"Oh, hush! that would be dreadful! Was he surprised this afternoon at your errand? I thought it was you who left those papers; but when you announced your coming marriage this evening, then I began to doubt," and she laughed softly.
"It was a surprise at first, but he consented at last to give me his treasure—if I could get her."
"Poor papa, I will never leave him. No one else seems to have time to be with him or amuse him as I can, and it is hard for him to feel so helpless when he has such a restless and energetic disposition."
"I promised not to take you away while he needed you; but, dearest—I do not want to alarm you—I do not think he will have to bear his pain many weeks longer. He is failing, I can see, and he told me to-day that he felt his strength going fast."
"I know it is so, though I have tried to put the thought aside. Dear papa, how good he has been to me! What news this will be to him! But I hope no one else will find it out—just yet. Everything must go on much as usual, before others anyway," smiling into his happy face.
"That will be very hard, don't you think, little wife? How shall I be able to hide my love from Gussie?"
"Oh! you will be coming here after this just to see papa, you know," looking at him archly, "and I fancy she will find little to interest her in the man that has so openly announced his approaching marriage to a lady who is unknown. I'll not object, perhaps, to let you stay—with papa, you know—on the nights that I take my turn to sit up with him. But there is his bell, and oh! Guy, look at the clock!"
Dexie's heart beat fast as she hurried to her father's room, but she was needlessly alarmed. His unusual sleep had renewed his strength, but Dexie, fearing the worst, asked anxiously:
"Are you in much pain, dear papa?"