“It was not strange that the poor child should faint—indeed, it was only natural that nature should give way after so many weeks of gayety, and she very far from being strong,” Mrs. Cameron said to Wilford, who was beginning to repent of his decision, and who but for that remark perhaps might have revoked it. Indeed, he made an attempt to do so when, as consciousness came back, Katy lay so pale and still before him; but Katy did not understand him, or guess that he wished her to meet him more than half the way, and so the verdict was unchanged, and in a kind of bewilderment, Katy wrote the hurried letter, feeling less actual pain than did its readers, for the disappointment had stunned her for a time, and all she could remember of the passage home on that same night when Mark Ray sat with Helen in the sitting-room at Silverton, was that there was a fearful storm of rain mingled with lightning flashes and thunder peals, which terrified the other ladies, but brought to her no other sensation save that it would not be so very hard to perish in the dark waters dashing so madly about the vessel’s side. CHAPTER XXI. A NEW LIFE. New York, December 16, 18—. ‘TO MISS HELEN LENNOX, SILVERTON, MASS: “Your sister is very ill. Come as soon as possible. W. CAMERON.” This was the purport of a telegram received at the farm-house toward the close of a chill December day, and Helen’s heart almost stopped its beating as she read it aloud, and then looked in the white, scared faces of those around her. Katy was very ill—dying, perhaps—or Wilford had never telegraphed. What could it be? What was the matter? Had it been somewhat later, they would have known; but now all was conjecture, and in a half-distracted state, Helen made her hasty preparations for the journey of the morrow, and then sent for Morris, hoping he might offer some advice or suggestion, for her to carry to that sick room in New York. “Perhaps you will go with me,” Helen said. “You know Katy’s constitution. You might save her life.” But Morris shook his head. If he was needed they might send and he would come, but not without; and so next day he carried Helen to the cars, saying to her as they were waiting for the train, “I hope for the best, but it may be Katy will die. If you think so, tell her, oh, tell her, of the better world, and ask if she is prepared? I cannot lose her in Heaven.”