"You dear darling, I'm so thankful you have! He wouldn't let me tell, but I said this morning I wouldn't deny it if you happened to guess."
"Oh, Cynthia, though I said I didn't believe the other, this has taken a thousand-pound weight from my heart!"
They were interrupted by the entrance of the nurse, who came to say that her patient was growing more uneasy, and she thought some one had better come to her. At the same moment Mr. Franklin arrived, so Cynthia went alone to her sister.
She found her perfectly conscious, with large, wide-open eyes, watching for her. Edith's head was bound up, and the pretty hands, of which she had always been somewhat vain, moved restlessly. Cynthia took one of them in her warm, firm grasp, and leaned over the bed.
"Dearest, you wanted me," she said, in a low voice; "I am going to stay with you now."
But Edith was not satisfied. She tried to say something, but in so faint a voice that Cynthia could not hear.
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU," SHE SAID. "DON'T TRY TO SPEAK."
"I can't hear you," she said, in distress. "Don't try to speak; it will tire you."
But still Edith persisted. Cynthia put her ear close to her sister.