He reported this condition to Mr. Clarence Rockharrt, left very particular directions for the treatment of the patient, and then took leave, with the promise to return in the evening and remain all night.

Later in the afternoon the doctor, having finished all other professional calls for the day, arrived at Rockhold. He found his patient delirious. He took up his post by the sick bed for the night, and then peremptorily sent off the worn-out watcher, Rose, to the rest she so much needed.

The condition of Aaron Rockharrt was very critical. Irritative fever had set in with great violence, and this was the beginning of the hard struggle for life that lasted many days, during which delirium, stupor, and brief lucid intervals followed each other with the rise and fall of the fever. A professional nurse was engaged to attend him; but the real burden of the nursing fell on Rose.

CHAPTER XXVI.

A VOLUNTARY EXPIATION.

Rose never lost patience. She stayed by the bedside always until the doctor turned her out of the room. She came back the moment she was called, night or day.

Weeks pa.s.sed and Mr. Rockharrt grew better and stronger, but Rose grew worse and weaker. The fine autumn weather that braced up the convalescent old man chilled and depressed the consumptive young woman.

It was certain that Mr. Rockharrt would entirely regain his health and strength, and even take out a new lease of life.

"I never saw any one like your grandfather in all my long practice,"

said the doctor to Cora one morning, after he had left his patient; "he is a wonder to me. Nothing but a catastrophe could ever have laid him on an invalid bed; and no other man that I know could have recovered from such injuries as he has sustained. Why in a month from this time he will be as well as ever. He has a const.i.tution of tremendous strength."

"But the poor wife," said Cora.

"Ah, poor soul!" sighed the doctor.

"And yet a little while ago she seemed such a perfect picture of health."

"My dear, wherever you see that abnormally clear, fresh, semi-transparent complexion, be sure it is a bad sign--a sign of unsoundness within."

"Can nothing be done for Rose?"

"Yes; and I am doing it as much as she will let me. I advise a warmer climate for the coming winter. Mr. Rockharrt will be able to travel by the first of November, and he should then take her to Florida. But, you see, he pooh-poohs the whole suggestion. Well--'A willful man must have his way,'" said the doctor, as he took up his hat and bade the lady good-by.

A week after this conversation, on the day on which Aaron Rockharrt first sat up in his easy chair, Rose had her first hemorrhage from the lungs. It laid her on the bed from which she was never to rise.

Cora became her constant and tender nurse. Rose was subdued and patient.

A few days after this she said to the lady:

"It seems to me that my own dear father, who has been absent from my thoughts for so many years, has drawn very near his poor child in these last few months, and nearer still in the last few days. I do not see him, nor hear him, nor feel him by any natural sense, but I do perceive him. I do perceive that he is trying to do me good, and that he is glad I am coming to him so soon. I am sorry for all the wrong I have done, and I hope the Lord will forgive me. But how can I expect Him to do it, when I can scarcely forgive--even now on my dying bed I can scarcely forgive--my step-mother and her husband for the neglect and cruelty that wrecked my life? Oh, but I forget. You know nothing of all this."

Cora did know. Fabian had told her; but he had also exacted a promise of secrecy from her; so she said nothing in reply to this.

Rose continued, speaking in a low, meditative tone:

"Yes; I am sorry, sorry for the evil I have done. It was not worth while to do it. Life is too short--too short even at its longest. But, oh! I had such a pa.s.sionate ambition for recognition by the great world! for the admiration of society! Every one whom I met in our quiet lives told me, either by words or looks, that I was beautiful--very beautiful--and I believed them; and I longed for wealth and rank, for dress and jewels, to set off this beauty, and for ease and luxury to enjoy life. Oh, what vanity! Oh, what selfishness! And here I am, with the grave yawning to swallow me up," she murmured, drearily.

"No, dear; no," said Cora, gently laying her hand on the blue-white forehead of the fading woman. "No, Rose. No grave opens for any human being; but only for the body that the freed human being has left behind.

It is not the grave that opens for you, Rose, but your father's arms.

Would you like to see a minister, dear?"

"If Mr. Rockharrt does not object."

"Then you shall see one."

Rose's sick room was on the opposite side of the hall from Mr.

Rockharrt's convalescent apartment.

If the Iron King felt any sorrow at his young wife's mortal illness, he did not show it. If he felt any compunction for having taxed her strength to its extremity, he did not express it. He maintained his usual stolid manner, and merely issued general orders that no trouble or expense must be spared in her treatment and in her interest. He came into her room every day, leaning on the arm of his servant, to ask her how she felt, and to sit a few minutes by her bed.

Violet could no longer come to Rockhold, because a little Violet bud, only a few days old, kept her a close prisoner at the Banks. But Mr.

Fabian came twice a week. The minister from the mission church at North End came very frequently, and as he was an earnest, fervent Christian, his ministrations were most beneficial to Rose.

On the day that Mr. Rockharrt first rode out, the end came, rather suddenly at the last.

There was no one in the house but Cora and the servants, Mr. Clarence having gone back to North End. Cora had left Rose in the care of old Martha, and had come down stairs to write a letter to her brother. She had scarcely written a page when the door was opened by Martha, who said, in a frightened tone:

"Come, Miss Cora--come quick! there's a bad change. I'm 'feard to leave her a minute, even to call you. Please come quick!"

Both went to the bedside of the dying woman, over whose face the dark shadows of death were creeping. Rose could no longer raise her hand to beckon or raise her voice to call, but she fixed her eyes imploringly on Cora, who bent low to catch any words she might wish to say. She was gasping for breath as in broken tones she whispered:

"Cora--the Lord--has given me--grace--to forgive them. Write to--my step-mother. Fabian--will tell you--where--"

"Yes; I will, I will, dear Rose," said Cora, gazing down through blinding tears, as she stooped and pressed her warm lips on the death-cold lips beneath them.

Rose lifted her failing eyes to Cora's sympathetic face and never moved them more; there they became fixed.

The sound of approaching wheels was heard.

"It is my grandfather. Go and tell him," whispered Cora to old Martha without turning her head.

The woman left the room, and in a few moments Mr. Rockharrt entered it, leaning on the arm of his valet.

When he approached the bed, he saw how it was and asked no questions. He went to the side opposite to that occupied by Cora, and bent over the dying woman.

"Rose," he said in a low voice--"Rose, my child."

She was past answering, past hearing. He took her thin, chill hand in his, but it was without life.

He bent still lower over her, and whispered:

"Rose."

But she never moved or murmured.

Her eyes were fixed in death on those of Cora.

Then suddenly a smile came to the dying face, light dawned in the dying eyes, as she lifted them and gazed away beyond Cora's form, and murmuring contented;