Stella Rosevelt : A novel
bottle of wine, though, for him, and I soaked the biscuit in it and crowded it into his mouth when he was too unconscious to feed himself.”

“And did you go without necessary food to do this?” Archibald Sherbrooke asked, with pitying eyes, and a feeling almost of reverence for the beautiful, self-denying girl.

“I am young and strong; I knew it would not do me such serious harm to get weakened by hunger as it would him,” Star said, evasively; “and, besides——”

“Besides what?”

Star’s lips quivered, but she answered, in a hushed tone:

“I knew it was right to do all that I could to save his life, and it gave me something to think of besides myself; and I knew, too, if we all must die, the—suffering would be shorter if I did not eat.”

“But you were dreadfully hungry, were you not?” persisted 35her questioner, feeling a sort of horrible fascination in the subject, yet shuddering over the dreadful story.

35

“You will not tell him?” Star said, with a little motion of her hand over her shoulder to indicate Mr. Rosevelt.

“No.”

“Yes, I was fearfully hungry,” she went on, with a shiver at the remembrance, and she grew very white. “Ever so many times, when I was soaking the biscuit for him, it smelled so good that I would raise it to my lips before I was aware of what I was doing; but the thought always came to me in time—‘he will die if I eat it.’ There was only a very little left that last day, and I knew if he died I should always feel as if my selfishness killed him if I deprived him of it, and I was saved.”

“I think you are the noblest girl that I ever heard of, Miss Star,” young Sherbrooke exclaimed, with reverent enthusiasm.

“Amen!” said Mr. Rosevelt’s tremulous voice, close beside them.

“Oh!” cried Star, starting and flushing, while the tears sprang into her eyes. “I did not mean that you should ever know——”

“You didn’t, eh?” the old man interrupted. “I thought so; and when I saw you two talking so earnestly together, I imagined that you were giving our young friend a few facts which I wished to know myself, so I got up from my chair and came to listen. They told me,” he went on, with emotion, 
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