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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Richard Vandermarck, by Miriam Coles Harris
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Richard Vandermarck
+
+Author: Miriam Coles Harris
+
+Release Date: May 14, 2004  [eBook #12348]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RICHARD VANDERMARCK***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Curtis Weyant, Charlie Kirschner, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+RICHARD VANDERMARCK
+
+A Novel
+
+By MRS. SIDNEY S. HARRIS
+
+Author of "Rutledge," "St. Phillips," etc., etc.
+
+1871
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+To S.S.H.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+VARICK-STREET
+
+CHAPTER II.
+VERY GOOD LUCK
+
+CHAPTER III.
+KILIAN
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+MY COMPANIONS
+
+CHAPTER V.
+THE TUTOR
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+MATINAL
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+THREE WEEKS TOO LATE
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+SUNDAY
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+A DANCE
+
+CHAPTER X.
+EVERY DAY FROM SIX TO SEVEN.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+SOPHIE'S WORK
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+PRAEMONITUS, PRAEMUNITUS
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+THE WORLD GOES ON THE SAME
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+GUARDED
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+I SHALL HAVE SEEN HIM
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+AUGUST THIRTIETH
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+BESIDE HIM ONCE AGAIN
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+A JOURNEY
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+SISTER MADELINE
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+THE HOUR OF DAWN
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+APRÉS PERDRE, PERD ON BIEN
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+A GREAT DEAL TOO SOON
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+A REVERSAL
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+MY NEW WORLD
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+BIEN PERDU, BIEN CONNU
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+A DINNER
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+VARICK STREET.
+
+     O for one spot of living green,
+       One little spot where leaves can grow,--
+     To love unblamed, to walk unseen,
+       To dream above, to sleep below!
+
+     _Holmes_.
+
+
+     There are in this loud stunning tide,
+       Of human care and crime,
+     With whom the melodies abide
+       Of th' everlasting chime;
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     And to wise hearts this certain hope is given;
+     "No mist that man may raise, shall hide the eye of Heaven."
+
+     _Keble._
+
+
+I never knew exactly how the invitation came; I felt very much honored
+by it, though I think now, very likely the honor was felt to be upon the
+other side. I was exceedingly young, and exceedingly ignorant, not
+seventeen, and an orphan, living in the house of an uncle, an unmarried
+man of nearly seventy, wholly absorbed in business, and not much more
+interested in me than in his clerks and servants.
+
+I had come under his protection, a little girl of two years old, and had
+been in his house ever since. I had had as good care as a very ordinary
+class of servants could give me, and was supplied with some one to teach
+me, and had as much money to spend as was good for me--perhaps more; and
+I do not feel inclined to say my uncle did not do his duty, for I do not
+think he knew of anything further to do; and strictly speaking, I had no
+claim on him, for I was only a great-niece, and there were those living
+who were more nearly related to me, and who were abundantly able to
+provide for me, if they had been willing to do it.
+
+When I came in to the household, its wants were attended to by a cook
+and a man-servant, who had lived many years with my uncle. A third
+person was employed as my nurse, and a great deal of quarrelling was the
+result of her coming. I quite wonder my uncle did not put me away at
+board somewhere, rather than be disturbed. But in truth, I do not
+believe that the quarrelling disturbed him much, or that he paid much
+attention to the matter, and so the matter settled itself. My nurses
+were changed very often, by will of the cook and old Peter, and I never
+was happy enough to have one who had very high principle, or was more
+than ordinarily good-tempered.
+
+I don't know who selected my teachers; probably they applied for
+employment and were received. They were very business-like and
+unsuggestive people. I was of no more interest to them than a bale of
+goods, I believe. Indeed, I seemed likely to go a bale of goods through
+life; everything that was done for me was done for money, and with a
+view to the benefit of the person serving me. I was not sent to school,
+which was a very great pity; it was owing to the fact, no doubt, that
+somebody applied to my uncle to teach me at home, and so the system was
+inaugurated, and never received a second thought, and I went on being
+taught at home till I was seventeen.
