The Frances Hodgson Burnett MEGAPACK ®. Frances Hodgson Burnett

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      She rose and met his Grace, who had approached her. Always to his greatness and his noble heart she turned with that new feeling of dependence which her whole life had never brought to her before. His deep eyes, falling on her tenderly as she rose, were filled with protecting concern. Involuntarily he hastened his steps.

      “Will your Grace take me to my coach?” she said. “I am not well. May I—go?” as gently as a tender, appealing girl.

      And moved by this, as by her pallor, more than his man’s words could have told, he gave her his arm and drew her quickly and supportingly away.

      Mistress Anne did not sleep well that night, having much to distract her mind and keep her awake, as was often in these days the case. When at length she closed her eyes her slumber was fitful and broken by dreams, and in the mid hour of the darkness she wakened with a start as if some sound had aroused her. Perhaps there had been some sound, though all was still when she opened her eyes; but in the chair by her bedside sat Clorinda in her night-rail, her hands wrung hard together on her knee, her black eyes staring under a brow knit into straight deep lines.

      “Sister!” cried Anne, starting up in bed. “Sister!”

      Clorinda slowly turned her head towards her, whereupon Anne saw that in her face there was a look as if of horror which struggled with a grief, a woe, too monstrous to be borne.

      “Lie down, Anne,” she said. “Be not afraid—’tis only I,” bitterly—“who need fear?”

      Anne cowered among the pillows and hid her face in her thin hands. She knew so well that this was true.

      “I never thought the time would come,” her sister said,“when I should seek you for protection. A thing has come upon me—perhaps I shall go mad—to-night, alone in my room, I wanted to sit near a woman—’twas not like me, was it?”

      Mistress Anne crept near the bed’s edge, and stretching forth a hand, touched hers, which were as cold as marble.

      “Stay with me, sister,” she prayed. “Sister, do not go! What—what can I say?”

      “Naught,” was the steady answer. “There is naught to be said. You were always a woman—I was never one—till now.”

      She rose up from her chair and threw up her arms, pacing to and fro.

      “I am a desperate creature,” she cried. “Why was I born?”

      She walked the room almost like a thing mad and caged.

      “Why was I thrown into the world?” striking her breast. “Why was I made so—and not one to watch or care through those mad years? To be given a body like this—and tossed to the wolves.”

      She turned to Anne, her arms outstretched, and so stood white and strange and beauteous as a statue, with drops like great pearls running down her lovely cheeks, and she caught her breath sobbingly, like a child.

      “I was thrown to them,” she wailed piteously, “and they harried me—and left the marks of their great teeth—and of the scars I cannot rid myself—and since it was my fate—pronounced from my first hour—why was not this,” clutching her breast,“left hard as ’twas at first? Not a woman’s—not a woman’s, but a she-cub’s. Ah! ’twas not just—not just that it should be so!”

      Anne slipped from her bed and ran to her, falling upon her knees and clinging to her, weeping bitterly.

      “Poor heart!” she cried. “Poor, dearest heart!”

      Her touch and words seemed to recall Clorinda to herself. She started as if wakened from a dream, and drew her form up rigid.

      “I have gone mad,” she said. “What is it I do?” She passed her hand across her brow and laughed a little wild laugh. “Yes,” she said; “this it is to be a woman—to turn weak and run to other women—and weep and talk. Yes, by these signs I am a woman!” She stood with her clenched hands pressed against her breast. “In any fair fight,” she said, “I could have struck back blow for blow—and mine would have been the heaviest; but being changed into a woman, my arms are taken from me. He who strikes, aims at my bared breast—and that he knows and triumphs in.”

      She set her teeth together, and ground them, and the look, which was like that of a chained and harried tigress, lit itself in her eyes.

      “But there is none shall beat me,” she said through these fierce shut teeth. “Nay I there is none! Get up, Anne,” bending to raise her. “Get up, or I shall be kneeling too—and I must stand upon my feet.”

      She made a motion as if she would have turned and gone from the room without further explanation, but Anne still clung to her. She was afraid of her again, but her piteous love was stronger than her fear.

      “Let me go with you,” she cried. “Let me but go and lie in your closet that I may be near, if you should call.”

      Clorinda put her hands upon her shoulders, and stooping, kissed her, which in all their lives she had done but once or twice.

      “God bless thee, poor Anne,” she said. “I think thou wouldst lie on my threshold and watch the whole night through, if I should need it; but I have given way to womanish vapours too much—I must go and be alone. I was driven by my thoughts to come and sit and look at thy good face—I did not mean to wake thee. Go back to bed.”

      She would be obeyed, and led Anne to her couch herself, making her lie down, and drawing the coverlet about her; after which she stood upright with a strange smile, laying her hands lightly about her own white throat.

      “When I was a new-born thing and had a little throat and a weak breath,” she cried, “’twould have been an easy thing to end me. I have been told I lay beneath my mother when they found her dead. If, when she felt her breath leaving her, she had laid her hand upon my mouth and stopped mine, I should not,” with the little laugh again—“I should not lie awake tonight.”

      And then she went away.

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