it seemed as though her touch made him weak,--weaker than he had
ever been before in his life. Beauty as she was, they had always thought
her in some way like Dolly, and, just now, with Dolly's gay little
scarlet shawl slipping away from her face, with the great grief in
her imploring eyes, with that innocent appealing trick of the clinging
hands, she might almost have been Dolly's self.

Try as he might, he could not regain his self-control. He was sheerly
powerless before her.

"Mollie," he said, "what has brought you here? Why have you come?"

"I have come," she answered, "for Dolly's sake!"

The vague fear he had felt at first caught hold upon him with all the
fulness of its strength.

"For Dolly's sake!" he echoed. "Nay, Dolly has done with me, and I with
her." And though he tried to speak bitterly, he failed.

She was too fond of Dolly, and too full of grief to spare him after
that. Unstrung as she was, her reproach burst forth from her without a
softened touch. "Dolly has done with earth. Dolly's life is over," she
sobbed. "Do you know that she is dying? Yes, dying,--our own bright
Dolly,--and you--_you_ have killed her!"

She had not thought how cruel it would sound, and the next instant she
was full of terror at the effect of her own words. He broke loose from
her,--_fell_ loose from her, one might better describe it, for it was
his own weight rather than any effort which dragged him from her grasp.
He staggered and caught hold of the iron railings to save himself, and
there hung, staring at her with a face like a dead man.

"My God!" he said,--not another word.

"You must not give way like that," she cried out, in a new fright. "Oh,
how could I speak so! Aimee would have told you better. I did not mean
to be so hard. You can save her if you will. She will not die, Grif, if
you go to her. She only wants _you_. Grif,--Grif,--you look as if you
could not understand what I am saying." And she wrung her hands.

And, indeed, it scarcely seemed as if he did understand, though at last
he spoke.

"Where is she?" he said. "Not here? You say I must 'go' to her."

"No, she is not here. She is at Lake Geneva. Miss MacDowlas took her
there because she grew so weak, and she has grown weaker ever since, and
three days ago they sent for Aimee to come to her, because--because they
think she is going to die."

"And you say that _I_ have done this?"

"I ought n't to have put it that way, it sounds so cruel, but--