Page:The Private Life, Lord Beaupré, The Visits (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1893).djvu/241

Rh "Lost?"

"That I had been horrible—that I had been mad. Nothing could ever unsay it. I frightened him—I almost struck him."

"Poor fellow!" I smiled.

"Yes—pity him. He was kind. But he'll see me that way—always!"

I hesitated as to the answer it was best to make to this; then I proceeded: "Don't think he'll remember you—he'll see other girls."

"Ah, he'll forget me!" she softly and miserably wailed; and I saw that I had said the wrong thing. I bent over her more closely to kiss her, and when I raised my head her mother was on the other side of the bed. She fell on her knees there for the same purpose, and when Louisa felt her lips she stretched out her arms to embrace her. She had the strength to draw her close, and I heard her begin again, for the hundredth time, "Mother, mother—"

"Yes, my own darling."

Then for the hundredth time I heard her stop. There was an intensity in her silence.