He might be gone out to his mother and sister, or back
to Ireland. Our paths would never come together again, for he
thought I did not care for him. Nay, was I even sure of his
recovery? His constitution had been much tried! He was in a strange
place, among mere professional nurses! Who could tell how it had
been with him?
Everything went from me that had loved me. Even Dora was to leave me
as soon as people ceased to be afraid of her.
Letters had found out the married pair on their return from the
cataracts of the Nile. Eustace had immediately been vaccinated
fourteen times, but he was shocked and appalled, and the spirit of
his letter was--
O while my brother with me stayed,
Would I had loved him more,
and I forgave him much.
Hippolyta likewise wrote with feeling, but it rather stung me to be
thanked for my care of "her poor little sister," as if Dora were not
my child before she was hers. As soon as it was considered safe,
Dora was to be returned to Horsman keeping, and as the Randall party
declined to receive her again, Philippa would convey her to a school
at Baden-Baden.
And Dora declared she was glad! There was none of the angry
resistance with which she had left me in the spring; when I had done
nothing for her compared with what I had gone through for her now;
but I believe I was dull company, and showed myself displeased at her
hardness and wild outbreaks of spirits, and that the poor child
longed to escape from all that reminded her of the unbearable sorrow
at the bottom of her heart.
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