Thomas smiled; the words were so simple and natural. “Had the fiat gone forth for you, instead of for her, Ethel, it would have brought you no dismay?”
“Only that I must leave all my dear ones behind me,” she answered, looking up at him, a bright smile shining through her tears. “I should know that God would not take me, unless it were for the best. Oh, Thomas! if we could only save her!”
“Child, you contradict yourself. If what God does must be for the best—and it is—that thought should reconcile you to parting with Sarah Anne.”
“Y—es,” hesitated Ethel. “Only I fear she has never thought of it herself, or in any way prepared for it.”
“Do you know that I have to find fault with you?” resumed Thomas Godolphin, after a pause. “You have not been true to me, Ethel.”
She turned her eyes upon him in surprise.
“Did you not promise me—did you not promise Mr. Snow, not to enter your sister’s chamber while the fever was upon her? I hear that you were in it often: her head nurse.”
A hot colour flushed into Ethel’s face. “Forgive me, Thomas,” she whispered; “I could not help myself. Sarah Anne—it was on the third morning of her illness, when I was getting up—suddenly began to cry out for me very much, and mamma came to my bedroom and desired me to go to her. I said that Mr. Snow had forbidden me, and that I had promised you. It made mamma angry. She asked if I could be so selfish as to regard a promise before Sarah Anne’s life; that she might die if I thwarted her: and she took me by the arm and pulled me in. I would have told you, Thomas, that I had broken my word; I wished to tell you; but mamma forbade me to do so.”
Thomas Godolphin stood looking at her. There was nothing to answer: he had known, in his deep and trusting love, that the fault had not lain with Ethel. She mistook his silence, thinking he was vexed.
“You know, Thomas, so long as I am here in mamma’s home, her child, it is to her that I owe obedience,” she gently pleaded. “As soon as I shall be your wife, I shall owe it and give it implicitly to you.”