"Never, my child, to be parted from us again," said her father, as he pressed her passionately to his heart.
They understood each other, and when the funeral was over, without one word to "Wentworth—for Pauline could bear nothing more—Mr. Grey took Pauline home.
That night she was in a high fever, and for two or three days she continued alarmingly ill—but at the end of that time she was enabled to sit up.
Mr. Grey had, meanwhile, seen Wentworth; but the nature of their conversation he did not repeat to his daughter.
One afternoon, however, he came into her sick room, and said,
"Pauline, are you strong enough to see your husband. He entreats to see you, if but for a few minutes." Pauline murmured an acquiescence.
"My dear," said Mr. Grey, "you must leave them—I have promised it; but Mrs. Granger (the nurse) will remain."
Wentworth presently entered. He seemed calm, for the nurse's eye was upon him; asked her how she was, and talked for a few minutes, and then getting up, as if to take Pauline's hand for farewell, he approached his lips close to her ear, said some low muttered words, and left the room.
Pauline did not speak for some time after he had withdrawn, and the nurse receiving no answer to some question she had asked her, went up to her, and found she had fainted.
Shivering succeeded to fainting fits—faintings to shivering; they thought that night that she was dying.