"

"Not so," said Olive, most tenderly; "no one in the wide world knows
this, but we two. No one ever shall know it! Oh, would that you had
listened to me, then I should still have kept the secret, even from you!
My sister--my poor sister!"

"_Sister!_ And you are his child, his lawful child, while I---- But you
shall not live to taunt me. I will kill you, that you may go to your
father, and mine, and tell him that I cursed him in his grave!"

As she spoke, she wreathed her arms round Olive's slight frame, but
the deadly embrace was such as never sister gave. With the marvellous
strength of fury, she lifted her from the floor, and dashed her
down again. In falling, Olive's forehead struck against the marble
chimney-piece, and she lay stunned and insensible on the hearth.

Christal looked at her sister for a moment,--without pity or remorse,
but in motionless horror. Then she unlocked the door and fled.

CHAPTER XLIV.

When Olive returned to consciousness she was lying on her own bed, the
same whereon her mother had died. Olive almost thought that she herself
had died too, so still lay the shadows of the white curtains, cast by
the one faint night-lamp that was hidden on the floor. She breathed
heavily in a kind of sigh, and then she was aware of some watcher close
beside, who said, softly, "Are you sleeping, my dear Olive?"

In her confused fancy, the voice seemed to her like Harold's. She
imagined that she was dead, and that he was sitting beside her
bier--sorrowfully--perhaps even in tenderness, as he might look on her
_then_. So strong was the delusion, that she feebly uttered his name.

"It is Harold's mother, my dear. Were you dreaming about my son?"

Olive was far too ill to have any feeling of self-betrayal or shame;
nor was there any consecutive memory in her exhausted mind. She only
stretched out her hands to Harold's mother with a sense of refuge and
peace.

"Take care of me! Oh, take care of me!" she murmured; and as she felt
herself drawn lovingly to that warm breast--the breast where Harold
had once lain--she could there have slept herself into painless death,
wherein the only consciousness was this one thought of him.

But, after an hour or two, the life within her grew stronger, and she
began to consider what had happened. A horrible doubt came, of something
she had to hide.

"Tell me, do tell me, Mrs. Gwynne, have I said anything in my sleep?
Don't mind it, whatever it be. I am ill, y