+
+The "home" was as follows; a large dark house on the unsunny side of a
+dull street; furniture that had not been changed for forty years, walls
+that were seldom repainted, windows that were rarely opened. The
+neighborhood had been for many years unfashionable and undesirable, and,
+by the time I was grown up, nobody would have lived in it, who had cared
+to have a cheerful home, I might almost have said, a respectable one, I
+fancy ours was nearly the only house in the block occupied by its owner;
+the others, equally large, were rented for tenement houses, or
+boarding-houses, and perhaps for many things worse. It was probably
+owing to this fact, that my uncle gave orders, once for all, I was never
+to go into the street alone; and I believe, in my whole life, I had
+never taken a walk unaccompanied by a servant, or one of my teachers.
+
+A very dull life indeed. I wonder how I endured it. The rooms were so
+dismal, the windows so uneventful. If it had not been for a room in the
+garret where I had my playthings, and where the sun came all day long, I
+am sure I should have been a much worse and more unhappy child. As I
+grew older, I tried to adorn my room (my own respectable sleeping room,
+I mean), with engravings, and the little ornaments that I could buy. But
+it was a hopeless attempt. The walls were so high and so dingy, the
+little pictures were lost upon them; and the vases on the great black
+mantel-shelf looked so insignificant, I felt ashamed of them, and owned
+the unfitness of decorating such a room. No flowers would grow in those
+cold north windows--no bird would sing in sight of such a street. I gave
+it up with a sigh; and there was one good instinct lost.
+
+When I was about eleven, I fell foul of some good books. If it had not
+been for them, I truly do not see how I could have known that I was not
+to lie or steal, and that God was to be worshipped. Certainly, I had had
+hands slapped many times for taking things I had been forbidden to
+touch, and had had many a battle in consequence of "telling stories,"
+with the servants of the house, but I had always recognized the personal
+spite of the punishments, and they had not carried with them any
+moral lesson.
+
+I had sometimes gone to church; but the sermons in large city churches
+are not generally elementary, and I did not understand those that I
+heard at all. Occasionally I went with the nurse to Vespers, and that I
+thought delightful. I was enraptured with the pictures, the music, the
+rich clothes of the priests; if it had not been for the bad odor of the
+neighboring worshippers, I think I might have rushed into the bosom of
+the Church of Rome. But that offended sense restrained me. And so, as I
+said, if I had not obtained access to some books of holy and pure
+influence, and been starved by the dullness of the life around me into
+taking hold of them with eagerness, I should have led the life of a
+little heathen in the midst of light. Of course the books were not
+written for my especial case, nor were they books for children,--and so,
+much was supposed, and not expressed, and consequently the truth they
+imparted to me was but fragmentary. But it was truth, and the
+influence was holy.
+
+I was driven to books; I do not believe I had any more desire than most
+vivid, palpitating, fluttering young things of my sex, to pore over a
+dull black and white page; but this black and white gate opened to me
+golden fields of happiness, while I was perishing of hunger in a life of
+dreary fact.
+
+When I was about sixteen, however, an outside human influence, not
+written in black and white, came into the current of my existence. About
+that time, my uncle took into his firm, as junior partner, a young man
+who had long been a clerk in the house. After his promotion he often
+came home with my uncle to dinner. I think this was done, perhaps, with
+a view of civil treatment, on the first occasion; but afterward, it was
+continued because my uncle could not bear to leave business when he left
+the office, and because he could talk on the matters which were dearer
+to him than his dinner, with this junior, in whom he took unqualified
+delight. He often wrote letters in the evening, which my uncle dictated,
+and he sometimes did not go away till eleven o'clock at night. The first
+time he came, I did not notice him very much. It was not unusual for
+Uncle Leonard to be accompanied by some gentleman who talked business
+with him during dinner; and being naturally shy, and moreover, on this
+occasion, in the middle of a very interesting book, at once timid and
+indifferent, I slipped away from the table the moment that I could. But
+upon the third or fourth occasion of his being there, I became
+interested, finding often a pair of handsome eyes fixed on me, and being
+occasionally addressed and made a partner in the conversation. Uncle
+Leonard very rarely talked to me, and I think found me in the way when
+Richard Vandermarck made the talk extend to me.
