"What makes you think him so ill?"
"I've been the mother of four, Miss, and lost them all, and none of them looked a bit worse than Master Bertie, poor, innocent lamb."
"But you had not two doctors," returned Frances.
"No, nor half the nurses to wait on mine; but I'd the same loving, craving mother's heart and the same God to look up to and hope in," and the housekeeper passed on, as the rebuke fell from her lips.
"Oh! I wish I could hope, I wish I could pray," cried Frances, as she went once more into the solitude of her own room; not only did she grieve for Bertie, but the terror lest through her means he should die had at last brought repentance to her unfeeling heart; she had been so wicked, so relentlessly cruel to his mother, that perhaps the boy's death was to be her punishment; and she could think of, scarcely look forward to, anything else.
Dr. Bernard stayed at the Park all that night; he whispered no decided hope to Amy's heart. There was only a very grave look on his face as after bending over Bertie and feeling the quick, sharp pulse beating so fiercely against his finger, he said, "While there is life there is hope," and Amy was obliged to content her poor heart with this, and repeat it over and over again to herself all through that long sad night; the second of Bertie's illness, and of her own and her husband's watch, for Robert scarcely ever left his boy, but remained through the weary hours of night patiently by his side; only old Hannah snatching every now and then a moment's sleep.
Towards the morning Bertie grew more composed, the hands tossed about less restlessly, and the weary, anxious eyes closed in sleep: so calm and still he looked that Amy bent down her head to catch the faint breath.
"It is not death?" she said to Dr. Bernard, who had been hastily aroused.
"No. The crisis is past I hope. The fever has left him. It is weakness, excessive weakness," but he did not add that that was as much to be dreaded as the fever; while Amy only prayed that when he awoke he would recognise her, so long it seemed since his little lips had said "Mamma."
Just before luncheon, Anne with her husband drove up to the Hall. She was rushing into the morning-room with her usual haste and merry laugh, when she was checked by Mrs. Linchmore's grave face.