"You are so unlike anybody else," he said, "that you shall make me unlike myself. I will do freely what I hoped to do with the light of your smile before me. You shall hear no more of this affair, neither you nor the world I have the matter perfectly in my own hands it shall never raise a whisper again. I will move heaven and earth rather than fail but there is no danger of my failing. I will try to prove myself worthy of your esteem, even where a man is most excusable for being selfish."
He took one of her cold hands again Fleda could not help it without more force than she cared to use, and, indeed, pain would by this time almost have swallowed up other sensation if every word and touch had not sent it ill a stronger throb to her very finger-ends. Thorn bent his lips to her hand, twice kissed it fervently, and then left her, much to King's satisfaction, who thereupon resigned himself to quiet slumbers.
His mistress knew no such relief. Excitement had dreadfully aggravated her disorder, at a time when it was needful to banish even thought as far as possible. Pain effectually banished it now, and Barby, coming in a little after Mr. Thorn had gone, found her quite unable to speak, and scarce able to breathe, from agony. Barby's energies and fainting remedies were again put in use, but pain reigned triumphant for hours; and when its hard rule was at last abated, Fleda was able to do nothing but sleep like a child for hours more.
Towards a late tea-time she was at last awake, and carrying on a very one-sided conversation with Rolf, her own lips being called upon for little more than a smile now and then. King, not able to be in her lap, had curled himself up upon a piece of his mistress's dress, and as close within the circle of her arms as possible, where Fleda's hand and his head were on terms of mutual satisfaction.
"I thought you wouldn't permit a dog to lie in your lap," said
Marion.
Do you remember that?" said Fleda, with a smile. "Ah, I have grown tender-hearted, Marion, since I have known what it was to want comfort myself. I have come to the conclusion that it is best to let everything have all the enjoyment it can in the circumstances. King crawled into my lap one day when I had not spirits enough to turn him out, and he has kept the place ever since. Little King!"
In answer to which word of intelligence, King looked in her face and wagged his tail, and then earnestly endeavoured to lick all her fingers, which, however, was a piece of comfort she would not give him.
"Fleda," said Barby, putting her head in, "I wish you'd just step out here and tell me which cheese you'd like to have cut."
"What a fool !" said Marion. "Let her cut them all if she likes."
"She is no fool," said Fleda. She thought Barby's punctiliousness, however, a little ill-timed, as she rose from her sofa, and went into the kitchen.