+
+But this was the beginning of a very much improved era for me. I lost my
+shyness, and my fear of Uncle Leonard, and indeed, I think, my frantic
+thirst for books, and became quite a young lady. We were great friends;
+he brought me books, he told me about other people, he opened a thousand
+doors of interest and pleasure to me. I never can enumerate all I owed
+to him. My dull life was changed, and the house owed him gratitude.
+
+We began to have the gas lighted in the parlor, and even Uncle Leonard
+came in there sometimes and sat after dinner, before he went up into
+that dreary library above. I think he rather enjoyed hearing us talk
+gayly across his sombre board; he certainly became softer and more human
+toward me after Richard came to be so constantly a guest. He gave me
+more money to spend, (that was always the expression of his feelings,
+his language, so to speak;) he made various inquiries and improvements
+about the house. The dinners themselves were improved, for a horrible
+monotony had crept into the soups and sauces of forty years; and Uncle
+Leonard was no epicure; he seemed to have no more stomach than he had
+heart; brain and pocket made the man.
+
+I think unconsciously he was much influenced by Richard, whose business
+talent had charmed him, and to whom he looked for much that he knew he
+must soon lose. He was glad to make the house seem pleasant to him, and
+he was much gratified by his frequent coming. And Richard was peculiarly
+a man to like and to lean upon. Not in any way brilliant, and with no
+literary tastes, he was well educated enough, and very well informed; a
+thorough business man. I think he was ordinarily reserved, but our
+intercourse had been so unconventional, that I did not think him so at
+all. He was rather good-looking, tall and square-shouldered, with
+light-brown hair and fine dark-blue eyes; he had a great many points of
+advantage.
+
+One day, long after he had become almost a member of the household, he
+told me he wanted me to know his sister, and that she would come the
+next day to see me, if I would like it. I did like it, and waited for
+her with impatience. He had told me a great deal about her, and I was
+full of curiosity to see her. She was a little older than Richard, and
+the only sister; very pretty, and quite a person of consequence in
+society. She had made an unfortunate marriage, though of that Richard
+said very little to me; but with better luck than attends most
+unfortunately-married, women, she was released by her husband's early
+death, and was free to be happy again, with some pretty boys, a moderate
+fortune, and two brothers to look after her investments, and do her
+little errands for her. She considered herself fortunate; and was a
+widow of rare discretion, in that she was wedded to her unexpected
+independence, and never intended to be wedded to anything or anybody
+else. She was naturally cool and calculating, and was in no danger of
+being betrayed by her feelings into any other course of life than the
+one she had marked out as most expedient. If she was worldly, she was
+also useful, intelligent, and popular, and a paragon in her brother's
+partial eyes.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+VERY GOOD LUCK.
+
+     Mieux vaut une once de fortune qu'une livre de sagesse.
+
+
+At last (on the day on which Richard had advertised me she was coming,)
+the door was opened, and some one was taken to the parlor. Then old
+Peter rang a bell which stood on the hall table, and called out to Ann
+Coddle (once my nurse, now the seamstress, chambermaid, and general
+lightener of his toils), to tell Miss Pauline a lady wanted her.
+
+This bell was to save his old bones; he never went up-stairs, and he
+resented every visitor as an innovation. They were so few, his temper
+was not much tried. I was leaning over the stairs when the bell rang,
+and did not need a second message. Ann, who continued to feel a care for
+my personal appearance, followed me to the landing-place and gave my
+sash a last pull.
