Alice raised her head.
“My sister! Ah! you do not know.”
Her hair was thrown back in a momentary attempt at pride, and then Alice hid her face again in her hands. It was as Mrs. Catherine said; the gentle little heart could offer no resistance to this dull, dead weight of sorrow.
“I do know, Alice!” said Anne. “Look up now, and do not weep. Lewis is waiting to see you. Mrs. Catherine knows he is here—Alice!”
“Is it not true?” whispered Alice; “is it not true? You would not call me Alice if it were true. Oh! Miss Ross, tell me.”
“It is not true; we have found out that we were wrong,” said Anne, soothingly. “Rise, now, and let me be your maid instead of Bessie, and you shall hear it all when you are able.”
Alice had half risen, and was already clinging to Anne like a child.
“Tell me now; I am able. Oh! Miss Ross, why did Mrs. Catherine tell me that? why did you let her? I could not bear it. If it were to come back again I should die—I know I should die!”
Anne smiled sadly. And yet it might have been so; the gentle and weak may droop their heads like flowers, and die; the stronger must live on, bearing undying griefs through long lifetimes: it is so appointed. Very sad was this plaintive, murmuring sorrow from lips so young. Sadder still was the conscious life of that other more perfect woman of the ballad: “I wish I was dead, but I’m no like to dee.”
Jacky was hovering not far off with lights, and Anna lifted her little patient tenderly, put her dress in order, and led her down to the cheerful fireside of Mrs. Catherine’s inner drawing-room, where Lewis joined her by-and-bye, and from the warm and hopeful air of which, glad lights went flashing back again over the fair horizon of Alice Aytoun’s life.