“Oh, Lucy dear, I—I have many sorrows to bear.”
“The tea will warm you, and there is some nice jam,” was Miss Lucy’s offered consolation.
“Their greeting, tender as it may be, is surely over by this time,” thought Lady Isabel, an expression something like mockery curving her lips. “I will venture again.”
Only to see him with his wife’s face on his breast, and his lips bent upon it. But they had heard her this time, and she had to advance, in spite of her spirit of misery and her whitened features.
“Would you be so good sir, as to come and look at William?” she asked in a low tone, of Mr. Carlyle.
“Certainly.”
“What for?” interjected Barbara.
“He looks very ill. I do not like his looks. I am fearing whether he can be worse than we have thought.”
They went to the gray parlor, all three of them. Mr. Carlyle was in first, and had taken a long, silent look at William before the others entered.
“What is he doing on the floor?” exclaimed Barbara, in her astonishment. “He should not lie on the floor, Madame Vine.”