+
+When I found myself in the parlor I began to experience a little
+embarrassment. Mrs. Hollenbeck was so pretty and her dress was so
+dainty, the dingy, stiff, old parlor filled me with dismay. Fortunately,
+I did not think much of myself or my own dress. But after a little, she
+put me at ease, that is, drew me out and made me feel like talking
+to her.
+
+I admired her very much, but I did not feel any of the affection and
+quick cordiality with which Richard had inspired me. I could tell that
+she was curious about me, and was watching me attentively, and though
+she was so charming that I felt flattered by her interest, I was not
+pleased when I remembered my interview with her.
+
+"You are not at all like your brother," I said, glancing in her face
+with frankness.
+
+"No?" she said smilingly, and looking attentively at me with an
+expression which I did not understand.
+
+And then she drew me on to speak of all his features, which I did with
+the utmost candor, showing great knowledge of the subject.
+
+"And you," she said, "you do not look at all as I supposed. You are not
+nearly so young--Richard told me you were quite a child. I was not
+prepared for this grace; this young ladyhood--'cette taille de
+palmier,'" she added, with a little sweep of the hand.
+
+Somehow I was not pleased to feel that Richard had talked of me to her,
+though I liked it that he had talked of her to me. No doubt she saw it,
+for I was lamentably transparent. "Do you lead a quiet life, or have you
+many friends?" she said, as if she did not know exactly the kind of
+life I led, and as if she had not come for the express purpose of
+helping me out of it, at the instance of her kindly brother. Then, of
+course, I told her all about my dull days, and she pitied me, and said
+lightly it must not be, and I must see more of the world, and she, for
+her part, must know me better, etc., etc. And then she went away.
+
+In a few days, I went with Ann Coddle, in a carriage, to return the
+visit. The house was small, but in a beautiful, bright street, and the
+one window near the door was full of ferns and ivies. I did not get in,
+which was a disappointment to me, particularly as I had no printed card,
+and realized keenly all the ignominy of leaving one in writing. This was
+in April, and I saw no more of my new friend. Richard was away, on some
+business of the firm, and the days were very dull indeed.
+
+In May he came back, and resumed the dinners, and the evenings in the
+parlor, though not quite with the frequency of the past winter,--and I
+think there was the least shade of constraint in his manner. It was on
+one of these May days that he came and took me to the Park. It was a
+great occasion; I had never been so happy before in my life. I was in
+great doubt about taking Ann Coddle; never having been out of the house
+without a person of that description in attendance before. But Ann got
+a suspicion of my doubt and settled it, to go--of course. I think
+Richard was rather chagrined when she followed us out to get into the
+carriage; she was so dried-up and shrewish-looking, and wore such an
+Irish bonnet. But she preserved a discreet silence, and looked
+steadfastly out of the carriage window, so we soon forgot that she was
+there, though she was directly opposite to us. It was Saturday; the day
+was fresh and lovely, and there were crowds of people driving in the
+Park. Once we left the carriage with Ann Coddle in it, and went to hear
+the music. It was while we were sitting for a few moments under the
+vines to listen to it, and watch the gay groups of people around us,
+that a carriage passed within a dozen feet, and a lady leaned out and
+bowed with smiles.
+
+"Why, see--it is your sister!" I exclaimed, with the vivacity of a
+person of a very limited acquaintance.
+
+"Ah," he said, and raised his hat carelessly. But I saw he was not
+pleased; he pushed the end of his moustache into his mouth, and bit it,
+as he always did when out of humor, and very soon proposed we should go
+back and find the carriage. It was not long, however, before he
+recovered from this annoyance, as he had from the unexpected pleasure of
+Ann's company; and, I am sure, was as sorry as I when it was time to go
+home to dinner.
+
+He stayed and dined with us; another gentleman had come home with my
+uncle, who talked well and amused us very much. I was excited and in
+high spirits; altogether, it was a very happy day.
