You've been like a
daughter to me ever since your mother died, and I've thought of you
almost as if you were my own child. If this is the man to make you
happy"--
But Bee stooped forward and stopped the words with kisses.
"I can't talk of him," she said, "and he will never be anything to me.
He is angry, and he has a right to be. He"--
The entrance of the nurse interrupted them, and Berenice made haste to
get away before there was opportunity for further question. In her
anxiety to know something more of Mr. Wynne, Mrs. Frostwinch sent for
Mrs. Staggchase, who came in the next day.
Mrs. Staggchase found her friend weak and frightfully changed. The
high-bred face was haggard, the nostrils thin, while beneath the eyes
were heavy purple shadows. A ghost of the old smile lighted her face,
making it more ghastly yet, like the gleaming of a candle through a
death-mask. The hand extended to the visitor was so transparent that it
might almost have belonged to a spirit.
"My dear Anna," Mrs. Staggchase exclaimed, "I hadn't an idea"--
"That I was so near dying, my dear," interrupted the other. "I am worse
than that, I am dead, really; but it doesn't matter.
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