defiantly.

Then she threw up her arms towards heaven (alas! it was no heaven to
her, poor child) as if in appeal. 'Is there no one to help me?' she
cried aloud.

'What can we do, dear?' said the old man, standing beside her and
smoothing her hair gently. 'He would not stay,--I could not keep him!'

'I could have kept him.'

'You would not ask him to stay, if he wished to go?'

'Yes, I would; he must stay, for my sake.'

'But if he had loved you, dear, he would not have gone.'

'Did he say he did not love me?' demanded Silver, with gleaming eyes.

Old Fog hesitated.

'Did he say he did not love me? Did Jarvis say that?' she repeated,
seizing his arm with grasp of fire.

'Yes; he said that.'

But the lie meant to rouse her pride, killed it; as if struck by a
visible hand, she swayed and fell to the floor.

The miserable old man watched her all the night. She was delirious,