Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/165

 there dumb, stricken as a statue, the film darkening before her eyes, and her brain throb, throbbing, like the screw of a steam engine.

"Fenella, my wife, my darling! For Heaven's sake, listen to me. Don't look at me like that, my darling, hear me. I never knew. I swear, I never knew. I was ill, I heard nothing, knew nothing until an hour ago. My sweet, what you must have suffered! Fenella, speak—a word, a little word. Sweetheart, think of our childhood."

And then a little moan came from her, a little sighing moan, and she fell half forward. He caught her in his arms. "Darling," he said again passionately, "only hear me. Ah!"

It was too late! Was it too late? She lay in his arms white and cold and silent. Frank, kissing those pale, cold lips, chafing those dead hands, murmuring over her a thousand caressing names, distracted with despair, desperately put away the fear, and called for help in anguished tones.

Then the women came in and were busy about her, and there were moaning and lamentation, but still she heard not.

Fenella was not dead, but she was ill—terribly ill. The silver cord was not broken, but it was strained to its last fiber. Weeks went by, weeks when she lay in the little cottage at Guernsey, and Frank crept about with anguished eyes, and lived on the bulletins from the sick room. Weeks