Here Mr. Kimberly paused, looked at Minnie with an amused expression for a minute or two, and then went on--
"You look rather bewildered, and now I come to think of it, I dare say it is rather a bewildering thing to be treated like an old woman of fifty. I need scarcely have told you of this so soon--especially as you will hear of it soon enough from lips fitter to speak of it than mine, but one always feels the need of a confidante, however old he may be and young she may be."
"And I shall be prouder of nothing than of being yours," she returned, stroking his grey hair lovingly.
"Not even of the Presidentship of the Hollowmell Mission?" enquired he incredulously.
"O, Mabel is that," she replied, her face clouding again as the thought flashed across her mind that perhaps Mabel would be that no more.
"Well, the position of arbitrator between discontented miners and their employers," he suggested, anxious to divert her thoughts from the gloomy subject he had unwittingly touched on.
"Not even of that," she declared, brightening a little. "Besides, all the girls have a share in that--but to our confidences again. What of Charlie and Mona?"
"I suppose you couldn't guess?"
"I am sure I couldn't," she asserted. Then added laughingly, "unless they've fallen in love with each other--by-the-way," she continued, growing suddenly serious again; "that isn't as altogether an improbable think as it looks--I remember coming to the conclusion that Charlie had fallen in love with her writing, and thinking that it was almost equivalent to falling in love with herself."
"Well, that is just what has happened to them--though I rather think it happened before the creation of your ingenious theory. It appears they had some misunderstanding, or quarrel or something of that nature, before Miss Cameron left London, and they had never met again till he saw her along with you decorating the hall down there."
"And they've made it up!" exclaimed Minnie, clapping her hands in her delight.
"Yes, it is settled--the girl's only nineteen, and in my opinion too young. But her father doesn't seem to think so."
"O, that's what he was here for then," remarked Minnie, "I met him as I was going up to Mabel's."
"Yes," replied her father, smiling. "He seems to have fully made up his mind on one point."
"What point?"
"That there is nothing and nobody worth considering in comparison with his daughter, and in that conviction his wife and he seem to be completely at one."
Minnie laughed.
"I know somebody who is pretty nearly as decided in his opinions on a similar subject," she hinted.
"Come, now, not quite," protested he.
"Well, he's a great deal older than Mr. Cameron, and consequently ought to have a great deal more sense."
"And his daughter snubs him too much--I wonder if Miss Mona has as sharp a tongue?"
"I would advise you not to rouse it," was Minnie's reply, as she flitted away.
Next day the mid-summer holidays commenced, much to Minnie's joy, for now she could sit by her friend many hours during the day, cheering her in her intervals of consciousness, and watching and soothing her at other times--thereby not only greatly aiding her slow recovery, but also rendering her aunt inestimable service in her present harassing position.
Mabel's great danger did not lie so much in the ruptured blood-vessel, as in a sharp attack of brain fever, which had followed upon her late excitement, and the slackening of the strain she had borne so long.
She was yet very far from being out of danger, but there was scarcely so much need for apprehension, and even such a slight crumb of comfort was eagerly caught at.
Minnie was sitting beside Mabel's bed on the third day of the holidays, when she heard a step outside the door. The handle was turned noiselessly, and Mona came in on tip-toes, fearful of creating the least sound.
"Miss Chartres didn't tell me you were here," she said, her voice trembling. "How is she?"
"I think the fever isn't quite so bad--she hasn't been wandering so much this afternoon."
Mabel had lain almost motionless all this time, but now her pale lips began to move, although for some moments no sound issued from them. Then she began to speak in a voice so thin and weak that Mona could hardly recognize it.
For some time they could make nothing of her words, and only tried to soothe her, but after a while it became clear to them that she was repeating something which sounded like poetry. Still they could make nothing out of it, for sometimes several words would be lost from a line, and occasionally a whole line would be repeated by those pale lips without a sound.
At length Minnie caught a whole line. What the words were which went before she could not tell, but the words she caught came clear and distinct:
"It went up Single, Echoless,--'My God I am deserted.'"
The words "Single, Echoless" were uttered with a strange sort of triumphant emphasis which struck both the girls, and then the feeble voice went on more brokenly even than before with a few lines more, and then suddenly ceased.
Minnie repeated the line over.
"I wonder what it is from," she said. "I am sure I have read it often, but I cannot remember where."
"I can't tell just at this minute either," remarked Mona, "I know it perfectly well though. If we could only get hold of it, reading it to her might do her any amount of good."
"That is just what I was thinking about," returned Minnie, "I wish we could find it."
"I've got it!" exclaimed Mona, at last, with a suppressed shriek of triumph. "It's in Mrs. Browning."
He looked very grave indeed on this occasion which was his third visit that day. A crisis, he said, would probably take place that night; he promised to come again before the time he expected it would occur; but held but very little hope as to its ultimate issue.
When he arrived, Mabel was in a state of high delirium, and raved in a way which made Minnie pale with terror. After about half-an-hour of wild, disconnected raving, she became a little quieter, and at last settled down to the old habit of repeating verses--verses which Minnie now recognised as belonging to Mrs. Browning's poem on Cowper's Grave.
She drew the doctor out into an adjoining room and explained to him the idea which had occurred to her in connection with Mabel's constant repetition of this poem, asking if he did not think it might have some good effect.
"Well," he said, "I must tell you plainly that I am afraid it cannot have any good effect, but at any rate it cannot have any bad effect, and she is only wearing herself out more quickly as it is."--"Yes," he continued more kindly, noticing for the first time how young she was, and how terribly in earnest, "read it to her by all means. It will do _you_ good, and it cannot do her harm."
She thanked him with tears in her eyes, and they both went back into the sick-chamber together.
She had brought the book with her, so, turning at once to the place, she began to read in a low, soft tone, with slow and measured accents, well-suited to the subject and the measure as well as the purpose she had in view.
At first it produced no visible effect, but she gradually became quieter as Minnie proceeded and the hopes of the watchers rose. She did not attempt to follow it at all till the line Minnie had caught so distinctly was reached, and then she repeated it after her in the same tone as before, and with the same triumphant emphasis on the words, "Single, Echoless."
Then she went on with the lines following along with Minnie, her voice growing gradually weaker and weaker as she proceeded:--
"It went up from the holy lips amid His lost creation That of the lost no one should use those words of desolation-- That earth worst frenzies, marring hope, might mar not hope's fruition."
Here her voice died away, and she lay back with a long sigh of content.
"She's conscious!" exclaimed Minnie in a whisper as she closed the book, "and the fever's gone. You said she would be safe--" and she stood with bated breath while the doctor bent over her.