Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/251

239 'No,' I answered 'I don't. I think you got it as the result of catching a severe cold.' 'But I did it—I did it on purpose!'

'The cold wouldn't know anything about that. And you mustn't talk any more.'

She had a violent fit of coughing. When it was done she said:

'I do wish you'd talk to me. I can't get to sleep. I like to hear you talking!'

'Very well,' I said, 'I'll tell you a story. Will that do?'

'Yes,' she said, 'but lie down there. I don't like you sitting up.'

I lay down on the extreme edge of the bed, with my head on the bolster, and began my story. It was the story of Undine. Often I had to stop on account of her coughing. Once the story was so broken into by a fit of it, that I hoped she would forget or not care to hear any more and would try to go to sleep. Not so. She began to talk about what had happened to her in London, and would not brook interruption. At last, I let her say what she had to say. She told me of her life at Wiltshire Crescent. Then, suddenly, after a pause:

'I was glad when you came,' she said slowly, 'I had a most horrid dream of you. I dreamed you were dead, and that I saw your coffin carried by men to the ceme-tery. I thought I was in such grief about parting with you in anger, that I would have given half my life to have parted with you friendly.… I know I have been very wicked in doing what I have, but I do believe God will forgive me. I did love you! I was also in trouble as to whether you were safe in heaven, and I thought I wept so bitterly, and my grief was so great that, while I was following to see where you were buried, I was obliged to kneel down to pray God to take you to heaven, and to forgive all, at the same time promising I would be good all the rest of my life, in hope to see you there—when I awoke and found it all a dream. And I was pleased, but it upset me for days, and at last I made up my mind to write to you, as I could not rest."