It was a morning early in April. Joyce sat, in its gray dawn, over a large fire in the dressing-room of Lady Isabel Carlyle, her hands clasped to pain, and the tears coursing down her cheeks. Joyce was frightened; she had had some experience in illness; but illness of this nature she had never witnessed, and she was fervently hoping never to witness it again. In the adjoining room lay Lady Isabel, sick nearly unto death.
The door from the corridor slowly opened, and Miss Carlyle slowly entered. She had probably never walked with so gentle a step in all her life, and she had got a thick-wadded mantle over her head and ears. Down she sat in a chair quite meekly, and Joyce saw that her face looked as gray as the early dawn.
“Joyce,” whispered she, “is there any danger?”
“Oh, ma’am, I trust not! But it’s hard to witness, and it must be awful to bear.”
“It is our common curse, Joyce. You and I may congratulate ourselves that we have not chosen to encounter it. Joyce,” she added, after a pause, “I trust there’s no danger; I should not like her to die.”
Miss Carlyle spoke in a low, dread tone. Was she fearing that, if her poor young sister-in-law did die, a weight would rest on her own conscience for all time—a heavy, ever-present weight, whispering that she might have rendered her short year of marriage more happy, had she chosen; and that she had not so chosen, but had deliberately steeled every crevice of her heart against her? Very probably; she looked anxious and apprehensive in the morning’s twilight.
“If there’s any danger, Joyce—”
“Why, do you think there’s danger, ma’am?” interrupted Joyce. “Are other people not as ill as this?”
“It is to be hoped they are not,” rejoined Miss Carlyle. “And why is the express gone to Lynneborough for Dr. Martin?”
Up started Joyce, awe struck. “An express for Dr. Martin! Oh, ma’am! Who sent it? When did it go?”