"Welcome if you will, then, lad! I wish you nought but good. I always liked you well; and you have done nothing to make me change. But oh! if it had been His will, I would fain you had never returned, seeing you have stayed so long."
She laid her hand upon his open palm. It was cold and nerveless, and her eyes were full of tears.
The young man would have clasped the fingers, but their dullness stole into his heart, and the tremor of her voice filled him with sickening forebodings.
"Lina! Where is Lina? Tell me quick! Has anything come to her?"
"She is gone."
"Dead, do you mean to say?"
"The same to you, lad, as if she were. She is gone from you for ever."
"Hush, mother!" said the daughter. "Remember we agreed to tell him nothing."
"Millicent! Is it you who say such things? What do you mean? Would you keep me from my wife?"
"She is gone; and you must never see her more," said Millicent.