they never thought of asking whether the lines were quite apposite; they were sobbing unaffectedly and profusely; and Meenie's eyes were rather wet too. And then, when it was all over, they caught her to their arms as if she had been their own; and would lead her to the sofa, and overwhelm her with all kinds of little attentions and caresses. Cake and wine, too—of course she must have some cake and wine!
'Should I, Ronald?' she said, looking up, with her eyes all wet and shining and laughing: it was her first appeal to the authority of her husband.
'As you like—as you like, surely.'
But when they came to him he gently refused.
'Not on your wedding day!' the old ladies exclaimed—and then he raised the glass to his lips; and they did not notice that he had not touched it when he put it down again.
And so these two were married now—whatever the future might have in store for them; and in a brief space of time—as soon, indeed, as she could tear herself away from these kind friends, she had dispossessed herself of her little bits of bridal finery; and had bade a long and lingering good-bye to Ronald; and was stealing back to her sister's house.
CHAPTER XII.
IN DARKENED WAYS.
It was with feelings not to be envied that Jack Huysen stalked up and down the verandah in front of this Fort George hotel, or haunted the long, echoing corridors, eager to question any one who had access to the sick room. All the mischief seemed to be of his doing; all the help and counsel and direction in this time of distress seemed to be afforded by his friend Tilley. It was he—that is, Huysen—whose carelessness had led to the boating catastrophe; it was the young Doctor who had plunged into the lake and saved Carry's life. Not only that, but it was on his shoulders that there now seemed to rest the burden of saving her a second time; for she had gone from bad to worse; the fever had increased rapidly; and while Doctor Tilley was here, there, and everywhere in his quiet but persistent activity, taking elaborate precautions about the temperature of the room, instructing the two trained nurses whom he had telegraphed for from New York, and pacifying the mental vagaries of the patient as best he might, what could Jack Huysen do but wander about like an uneasy spirit, accusing himself of having wrought all this evil, and desperately conscious that he could be of no use whatever in mitigating its results.
She was not always delirious. For the most part she lay moaning slightly, breathing with the greatest difficulty, and complaining of that constant pain in her chest; while her high pulse and temperature told how the fever was rather gaining upon her than abating. But then again, at times, her face would grow flushed; and the beautiful soft black eyes would grow strangely bright; and she would talk in panting whispers, in an eager kind of way, and as if she had some secret to tell. And always the same delusion occupied her mind—that this was Loch Naver; that they had got into trouble somehow, because Ronald was not in the boat; that they had sent for Ronald, but he had gone away; and so forth. And sometimes she uttered bitter reproaches; Ronald had been ill-treated by some one; nay, she herself had been to blame; and who was to make up to him for what he had suffered at her hands?