do you not, Serena?"
"Love him! Oh, my God!"
She sank into a seat and covered her face with her trembling hands, while a torrent of sobs shook her angular frame.
"Love him!"