"It is only Dr. Bennet, my darling," returned her sister, marvelling at her exceeding agitation. Whom did she expect? What impossible arrival was she conjuring up in her sick brain? "Hush! it is only Dr. Bennet, he promised to come early, and we have no other visitor, you know. Lie down again, Emmie, and I will bring him to you."
The sunshine streamed through the bay window as she closed the folding doors behind her softly.
"I am so thankful you have come, Dr. Bennet," she began breathlessly, and then she stopped, and her heart seemed to cease beating for a moment.
"I am not Dr. Bennet, but I trust you are not sorry to see me," said a familiar voice in her ear, the voice that had vibrated through her waking and sleeping dreams; and there was Garth looking at her, and holding out his hand, with his old kind smile.
"You here? you, of all people in the world!" she gasped, for she was dazed with want of sleep, and the sudden appearance of this dearest friend seemed to her more dream-like than real; even the pressure of his hand scarcely reassured her. "I am so stupid, I don't seem to believe it somehow," she said, wrinkling her brows, and looking at him with such grave, unsmiling eyes that Garth grew almost as grave as she.
"Emmie sent for me; she wrote such a sweet little childish letter that I could not keep away. Why did you not send for me if things were as bad as this?" looking down at her pale face with mingled feelings of pity and love. Worn and jaded and weary as she looked, with all her brightness quenched, he felt it was the dearest face in the world to him.
"Emmie sent for you, and I never knew it! then it is you she has been expecting these two days. Oh, Mr. Clayton, do you know that she is dying; that I shall soon be without her, the only thing that belongs to me in the whole world?" and moved by the sympathy of his face, Queenie sank down on the couch, and covered her face with her hands.
"Yes, I know all about it, and Langley and I are more sorry for you than I can say. Cathy wanted to come with me, but she could not leave Langley."
"But you came. Oh, it is so good of you; and this is such a poor welcome," trying to smile at him through her tears.
"I could not expect otherwise," he returned, in an odd, constrained voice, for he was just then restraining with difficulty the longing to take her in his arms and comfort her like a child. Did she understand his feelings? he wondered, for there was a little flush in her face as she moved away, saying that she would tell Emmie.