"Yes, child; so help me God!" Daisy answered, excitedly. "I promised you to be a better woman, and I will; but oh, my Heavenly Father, don't let Bessie die."
It was the echo of Grey's prayer, and Flossie took it up and made it hers, and so the day wore on and the night stole into the quiet room, and it was time for Grey to say good-by, for he was to leave on the early train, and he had yet much to do in settling bills both for himself and Daisy, and providing for her needs in case Neil did not come.
"If I thought he would not be with you to-morrow I would stay, though to do so would greatly disappoint my Aunt Lucy," he said to Daisy, who was unselfish enough to bid him go, though she knew how she should miss him, and fell intuitively that twenty Neils could not fill his place.
"I cannot ask you to stay longer. May God bless you for all you have been to us," she said, as she took his hand at parting, and then turned away with a feeling of utter desolation in her heart.
Only Flossie was with Bessie, who was sleeping quietly, when Grey entered the room to say farewell to the young girl, whose face looked so small and thin, and white as it rested upon the pillows. When her fever was at its height and her heavy hair seemed to trouble her, her physician had commanded it to be cut off.
"It will all come out anyway if she lives," he said, and so the cruel scissors had severed the long, bright tresses which had been Bessie's crowning glory.
But the hair, which had only been cut short, grew rapidly and lay in little curls all over her head making her look more like a child than a girl of nineteen.
Flossie knew it was Grey's farewell, and guessed that he would rather be alone with Bessie, even though she were sleeping. So she arose, and offering him her chair, stole softly out and closed the door behind her.
For a few moments Grey sat gazing intently upon the beautiful face as if he would stamp its image upon his heart, so that whatever came, whether for weal or woe, he should never forget it; and then he prayed fervently, that, if possible, God would give back the life now ebbing so low, and that he yet might win the prize he longed for so ardently.
"Oh, Bessie, poor, little tired Bessie," he whispered, as he gently touched one of the hands near him; "if I might call you mine, might take you to my home across the sea, how happy I would make you. I cannot let you die just as I know how much I love you, and something tells me you will yet be mine. We should all love you so much, my mother, Aunt Lucy, Aunt Hannah, and all."