Page:The Semi-attached Couple.djvu/253

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THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE
249

and the bearers who are in waiting will take up Lord Teviot in his cot, and you shall direct us to your house."

He opened the cabin-door as he spoke, and a flood of light streamed in and fell on Helen as she stood by her husband's bedside. The light seemed to pain him, for his brow contracted into rigid furrows, and then the dim, filmy eyes opened and turned upon her. For one moment there was a ray of intelligence in them, but as Helen stooped to kiss the pale lips which she fancied had almost smiled on her, the feeble gaze turned away, and with a slight moan Lord Teviot relapsed into unconsciousness.

"Now, my good lady," said Dr. Grey, "the less we have of this sort of thing the better. Come away." He led her to the foot of the stairs, where she turned and said in a beseeching voice, "He knew me. Dr. Grey; say that you think he did."

"Well, perhaps so," said the doctor, who was moved by her youth and loveliness; "but don't try experiments, we have not strength for them. Here she is, my lord," he added, addressing Lord Beaufort. "Take her on deck, and we shall get under weigh directly."

Lord Beaufort looked at his sister with painful astonishment. She was quite colourless. Years seemed to have passed over her head in those few minutes that had been passed in that cabin. The girl whose short life had been spent in gay and young frivolity had now looked one of the sternest and hardest realities of life in the face; and that one look had changed her to the anxious, doubting woman. "The golden exhalations of the dawn" had passed away, and by the light of open day she saw the battle of life lying before her, and she roused herself for the encounter.

Dr. Grey soon reappeared with his charge. A curtain was thrown over the cot, by the side of which Helen walked, heedless, indeed unaware, of the compassionate looks of the bystanders, and they reached their home; and Lord Teviot