calm and self-possessed, although she felt, while bounding up the stairs, as she told us afterwards, her blood turning into ice. When she saw me she threw her arms around me, and said, sobbing, "My dearest brother, I would not believe you were dead." I threw on some clothes hastily, and we carried the insensible Helen down to her room. Then, having sent for a doctor, Agnes prepared my mother for the reappearance of her living son; and while she embraced me, she inquired for Helen, and on being told, she said, "Lay me by her side; we will die together."
Her wish was complied with. The physician for whom we had sent gave but little hope of Helen's recovery. She had sustained a very severe shock. The action of her heart was as faint and weak as it could be. It was just possible, and that was all, that she might live for a few years. The dreaded plague had not entered our house.
'Slowly and sadly the hours, the days—one, two, three—passed by. Slowly and sadly, and miserably for Agnes and me. Our house was shut up: Reginald had robbed us by repeated forgeries, and we were poor. On the evening of the third day we sat together beside our darling ones as they lay calm and still, in resigned and holy confidence. Helen had again declared her love. And we—Agnes and I—watched them as we sat, and our hands met and pressed each other, for we knew then that the darkest shadow of our hapless world had fallen upon blighted hearts and a ruined house—our mother and Helen were dead!'
