Another season of dozing, and she awoke, rubbing her hands feebly
together, as to cleanse them.
"My hands ought to be whiter--purer! I know what ails them. I should
have picked up the letter she--Mrs. Sutton--wrote you. But I loved
you so--even then!" beseechingly. "You will not hate me when I am
gone? I mean when you get back to Philadelphia, and I am well enough
to be left here. I was sure, if you got it, you would come to
Ridgeley, and I let it go down the stream--down--down! Frederic!"
"I am here, dearest!" slipping his arm under, and raising her, as
her shrill cry rang out, and she grasped the empty air. "Rosa, my
WIFE!"
"I thought I was strangling--in the water! I am your wife--am I not?
She couldn't take you from me if she were here. I wish she were! I
always liked Mabel. She was a good, true woman--but she did not love
you as I did!"
Panting for breath, she leaned upon her husband's breast, and her
eyelids fell together again. Only for a moment! Then a smile--fond,
sweet, and penitent--played among the ashy shadows encircling her
mouth. "Poor little Florence! I am sorry I was cross to her. Tell
her so, papa!" Her husband stooped to kiss her, laid her back upon
the pillows, closed the sightless eyes, and left Mrs. Sutton alone
with the dead.