Leighton
was.
"It is very sudden," she said. "He was perfectly well when he left me
on Friday night. Please tell him I am here."
The housekeeper shook her head. Her master's orders were that no one
but the doctor should be admitted, she said, repeating what Arthur had
told her in anticipation of just such an infliction as this.
But Lucy was not to be denied. Arthur was hers, his sickness was
hers, his suffering was hers, and see him she would.
"He surely did not mean me when he asked that no one should be
admitted. Tell him it is I; it is Lucy," she said with an air of
authority, which, in one so small, so pretty and so child-like, only
amused Mrs. Brown, who departed with the message, while Lucy sat down
with her feet upon the stove and looked around the sitting-room,
thinking that it was smaller and poorer than the one at Prospect Hill,
and how she would remodel it when she was mistress there.
"He says you can come," was the word Mrs. Brown brought back, and,
with a gleam of triumph in her eye and a toss of the head, which said,
"I told you so," Lucy went softly into the darkened room and shut the
door behind her.
Arthur had half expected this and had nerved himself to meet it, but
the cold sweat stood on his face and his heart throbbed painfully as
Lucy bent over him and Lucy's tears fell on his face while she took
his feverish hands in hers and murmured softly, "Poor, dear Arthur, I
am so sorry for you, and if I could I'd bear the pain so willingly.
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