But Russell brought no message, and when she heard that, Edna said, “I cannot go,” and turned her face again to the wall, and shut her lids tightly over the hot, aching eyes which tears would have relieved. When Mrs. Dana came from Chicago and took the young creature in her motherly arms, and said so kindly, “Don’t talk about it now,” her tears flowed at once, and she was better for it, and clung to her cousin as a child clings to its mother in some threatened peril. Russell was very kind to her too, for her extreme youth and exceeding great beauty affected even him, and he spoke to her very gently, and urged her to accompany him back to Leighton. And perhaps she might have yielded but for Georgie, who said to Russell: “You know your mistress as well as I, and that just now this girl’s presence would only augment her grief.” This remark was overheard by Mrs. Dana, who reported it to her cousin, and that settled the matter; Edna would not go, and lay with her hands clasped over her eyes when they took Charlie away. Jack Heyford had come to her side, and asked if she wished to see her husband again, and with a bitter cry she answered him: “No, I could not bear it now. I’d rather remember him as he was.” And so they carried him out, and Edna heard them as they went through the yard to the wagon which was to take the coffin to the station, and the house seemed so lonely now that all were gone, and she missed Jack Heyford so much, and wondered if she should ever see him again to thank him for all his kindness to her. He was a clerk in one of the large dry-goods stores in Chicago, and Mrs. Dana said she had occasionally seen him there, and they were talking of him and wondering how his sister chanced to be so unlike him, when a rapid step came up the walk, and Jack’s voice was heard in the adjoining room. He had never intended going to Leighton, he said, in reply to Edna’s remark, “I supposed you had gone with your sister.” He seemed very sad indeed as he sat a few moments by the fire kindled in Edna’s room, and as she lay watching him, she fancied that she saw him brush a tear away, and that his lips moved as if talking to some one. And he was talking to a poor little crippled girl, waiting so anxiously in Chicago for his coming, and whose disappointed voice he could hear asking, “Where is sister?” “Poor Annie! Sister is not here. There! there! Don’t cry. She is coming by and by.” That was what Jack Heyford was saying to himself, as he sat before the fire, with that tired, sad look upon his face, and his heart was very sore toward the woman who had shown herself so selfish. CHAPTER X. GEORGIE AND JACK. CHICAGO, _Sept. —, 18—_