“I have no doubt of it, sir. How could her love out live everything? Curses and blows might not have killed it, but when you thought to ruin her good name, to deny your child, she would be less than woman could she forgive. Why, I hate and despise you myself for the wrong you have done _my sister_,” and Hugh’s tall form seemed to take on an increased height as he abruptly left the room, lest his hot temper should get the mastery, and he knock-down his dastardly brother-in-law. It was a sad house at Spring Bank that night, where ’Lina lay, tossing distractedly from side to side; now holding her throbbing head, and now thrusting out her hot, dry hands, as if to keep off some fancied form, who claimed to be her mother. The shock had been a terrible one to ’Lina. She did love Dr. Richards; and the losing him was enough of itself to drive her mad; but worse even than this, and far more humiliating to her pride, was the discovery of her parentage, the knowing that a convict was her father, a common servant her mother, and that no marriage tie had hallowed her birth. “Oh, I can’t bear it!” she cried. “I can’t. I wish I might die! Will nobody kill me? Hugh, you will, I know!” But Hugh was away for the family physician, for he would not trust a gossipping servant to do the errand. Once before that doctor had stood by ’Lina’s bedside, and felt her feverish pulse, but his face then was not as anxious as now, when he counted the rapidly increasing beats, and saw how fast the fever came on. There had been an exposure to cold, he said, sufficient of itself to induce a fever, but the whole had been aggravated a hundred fold by the late disastrous affair, of which Hugh had told him something. He did not speak of danger, but Hugh, who watched him narrowly, read it in his face, and following him down the stairs, asked to be told the truth. “She is going to be very sick. She may get well, but I have little to hope from symptoms like hers.” That was the doctor’s reply, and with a sigh Hugh went back to the sick girl, who had given him little else than sarcasm and scorn. CHAPTER XXXIV. POOR ’LINA. Drearily the morning dawned, but there were no bridal slumbers to be broken, no bridal farewells said. There were indeed good-byes to be spoken, for Anna was impatient to be gone, and at an early hour she was ready to leave the house she had entered under so unpleasant circumstances. “I would like to see ’Lina,” she said to Alice, who carried the request to the sick room. But ’Lina refused. “I can’t,” she said; “she hates, she despises me, and she had reason. Tell her I was not worthy to be her sister; tell her anything you like; but the doctor—oh, Alice, do you think he’ll come, just for a minute, before he goes?”