"Go, go; you are come to reproach me! O Fanny, Fanny, what have I done! My children, my children! Don't revenge yourself on them, Henry, by letting them starve!"
Poor Henry was hurried away, and returned home agonised by the thought, not only that his presence at the hospital might have hastened his brother-in-law's death, but also by the terrible fear which his words had suggested. What, oh! what had poor Arthur done?
Nothing now remained but patience and hope, yet as week after week passed by all hope seemed to die in the hearts of his children and the loving friends in whose care they were placed.
Not till the second week in July could Arthur Franklyn be pronounced out of danger; and in this hopeful condition we will leave him, to return to our friends at Kilburn.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHARLES HERBERT GIVES HIS OPINION.
Mrs. Armstrong had seen very little of her eldest sister for years, nor of Mrs. Herbert since Mary's visit to Park Lane. Sir James Elstone, the old admiral, still resided with his wife in the south of France. He was, as we know from Mrs. Lake's information to Edward Armstrong before his marriage, more than thirty years older than Louisa St. Clair, and was now eighty years of age. Louisa, although she bore the title of Lady Elstone, performed the office of a kind and faithful nurse to her aged husband, who was fast sinking into the grave.
Her sister Helen, Mrs. Herbert, possessed the good health and sunny temper which made her society always welcome at the homes of her two sisters. Maria had a family to care for, and she was naturally a home bird; and besides, she had a sweet companion and comforter in her daughter Mary.
Mrs. Herbert, while her son was away, had no home ties, and the colonel, who had spent more than half his life in India, preferred the beautiful climate of the Mediterranean to the fogs and uncertain weather of England. All these facts were turned into arguments in favour of her request by Lady Elstone when she wrote and asked her sister Helen and the colonel to join them at their château on the shores of the Mediterranean. This invitation arrived soon after Mary's visit to Park Lane, and a year had elapsed since Mrs. Armstrong had seen her sister Helen, who, however, kept up a constant correspondence with Mary.