"I must go. I can't die away from Mark. Aunt, listen!" she passionately continued, clasping the wrist of Miss Bettina until that lady felt the pain. "It is one of two things: either I must go to Honfleur, or Mark must come here. I cannot die away from him."
The cry was reiterated until it grew into a wail of agony. She was suffering herself to fall into that excess of nervous agitation so difficult to soothe, so pernicious to the sick frame. Sara came in alarmed, and learned the nature of the excitement. She leaned over the sofa with a soothing whisper.
"Dear Carine! only be quiet: only be comforted! We will manage to get Mark here."
The low tone, the gentle words, seemed partially to allay the storm of the working brain. Caroline turned to Sara.
"What do you say you'll do?"
"Get Mark over to London."
She thought for a moment, and then shook her head and spoke wearily, a wailing plaint in her tone.
"You will never get him over. He is not to be got over. I know Mark better than you, Sara. So long as that miserable Wheal Bang hangs over his head he will not set his foot on English ground. I have heard him say so times upon times since he left these shores, and he will not break his word. He is afraid, you see. O Aunt Bettina!" throwing up her arms again in renewed excitement--"what an awful mistake it was!"
"What was a mistake?" returned Miss Bettina, catching the last word and no other.
"What!" echoed the unhappy invalid in irritation. "The quitting Hallingham; the past altogether. It was giving up the substance for the shadow. If we had but listened to you! If Mark had never heard of the Great Wheal Bang!"