“Norman would not approve--might refuse my request. I must give that up, and only wish the brat dead,” she muttered, shrinking sensitively from the thought of committing a crime, and little dreaming how soon those jeweled white hands would be stained crimson with human blood. CHAPTER XII. The gay season was just beginning at the fashionable hotel where the De Veres had taken rooms, and Norman’s wife proved a great acquisition to the social circle. Scores of Northerners were arriving every day, fleeing from wintery blasts to the blue skies and warm airs of the Southland, and in the brilliant coterie of fashion and intellect combined she became at once a leader by right of her royal dower of wealth, beauty, and fascination. And her husband? He veered back and forth between Verelands and his capricious wife. All the time that he could snatch from the exacting Camille was spent with his mother and the little child whose disease had assumed such a malignant form, and whose life was wavering in a balance so evenly cast that at any moment it might drop her into the yawning grave. “Is it not sad, poor little one! to have been saved from the wrecked train and the perils of the river, only to die like this?” Norman’s mother said to him, with tears in her eyes, one day as they hovered over the little couch where Sweetheart lay muttering in delirium, her skin covered with patches of the scarlet eruption, her pretty golden curls cropped short by the doctor’s orders, her heavy blue eyes half shut and recognizing no one--strange contrast to the lovely, coquettish little fairy whose baby wiles had won their way to the young man’s heart. “Mother!” he cried out, in a pained, incredulous tone, and she answered, sadly: “She is very ill, Norman. It is the malignant type of fever, and it is but very seldom any one recovers from it. Doctor Hall is doing his best, I know, but from his face to-day I do not believe he has much hope.” His handsome face grew pale, and by the pang that pierced his heart he realized how dear the child had grown to him--dear as a little sister. From his stricken heart there arose a silent prayer: “Dear Lord, spare this sweet little life. Amen!” “You have heard nothing of her friends yet, Norman?” “Nothing,” he answered, huskily; then stood silent, looking down at the poor little creature, who in her delirium was trying to sing her favorite song, but the sweet loving words rose hoarse and tuneless from the sore and swollen throat. “It is very strange that we can hear nothing of her friends,” Mrs. de Vere said, thoughtfully. “Poor little darling! she will have to lie in an unnamed grave.” “Don’t, mother--you hurt me,” the young man said, pleadingly. He was scarcely more than a boy, and could not control his emotion. With a long, deep sigh he added: “I have so longed that she should live to be a dear little sister to me. You know, mother, how I always wished for a sister’s love.”