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"O you proud thing! just as if it wasn't fun to give away, and I had the best of it. Now, see here, I've got a plan and you mustn't say no, or I shall scold. I want something to do, and I'm going to teach you all I know; it won't take long," and Rose laughed as she put her arm around Phebe's neck, and patted the smooth dark head with the kind little hand that so loved to give.
Mac was so eager to assure my sister that she didn't own him that, in his defiance, he backed straight into the water." "Oh, Hope, what is the use of telling, now it is all over?" Phebe's remonstrant tones came from inside the house. Gifford Barrett rose and went towards the door. "Are you there, Miss McAlister? I hoped I should see you." "I'll be out in a minute." The minute was a long one.
All wept even the judge; and Phebe was carried out of court, apparently quite dead. Next morning I was found sitting with a cheerful countenance by Phebe's couch, in the prison-house. I had good news I said to impart to her:
She was a strikingly beautiful woman; but the thought of what anguish and dread had been concealed under her reserved and stately air, so cold yet so gentle, filled Phebe's soul with a sudden terror. What an awful life of self-approved, stoical falsehood she had been living!
Phebe too sprang from the sofa as she spoke, as if her words had evoked too vivid a picture, and kneeling down by the hearth, applied a match. The bright flame leaped swiftly up and filled all the room with a flickering golden glow. Gerald turned in the window to watch it. How quickly it had flushed Phebe's cheeks, and how soft her eyes looked in its light!
"Oh, that's all right," he said lightly. "No; it wasn't right. I don't want to abuse people to their faces and behind their backs, when they don't deserve it. That isn't my way." "But you couldn't be expected to know." "I ought to have known." "How?" Phebe's cheeks grew scarlet. In her contrition, she had walked straight into the trap which she had meant to avoid. She was silent.
Susan sat at the other end of the table, in the place that had been Phebe's. He gazed at her with a satisfaction without surprise; for it seemed to him that the woman beyond him had always occupied the fore of his existence. She wore pale grey, the opening at her neck filled with soft lace and pinned with a garnet brooch, and a deep-fringed, white silk shawl.
"Where is Allyn?" she demanded, as she came up the steps of The Savins with Melchisedek at her heels. "I don't know. Get away! Shoo! Cicely, do call your horrid dog away." And Phebe brandished a scalpel threateningly. "Here, Melchisedek, come here!" But Melchisedek, his paws planted on the hem of Phebe's skirt, was barking madly and making little lunges at something in her lap. "Get out! Ugh!
But the clouds lowered again when they came in to breakfast, for Phebe's heavy eyes and pale cheeks did not look encouraging, while Dr. Alec was as sober as a judge and sent an inquiring glance toward Rose now and then as if curious to discover how she bore the news. An uncomfortable meal, though all tried to seem as usual and talked over last night's events with all the interest they could.
Jean Merle's face, on which there was stamped an expression of intense but patient suffering, steadfastly met Phebe's aching eyes. "She is dead!" she murmured. "I knew it," he answered. "I did not know what to do," she went on after a slight pause, and speaking in a pitiful and deprecating tone.
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