A little while afterwards, when Garth stole softly to the door of the sick room, the sisters were still clinging together; but going still closer, he saw that Queenie was unconsciously rocking a dead face upon her bosom. He had taken the child from her arms, and then led her gently from the room, and she had not resisted him; she only laid her face down on the arm of the chair where he had placed her, and wept as though the very flood-gates of her being were unloosed. "Yes, cry, dear, it will do you good," was all he said to her, but for a long time he stood beside her; just smoothing her soft hair with his hand, but tenderly, as though she were a child, until the first bitterness of her anguish was past, and then she said quietly that she must go back to Emmie. "But not to-night, dear, surely not to-night!" looking down with infinite pity at her poor drowned face and half-extinguished eyes. "Yes; to-night. No one must do anything for her but me; it is only putting her to bed for the last time, you know," in so pitiful a voice that it broke his resolution. "Ah, well, I must not hinder you, I suppose, but I only wish I knew what was right in such a case. If only Langley or Cathy were here!" "I will not stay long, I will promise you that." "Then I will trust you. Remember you belong to me now, Emmie gave you to me," and then he took her in his arms and kissed her forehead, and let her go. But he did not see her again for three whole days. Her work was finished, and the brave, bright spirit had given way at last. The next day she was too ill to rise, and lay looking at the flowers he sent her, and some locks of fair hair that she had cut from Emmie's head. It was not until the evening of the second day that she crept for an hour to Emmie's room. Garth was out, but on his return they showed him the results of her handiwork. The child looked fair as a sculptured angel, laid under a perfect quilt of flowers--roses white and creamy, and delicate cape-jessamine. A cross of frail white blossoms lay on her breast; some half-opened rose-buds had been pushed into her dead hand, but on the sweet lips lay Emmie's own smile. "Never to be tired more!" could one look at that perfect rest, that marble calm, and wish the worn-out child back to suffer again? Queenie could not, though she wept, and wept as though her heart were broken, though at night she stretched out her empty arms in the darkness, and no light form nestled into them. "It is well with my darling now," she would sob. It was in the evening of the third day when Garth saw her again; he had sent her a little note, telling her of some necessary arrangements that he had made, and she had come down to him in her black dress, and with the palest face he had ever seen. "How ill--how dreadfully ill you look," he said in a shocked voice, as he sprang to meet her. "My dear Queenie, this is not right; they ought not to have permitted you to rise."