Please take a bit of broth. You must. You truly must."
To please her, I opened my lips to her spoon, and she trickled a bit of liquid into my mouth. I gagged, and she held a towel as I retched. I slipped into darkness once more.
The ballroom at Brianag was crowded with people; but Robbie was not there.
Alexander and Barry Norwood were talking to me but I could not hear their voices, only their mouths moved and I turned away from them to look for Robbie, calling his name, sobbing, then I fell forward into nothing.
Strong, hard hands shook me painfully; I moaned. Sunlight streamed into the room; I could feel it on my face, see the veins in my eyelids. My body felt made of lead. "Young lady, it is time for you to rouse," said a strange man's voice. "D'ye want to die and leave your lad a widower? Rouse yourself, now!" Again I was roughly shaken. He spoke to someone else.
"The spirit." The sharp stinging of smelling salts, which I had never before known so closely, assaulted my senses, and I twisted my head away.
"That's it, lassie!" The man's brogue was very thick. "You've still a bit of fight left in ye! Get her up, now. Raise her onto the pillows."
I had no strength in me to resist them as they pulled and lifted me upright. My neck could not support my head. I felt myself moaning, and then I heard Robbie's voice above the ringing in my ears. "That is quite enough, sir! Take your hands off her."
"Laddie, this girl will die if she does not rouse today. She must have nourishment.
She is no longer bleeding, she is quite safe in that respect; but she will die if she does not receive some nourishment today."
His words were welcome. I was ready to die. I did not want to return to the world to live with my punishments. I would gladly accept death as my punishment instead.
___________________
John Belden held tightly to my hand, weeping brokenly, and I heard Cathy cry out. I wanted to comfort him but I did not know what to say. His sobs went on and on, and I fought against consciousness, wishing I could cover my ears. I could feel the heat in the room, hear someone moving about, and knew that I was not at Grant's Hill, and that it was not John who was weeping, but some other man.
"If only I had not-"