Desperate Remedies

'Years and years afterwards, when she became mistress of a fortune and estates by her father's death, she formed the weak scheme of having near her the son whom, in her father's life-time, she had been forbidden to recognize. Cytherea, you know who that weak woman is.

* * * * * 'By such toilsome labour as this I got him here as my steward. And I wanted to see him _your husband_, Cytherea!--the husband of my true lover's child. It was a sweet dream to me. . . . Pity me--O, pity me! To die unloved is more than I can bear! I loved your father, and I love him now.' That was the burden of Cytherea Aldclyffe.

'I suppose you must leave me again--you always leave me,' she said, after holding the young woman's hand a long while in silence.

'No--indeed I'll stay always. Do you like me to stay?' Miss Aldclyffe in the jaws of death was Miss Aldclyffe still, though the old fire had degenerated to mere phosphorescence now. 'But you are your brother's housekeeper?' 'Yes.' 'Well, of course you cannot stay with me on a sudden like this.

. . . Go home, or he will be at a loss for things. And to-morrow morning come again, won't you, dearest, come again--we'll fetch you.

But you mustn't stay now, and put Owen out. O no--it would be absurd.' The absorbing concern about trifles of daily routine, which is so often seen in very sick people, was present here.

Cytherea promised to go home, and come the next morning to stay continuously.

'Stay till I die then, will you not? Yes, till I die--I shan't die till to-morrow.' 'We hope for your recovery--all of us.' 'I know best. Come at six o'clock, darling.' 'As soon as ever I can,' returned Cytherea tenderly.

'But six is too early--you will have to think of your brother's breakfast. Leave Tolchurch at eight, will you?' Cytherea consented to this. Miss Aldclyffe would never have known had her companion stayed in the house all night; but the honesty of Cytherea's nature rebelled against even the friendly deceit which such a proceeding would have involved.

An arrangement was come to whereby she was to be taken home in the pony-carriage instead of the brougham that fetched her; the carriage to put up at Tolchurch farm for the night, and on that account to be in readiness to bring her back earlier.

4. MARCH THE THIRTIETH. DAYBREAK The third and last instance of Cytherea's subjection to those periodic terrors of the night which had emphasized her connection with the Aldclyffe name and blood occurred at the present date.