"If I can aid you in any way I shall be happy and ready to do so," was William's answer, spoken soothingly. "I think you are very ill."
"The doctor was here this afternoon. 'Ma chère,' said he, 'to-morrow will about end it. You are too weak to last longer; the inside is gone.'"
"Did he speak to you in that way?—a medical man!"
"He is aware that I know as much about my own state as he does. He might not be so plain with all his patients. Then I said to the sister, 'Get me up and make the bed, for I must see a friend.'—And I sent her for you. I told you I wanted you to do me a little service. Will you do it?"
"If it is in my power."
"It is not much. It is this," she added, drawing from beneath the peignoir a small packet, sealed and stamped, looking like a thick letter. "Will you undertake to put this surely in the post after I am dead? I do not want it posted before."
"Certainly I will," he answered, taking it from her hand, and glancing at the superscription. It was addressed to Herbert Dare at Dusseldorf. "Is he there?" asked William.
"That was his address the last I heard of him. He is now here, now there, now elsewhere; a vagabond, as I told you, on the face of the earth. He is like Cain," she vehemently continued. "Cain wandered abroad over the earth, never finding rest. So does Herbert Dare. Who wonders? Cain killed his brother: what did he do?"
William lifted his eyes to her face; as much of it as might be distinguished under the dark shade cast by the lamp. That she appeared to be in a very demonstrative state of resentment against Herbert Dare was indisputable.
"He did not kill his brother, at any rate," observed William. "I fear he is not a good man; and you may have cause to know that more conclusively than I; but he did not kill his brother. You were in Helstonleigh at the time, mademoiselle, and must remember that he was cleared," added William, falling into the style of address used by the Dares.