Part 12 (1/2)

”Well enow; but sweet air will not make me live if the time hath come for me to die.” And the sick girl smiled wanly, inscrutably, the smile of one who knows what he will not say.

The face of the fearless soldier grew white with terror, and almost angrily he replied,--

”Hush, child! Thy time to die hath not come. Never think it, for it shall not be.”

”Nay, Myles, thou canst not daunten Death with thy stern voice and masterful eye, though thou canst quell a score of other foes with one glance.”

And Rose, moving her frail little hand toward the sinewy fist clenched upon the bed-covering, slid a finger within its grasp, and went softly on with a pathetic ring of gayety in her voice,--

”I was dreaming, too, of home, mine own old home. I was gathering cowslips in the meadow at St. Mary's, and mother stood by with little Maudlin in her arms. They smiled, both of them, ah how sweetly they smiled upon me, and I filled my pinafore with the cowslips, soft, cool, wet cowslips,--I feel them in my hand now, so cool, so wet! Myles, I fain would have those cowslips, may I not?”

”Child! Child! Thou 'lt break my heart!”

”Mother and Maudlin both died the year I saw thee first, dost remember, Myles?”

”Try to sleep a little, my darling. I will say thee a psalm, or perhaps one of those old Manx ballads thou didst use to lilt so lightly.”

”Mistress White says they are unG.o.dly, and a snare of Satan,” replied Rose dreamily, and before Myles could utter the wrathful comment that quivered upon his lips she went on,--

”It was across her grave I saw thee, dear, dost mind thee of that hour?”

”Thy mother's grave? ay, I mind me.”

”Yes, thou camest with thy cousin Barbara to seek thy grandsire's gravestone and to search out the muniments of thy race. Thou 'lt never lay hands on that inheritance, Myles.”

”I care not, so thou wilt get strong and well again, my Rose, my Rose!”

And with a groan but half driven back upon his heart, the soldier turned his head aside and set his teeth upon his trembling lip. But Rose, more alive in the past than the present, rambled on in her sweet, weak voice,--

”'Not only this wild hunting ground and ruined lodge where we abide, but many a fair manor in England, and many a stately home is his,' that was what Barbara told me about thee afterward; and when I praised thy presence, for I loved thee or ever I knew it myself, she straightened her neck and said full proudly, 'Ay, and not only a goodly man, but a brave soldier and n.o.ble soul.' 'Twas she who first saw that thou lovedst me, Myles, and came and wept for joy upon my neck.”

”Peace, peace, dear child. Thou wastest thy strength in talking overmuch. Sleep, canst thou not, dear heart?”

”Dost think that Barbara will come hither? She promised me surefast that she would so soon as there was a company ready. She said it was so lonely there in Man when I was gone. Will she come, think you, Myles?”

”Like enow, sweetheart. Barbara mostly carries out what she promises.

But”--

”And thou 'lt be very, very good to thy cousin, wilt thou not, Myles?

Thou 'rt all she has now.”

”Surely both of us will be good to our kinswoman, dear wife, and all the more that, as thou sayest, it was by going to visit her that I first saw thee, blooming like a very rose in that gray old Manx churchyard.”

”I was ever friends with Barbara, but I loved her all the more for thy sake, dear. And she was well pleased that we two should wed--leastways she said so.”

”And if she said it she meant it, for in all the years she tarried in my mother's house I never knew her tell a lie or wear two faces. But now, verily, child, I must have thee rest. Speak not again unless thou needest somewhat. I will have it so, my Rose.”

”Then let me lay my hand in thine. There, then, good-night.”

”Good-night, mine own.”