CHAPTER VIII.
DARK DAYS.
"Cometh sunshine after rain;
After mourning joy again;
After heavy, bitter grief
Dawneth surely sweet relief!
And my soul, who from her height
Sunk to realms of woe and night,
Wingeth now to heaven her flight."
Lyra Germanica.
Emmie did not die, neither were her physician's worst fears verified; but for many a long week the frail existence hovered between life and death.
When the lethargy had passed a long season of delirium intervened, and every symptom of severe brain fever manifested itself. For weeks the little sufferer failed to recognize the loving faces that bent over her. Caleb Runciman spent most of his leisure hours beside the bedside, holding the hand of his little favorite, and gazing sorrowfully at the thin flushed face tossing so restlessly on the pillow.
Sometimes Molly, with her pleasant features and brisk homely ways, would come and watch through the long night, that Queenie might enjoy a few hours' repose. Caleb and his faithful Molly were the only visitors to the sick room. Miss Titheridge had pleaded once, almost with tears, to be allowed to take some part in the nursing, but Queenie had sternly refused. "Emmie shall see no one but those who love her," was the invariable reply.
Granite Lodge was deserted now; Cathy and the other girls had long ago gone home for the Christmas holidays. Cathy clung to her friends, crying bitterly, when the moment arrived for saying good-bye; but Queenie only looked at her with great weary eyes.
"I shall go home and tell Garth and Langley everything. They will be sure to ask you to come to us, after my London visit in May, to stay with us for a long, long time."
"If Emmie be ever strong enough," began Queenie; but somehow she could not finish her sentence. She suffered all Cathy's caresses passively, and then went back to her old place and laid her head on Emmie's pillow.
It seemed as though nothing could rouse her from the strange apathy that had crept over her after that terrible night. She heard almost without emotion that Fraulein had been dismissed; only, as the luggage was brought downstairs, and she heard Miss Titheridge's voice speaking in a subdued key in the corridor outside, she quietly left her place and opened the door.
Fraulein Heimer was at the head of the staircase in her travelling dress; she seemed petrified at the sight of Queenie. The girl walked up to her and laid her hand on her wrist. "Come here, Fraulein, I want you a moment," she said quietly; and, strange to say, the woman obeyed her without a word, and followed her to the threshold of the sick-room; but Queenie would not suffer her to enter. "You can see your work from here," she continued, in a suppressed voice. "Ah! she is smiling at you; she does not know you tried to be her murderer."