“And Charles, how will he receive his brother, I wonder?” she often thought, with some anxiety. “If he is noble and manly, as I hope he will be, my fortune shall be divided between them; but if he should be unkind or ungenerous, then Herbert shall have every farthing!”
Upon Adrian’s return to London, his young wife met him with the saddest face in the world, and threw herself into his arms with a heart-broken cry.
The beautiful child, whom she had so tenderly taken to her heart in its desolation, and whom she had begun to love very dearly, was alarmingly ill—dying, she feared, from what the physician said—with that dread disease, membraneous croup!
He had been taken very suddenly, almost immediately upon Adrian’s departure, and, despite their tenderest care, had rapidly grown worse, until now he was wholly unconscious, and seemed sinking fast.
Adrian was extremely shocked by this distressing intelligence, and together they returned to Eddie’s bedside.
The doctor was there holding the little pulse and watching the ebbing life. He shook his head very gravely at Adrian’s look of inquiry, and one glance into the little pale, distressed face, told more plainly still that there was no hope.
An hour passed with scarce any change, and still those kind watchers hovered around his bed.
But suddenly there came to them from the drawing-room sounds of confusion and eager questioning.
Adrian passes out to inquire the cause, and Brownie hears a few hurried sentences, then a sharp cry of pain, which is followed by the sudden rush of garments, and a beautiful woman of about thirty rushes frantically to the bedside, and bends, sobbing and moaning, over the dying child.
She is immediately followed by a gentleman a few years older, who with a groan of agony, seizes the little cold hands and passionately presses kiss after kiss upon them.