‘It is I, ma’am; here I am,’ answered the girl, laying her fingers upon her arm; there was no recognition in the eyes which stared, with unnatural brilliance, into her face.
‘Robert,’ said the voice from the bed, ‘I can never go to Whanland; you shall not try to take me there ... she is not there—I know that very well—she is out on the sands—dead and buried under the sand—— But she can’t marry him.... I could never see her if she went to Whanland.... How can I part with her? Cecilia, you will not go?’
‘Here I am, dearest aunt, here I am.’ She leaned over Lady Eliza. ‘You can see me; I am close to you.’
‘Is that impostor gone?’ asked Lady Eliza.
‘Yes, yes, he has gone,’ answered Cecilia, in a choked voice.
A look came into Lady Eliza’s face as though her true mind were battling, like a swimmer, with the waves of delirium.
‘I have never told Cecilia that he is Fullarton’s son,’ she said, ‘I have never told anyone.... She was a bad woman—she has taken him from me and now her son will take my little girl.... Mr. Speid, your face is cut—come away—come away. Cecilia, we will go to the house.... But that is Fullarton standing there. Robert, I want to say something to you. Robert, you know I did not mean to speak like that! Dear Robert, have you forgiven me?... But what can I do about my little girl? What can I do for her, Fullarton?’
She held Cecilia’s fingers convulsively. The girl kept her hand closed round the feeble one on the bed-cover, as though she would put her own life and strength into it with her grasp; she fancied sometimes that it quieted the sick woman in some strange way. She sat behind the curtain like a stone; there was little time to think over what she had just heard, for the wheels of the doctor’s gig were sounding in the avenue and she must collect herself to meet him. He was to stay for the night. But now everything that had been dark was plain to her. Her lover was Fullarton’s son! Down to the very depths she saw into her aunt’s heart, and tears, as hot as any she had shed for her own griefs, fell from her eyes.
‘Thank God, I did what I could for her,’ she said.
The night that followed was quieter than the one preceding it and she sat up, having had a long rest, insisting that the doctor should go to bed; while her aunt’s mind ran on things which were for her ears alone, she did not wish for his presence. Towards morning he came in and forced her to leave the bedside, and, worn out, she slept on till it was almost noon. She awoke to find him standing over her.