+
+It was more than a week after this, that the invitation came which
+turned the world upside down at once, and made me most extravagantly
+happy. It was from Mrs. Hollenbeck, and I was asked to spend part of
+June and all of July and August, with them at R----.
+
+At R---- was their old family home, a place of very little pretension,
+but to which they were much attached. When the father died, five years
+before, the two sons had bought the place, or rather had taken it as
+their share, turning over the more productive property to their sister.
+
+They had been very reluctant to close the house, and it was decided that
+Sophie should go there every summer, and take her servants from the
+city; the expenses of the place being borne by the two young men. They
+were very well able to do it, as both were successful in business, and
+keeping open the old home, with no diminution of the hospitality of
+their father's time, was perhaps the greatest pleasure that they had.
+It was an arrangement which suited Sophie admirably. It gave her the
+opportunity to entertain pleasantly and informally; it was a capital
+summer-home for her two boys; it was in the centre of an agreeable
+neighborhood; and above all, it gave her yearly-exhausted purse time to
+recuperate and swell again before the winter's drain. Of course she
+loved the place, too, but not with the simple affection that her two
+brothers did. The young men invited their friends there without
+restriction, as was to be supposed; and Sophie was a gay and agreeable
+hostess. No one could have made the house pleasanter than she did; and
+she left nothing undone to gratify her brothers' tastes and wishes, like
+a wise and prudent woman as she was.
+
+I did not know all this then, or my invitation might not have
+overwhelmed me with such gratitude to her. I reproached myself for not
+having loved her the first time I saw her.
+
+Three months! Three happy months in the country! I could hardly believe
+it possible such a thing had happened to me. I took the note to my uncle
+without much fear of his opposition, for he rarely opposed anything that
+I had the courage to ask him, except going in the street alone. (I
+believe my mother had made a runaway match, and I think he had faith in
+inherited traits; his one resolution regarding me must have been, not to
+give me a chance.) He read the note carefully, and then looked me over
+with more interest than usual, and told me I might go. Afterward he gave
+me a roll of bills, and told me to come to him for more money, if I
+needed it.
+
+I was much excited about my clothes. I could not think that anything was
+good enough to go to R----; and I am afraid I spent a good deal of my
+uncle's money. Ann Coddle and the cook thought that my dresses were
+magnificent, and old Peter groaned over the coming of the packages. I
+had indeed a wardrobe fit for a young princess, and in very good taste
+besides, because I was born with that. An inheritance, no doubt. And my
+uncle never complained at all about the bills. I seemed to have become,
+in some way, a person of considerable importance in the house. Ann
+Coddle no more fretted at me, but waited on me with alacrity. The cook
+ceased to bully me, and on the contrary, flattered me outrageously. I
+remembered the long years of bullying, and put no faith in her
+assurances. I did not know exactly why this change had happened, but
+supposed it might be the result of having become a young lady, and being
+invited to pay visits.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+KILIAN.
+
+     You are well made--have common sense,
+     And do not want for impudence.
+                          _Faust_.
+
+     _Tanto buen die val niente.
+
+     Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l'admire_.
+
+
+The packages finally ceased coming and the stiff old bell from being
+pulled; but only half an hour before the carriage drove to the door that
+was to take me to the boat. Ann Coddle was flying up and down the
+stairs, and calling messages over to Peter in a shrill voice. She was
+not designed by nature for a lady's maid, and was a very disagreeable
+person to have about one's room. She made me even more nervous than I
+should otherwise have been. I had never packed a trunk before, or had
+one packed, and might have thought it a very simple piece of business if
+Ann had not made such a mountain of it; packing every tray half a dozen
+times over, and going down-stairs three times about every article that
+was to come up from the laundry.
