“But I could tell you a pitiful case about another. Some time ago I nursed a gentleman whom love had laid on a sick-bed.”
“A gentleman! What! can they love as we do?” said Bella, bitterly.
“Not many of them; but this was an exception. But I don't know whether I ought to tell these secrets to so young a lady.”
“Oh, yes--please--what else is there in this world worth talking about? Tell me about the poor man who could love as we can.”
The Sister seemed to hesitate, but at last decided to go on.
“Well, he was a man of the world, and he had not always been a good man; but he was trying to be. He had fallen in love with a young lady, and seen the beauty of virtue, and was going to marry her and lead a good life. But he was a man of honor, and there was a lady for whom he thought it was his duty to provide. He set his lawyer to draw a deed, and his lawyer appointed a day for signing it at her house. The poor man came because his lawyer told him. Do you think there was any great harm in that?”
Miss Bruce's color began to come and go, and her supple figure to crouch a little. She said nothing.
The Sister continued: “Some malicious person went and told the young lady's father the gentleman was in the habit of visiting that lady, and would be with her at a certain hour. And so he was; but it was the lawyer's appointment, you know. You seem agitated.”
“No, no; not agitated,” said Bella, “but astonished; it is so like a story I know. A young lady, a friend of mine, had an anonymous letter, telling her that one she loved and esteemed was unworthy. But what you have told me shows me how deceitful appearances may be. What was your patient's name?”
“It is against our rules to tell that. But you said an 'anonymous letter.' Was your friend so weak as to believe an anonymous letter? The writer of such a letter is a coward, and a coward always is a liar. Show me your friend's anonymous letter. I may, perhaps, be able to throw a light on it.”
The conversation was interrupted by Admiral Bruce, who had approached them unobserved. “Excuse me,” said he, “but you ladies seem to have hit upon a very interesting theme.”
“Yes, papa,” said Bella. “I took the liberty to question this lady as to her experiences of sick-beds, and she was good enough to give me some of them.”