These last few days he had been struggling for the courage to give to Lady Ethel his brother’s last message, but he had dreaded to see her suffer. Now he could no longer postpone the unpleasant duty, and so he went to the saloon where he found her reading, and she looked up with a smile when he entered.
“Lady Ethel, there is something that I have been trying to tell you,” he began in a low voice.
The color came to her cheeks, and she could not look at him.
“Lindsay sent you a message. You know that he loved you as man rarely loves woman. He asked me to tell you that he would have died happy if he could only have known that you cared for him.”
Tears dimmed her eyes, but still she did not look at him.
“He was a man worthy of any woman’s love, and I believe that you would have been happy with him. I often watched you together, and it seemed to me that you did love him. It is something that we can share one another’s grief for his loss. If his life had been spared, we might have been brother and sister.”
She turned her eyes to him and he gave a cry of amazement.
“Ethel,” he cried hoarsely.
“Yes, I loved your brother as you love him—as a sister would love him, and, Edward, I have sorrowed for your sorrow. I have seen you suffering, and I could not speak.”
“Ethel, is it true?”