+
+Happily she was not to go with me any farther than the boat. Richard
+was away again on business--had been gone, indeed, since the day after
+we had driven in the Park: so I was to be put on board the boat, and
+left in charge of Kilian, his younger brother, who had called at my
+uncle's office, and made the arrangement with him. I had never seen
+Kilian, and the meeting filled me with apprehension; my uncle, however,
+sent up one of his clerks in the carriage to take me to the boat, and
+put me in charge of this young gentleman. This considerate action on the
+part of my uncle seemed to fill up the measure of my surprises.
+
+When we reached the boat, the clerk, a respectful youth, conducted me to
+the upper deck, and then left me with Ann, while he went down about
+the baggage.
+
+With all our precautions, we were rather late, for the last bell was
+ringing; Ann was in a fever of impatience, and I was quite uncertain
+what to do, the clerk not having returned, and Mr. Kilian Vandermarck
+not having yet appeared. Ann was so disagreeable, and so disturbing to
+all thinking, that I had more than once to tell her to be quiet. Matters
+seemed to have reached a crisis. The man at the gangway was shouting
+"all aboard;" the whistle was blowing; the bell was ringing; Ann was
+whimpering; when a belated-looking young man with a book and paper under
+his arm came up the stairs hurriedly and looked around with anxiety. As
+soon as his eye fell on us, he looked relieved, and walked directly up
+to me, and called me by name, interrogatively.
+
+"O yes," I said eagerly, "but do get this woman off the boat or we'll
+have to take her with us." "Oh, no danger," he said, "plenty of time,"
+and he took her toward the stairs, at the head of which she was met by
+the clerk, who touched his hat to me, handed the checks to Mr.
+Vandermarck, then hurried off with Ann. Mr. Vandermarck returned to me,
+but I was so engrossed looking over the side of the boat and watching
+for Ann and the clerk, that I took no notice of him.
+
+At last I saw Ann scramble on the wharf, just before the plank was drawn
+in; with a sigh of relief I turned away.
+
+"I want to apologize for being so late," he said.
+
+"Why, it is not any matter," I answered, "only I had not the least idea
+what to do."
+
+"You are not used to travelling alone, then, I suppose?"
+
+"Oh no," nor to travelling any way, for the matter of that, I added to
+myself; but not aloud, for I had a great fear that it should be known
+how very limited my experience was.
+
+"You must let me take your shawl and bag, and we will go and get a
+comfortable seat," he said in a few moments. We went forward and found
+comfortable chairs under an awning, and where there was a fine breeze.
+It was a warm afternoon, and the change from the heated and glaring
+wharf was delightful. Mr. Vandermarck threw himself back in his chair
+with an expression of relief, and took off his straw hat.
+
+"If you had been in Wall-street since ten o'clock this morning you would
+be prepared to enjoy this sail," he said.
+
+"Is Wall-street so very much more disagreeable than other places? I
+think my uncle regrets every moment that he spends away from it."
+
+"Ah, yes. Mr. Greer may; he has a good deal to make him like it; if I
+made as much money as he does every day there, I think it's possible I
+might like it too. But it is a different matter with a poor devil like
+me: if I get off without being cheated out of all I've got, it is as
+much as I can ask."
+
+"Well, perhaps when he was your age, Uncle Leonard did not ask more than
+that."
+
+"Not he; he began, long before he was as old as I am, to do what I can
+never learn to do, Miss d'Esirée--make money with one hand and save it
+with the other. Now, I'm ashamed to say, a great deal of money comes
+into my pockets, but it never stays there long enough to give me the
+feeling that I'm a rich man. One gets into a way of living that's
+destruction to all chances of a fortune."
+
+"But what's the good of a fortune if you don't enjoy it?" I said,
+thinking of the dreary house in Varick-street.
