"Your sister!" Walter cried.
"Just my sister. I have taken the liberty," Mr. Milnathort repeated, "to have her carried into the library, where you will find her. She has borne the journey better than I could have hoped, but it is an experiment that makes me very anxious. You will spare her any—emotion, any shock, that you can help?"
The serious face of the lawyer was more serious than ever: his long upper lip trembled a little. He turned round to the others with anxious self-restraint.
"She is very frail," he said, "a delicate bit creature all her life—and since her accident—"
He spoke of this, as his manner was, as if it had happened a week ago.
Walter hurried away to the library, in which he found Miss Milnathort carefully arranged upon a sofa, wrapped up in white furs instead of her usual garments, a close white hood surrounding the delicate brightness of her face. She held out her hands to him at first without a word; and when she could speak, said, with a tremble in her voice:
"I have come to see the end of it. I have come to see—her and you."
"I should have come to you," cried Walter, "I did not forget—but for my mother's illness——"
"Yes?" she said with a grateful look. "You thought upon me? Oh, but my heart has been with her and you! Oh, the terrible time it was! the first news in the papers, the fear that you were buried there under the ruins, you—and she; and then to wait a night and a day."
"I should have sent you word at once—I might have known; but I did not think of the papers."