In vain Mr. Linchmore and Mr. Hall gently tried to induce her to leave; she was deaf to reason.
"I must be here," she murmured, with pale compressed lips, "I must be here."
There was no help for it; so they bore him up slowly past her on into his room, and laid him on the bed, and there left him.
"Do you think he will die?" asked Amy, fearfully, as she grasped old Dr. Bernard's arm tightly, some time later as he sat by the fire.
How he felt for her, that old man, she so young, and so full of sorrow. He drew her hand in his, and stroked it gently and kindly.
"Trust in God, and hope," was the reply.
"I do trust," she replied, firmly. "I will try and hope. But, oh! I love him! I love him!" she said.
And this was the one cry for ever, if not on her lips, at her heart.
She sat by the pale insensible form day after day; she knew no fatigue, heeded not the lapse of time. Once only she stole away to imprint a last loving kiss on her dead Bertie's lips ere they bore away the little coffin to its last resting-place in the cold churchyard; then silently she went back to her old place by her husband's bed-side. Would he die without one word? without recognising his wife who loved him so entirely? Oh! surely he would speak one loving word if but one; give her one loving look as of old. She felt that her boy's death was as nothing in comparison to this.
As the love deep and strong welled up in her heart, she felt half frightened at its intensity, while it crept with a great fear as she whispered over and over again, "He will die." If he would but speak; or say one word.