+
+"No good," he said. "It isn't in my nature to be satisfied with the
+knowledge that I've got enough to make me happy locked up somewhere in a
+safe: I must get it out, and strew it around in sight in the shape of
+horses, pictures, nice rooms, and good things to eat, before I can make
+up my mind that the money is good for anything. Now as to Richard, he is
+just the other way: old head on young shoulders, old pockets in young
+breeches (only there ar'nt any holes in them). He's a model of prudence,
+is my brother Richard. _Qui garde son diner, il a mieux à souper_. He'll
+be a rich man one of these fine days. I look to him to keep me out of
+jail. You know Richard very well, I believe?" he said, turning a sudden
+look on me, which would have been very disconcerting to an older person,
+or one more acquainted with the world.
+
+"O, very well indeed," I said with great simplicity. "You know he is
+such a favorite with my uncle, and he is a great deal at the house."
+
+"Well he may be a favorite, for he is built exactly on his model; at
+seventy, if I am not hung for debt before I reach it, I shall look to
+see him just a second Mr. Leonard Greer."
+
+I made a gesture of dissent. "I don't think he is in the least like
+Uncle Leonard, and I don't think he cares at all for money."
+
+"O, Miss Pauline, don't you believe him if he says he doesn't. I'm his
+younger brother, whom he has lectured and been hard on for these
+twenty-seven years, and I know more about it than anybody else."
+
+"Why, is Mr. Richard Vandermarck twenty-seven years old?" I said with
+much surprise.
+
+"Twenty-nine his next birthday, and I am twenty-seven. Why, did he pass
+himself off for younger? That's an excellent thing against him."
+
+"No; he did not pass himself off for anything in the matter of age. It
+was only my idea about him. I thought he was not more than twenty-five,
+perhaps even younger than that. But then I had nobody but Uncle Leonard
+to compare him with, and it isn't strange that I didn't get
+quite right."
+
+"It _is_ something of a step from Mr. Greer to Richard, I must say. Mr.
+Greer seems so much the oldest man in the world, and Richard--well,
+Richard isn't that, but he is a good deal older than he ought to be.
+But do you tell me, Miss Pauline, you havn't any younger fellows than
+Richard on your cards? Do they keep you as quiet as all that in
+Varick-street?"
+
+I knew by intuition this was impertinence, and no doubt I looked
+annoyed, and Mr. Vandermarck hastened to obliterate the impression by a
+very rapid movement upon the scenery, the beauties of the river, and
+many things as novel.
+
+The three hours of our sail passed away pleasantly. Mr. Vandermarck did
+not move from his seat; did not even read his paper, though I gave him
+an opportunity by turning over the leaves of my "Littel" on the
+occurrence of every pause.
+
+I felt that I knew him quite well before the journey was over, and I
+liked him exceedingly, almost as well as Richard. He was rather
+handsomer than Richard, not so tall, but more vivacious and more
+amusing, much more so. I began to think Richard rather dull when I
+contrasted him with his brother.
+
+When we reached the wharf, Mr. Vandermarck, after disposing of the
+baggage, gave his arm to me, and took me to an open wagon which was
+waiting for us. He put me in the seat beside him, and took the reins
+with a look of pleasure.
+
+"These are Tom and Jerry, Miss Pauline," he said, "about the
+pleasantest members of the family; at least they contribute more to my
+pleasure than any other members of it. I squandered about half my income
+on them a year or two ago, and have not repented yet; though, indeed,
+repentance isn't in my way. I shall hope for the happiness of giving you
+many drives with them, if I am permitted."
+
+"Nothing could make me happier, I am sure."
+
+"Richard hasn't any horses, though he can afford it much better than I
+can. He does his driving, when he is here, with the carriage-horses that
+we keep for Sophie--a dull old pair of brutes. He disapproves very much
+of Tom and Jerry; but you see it would never do to have two such wise
+heads in one family."
+
+"It would destroy the balance of power in the neighborhood."
+
+"Decidedly; as it is, we are a first-class power, owing to Sophie's
+cleverness and Richard's prudence; my prodigality is just needed to keep
+us from overrunning the county and proclaiming an empire at the next
+town meeting. How do you like Sophie, Miss d'Estrée? I know you haven't
+seen much of her--but what you have? Isn't she clever, and isn't she a
+pretty woman to be nearly thirty-five?"
