"

"Never! brothers and sisters cannot love so. What brother ever loved a
sister as I have loved Lina from our infancy? What brother ever would
have done and suffered as much for his sister as I have for Lina?"

"You! done and suffered for Lina!" said Thurston, beginning to think he
was really mad.

"Yes! how many faults as a boy I have shouldered for her. How many
floggings I have taken. How many shames I have borne for her, which she
never knew. Oh! how I have spent my night watches at sea, dreaming of
her. For years I have been saving up all my money to buy a pretty
cottage for her and her mother that she loves so well. I meant to have
bought or built one this very year. And after having made the pretty
nest, to have wooed my pretty bird to come and occupy it. I meant to
have been such a good boy to her mother, too! I pleased myself with
fancying how the poor, little timorous woman would rest in so much peace
and confidence in our home--with me and Lina. I have saved so much that
I am richer than any one knows, and I meant to have accomplished all
that this very time of coming home. I hurried home. I reached the house.
I ran in like a wild boy as I was. Her voice called me. I followed its
sound--ran up-stairs to her room. I found her in bed. I thought she was
sick. But she sprang up, and threw herself upon my bosom, and with her
arms clasped about my neck, wept as if her heart would break. And while
I wondered what the matter could be, her mother interfered and told me.
God's judgment light upon them all, I say! Oh! it was worse than murder.
It was a horrid, horrid crime, that has no name because there is none
heinous enough for it. Thurston! I acted like a very brute! God help me,
I was both stunned and maddened, as it seems to me now. For I could not
speak. I tore her little, fragile, clinging arms from off my neck, and
thrust her from me. And here I am. Don't ask me how I loved her! I have
no words to tell you!"

CHAPTER XV.

THE FAIRY BRIDE.

Since the morning of her ill-starred marriage, Sans Souci had waned like
a waning moon; and the bridegroom saw, with dismay, his fairy bride
slowly fading, passing, vanishing from his sight. There was no very
marked disorder, no visible or tangible symptoms to guide the
physicians, who were in succession summoned to her relief. Very obscure
is the pathology of a wasting heart, very occult the scientific
knowledge that can search out the secret sickness, which,