+
+I was feeling very grateful for my invitation, and so I said a great
+deal of my admiration for his sister.
+
+"Everybody likes her," he said, complacently. "I don't know a more
+popular person anywhere. She is the life of the neighborhood; people
+come to her for everything, if they want to get a new door-mat for the
+school-house, or if they want a new man nominated for the legislature. I
+think she's awfully bored, sometimes, but she keeps it to herself. But
+though the summer is her rest, she always does enough to tire out
+anybody else. Now, for instance, she is going to have three young ladies
+with her for the next two months (besides yourself, Miss d'Estrée), whom
+she will have to be amusing all the time, and some friends of mine who
+will turn the house inside out. But Sophie never grumbles."
+
+"Tell me about them all," I said, consuming with a fever of curiosity.
+
+"O, I forgot you did not know them. Shall I begin with the young
+ladies?--(Sam, there's a stone in Jerry's off fore-foot; get down and
+look about it--Steady!--there, I knew it)--Excuse me, Miss d'Estrée.
+Well,--the young ladies. There's one of our cousins, a grand, handsome,
+sombre, estimable girl, whom nobody ever flirts with, but whom somebody
+will marry. That's Henrietta Palmer. Then there is Charlotte
+Benson--not pretty, but stylish and so clever. She carries too many guns
+for most men; she is a capital girl in her way. Then there is Mary
+Leighton; she is small, blonde, lovely. I do not believe in her
+particularly, but we are great friends, and flirt a little, I am told. I
+quite wonder how you will like each other. I hope you will tell me your
+impressions. No doubt she will be rather your companion, for Henrietta
+and Charlotte Benson are desperately intimate, and have a room together.
+They are quite romantic and very superior. Pretty Miss Leighton isn't in
+their line exactly, and is rather left to her own reflections, I should
+think. But she makes up for it when the gentlemen appear; she isn't left
+with any time upon her hands, you may be sure. I don't know what it is
+about her; she never said a bright thing in her life, and a great, great
+many silly ones; but everybody wants to talk to her, and her silly words
+are precious to the man to whom she says them. Did you ever meet anybody
+like her?"
+
+"I? oh no. I never met anybody," I said, half-bitterly, beginning to be
+afraid of the people whom I so soon should meet; and then I began to
+talk about the road, and to inquire how far we had yet to drive, and to
+ask to have a shawl about my shoulders. It was not yet seven o'clock,
+but the country air was fresh and cool, and the rapid driving made
+it cooler.
+
+"We are almost there; and I hope, Miss d'Estrée, that you won't feel as
+if you were going among strangers. You will not feel so long, at any
+rate. It is too bad Richard isn't here; you know him so much better than
+the rest of us. But before he comes back, I am sure you will feel as
+much at home as he. But here's the gate."
+
+There was a drive of perhaps an eighth of a mile from the gate to the
+house: the trees and hedge were thick, so that one saw little of the
+house from the road. The grounds were well kept; there was a nice lawn,
+in front of the house, and some very fine old trees. The house was low
+and irregular, but quite picturesque. It fronted the road; the rear
+looked toward the river, about quarter of a mile distant, and of which
+the view was lovely.
+
+There was a piazza in front, on which four ladies stood; one of them
+came forward, and came down the steps, and met me as I got out of the
+carriage. That, of course, was Mrs. Hollenbeck, She welcomed me very
+cordially, and led me up the steps of the piazza, where the young ladies
+stood. Terrible young ladies! I shook with fear of them. I felt as if I
+did not know anything, as if I did not look well, as if my clothes were
+hideous. I should not have been afraid of young or old men, nor of old
+women; but they were just my age, just my class, just my equals, or
+ought to have been, if I had had any other fate than Uncle Leonard and
+Varick-street. How they would criticize me! How soon they would find out
+I had never been anywhere before! I wished for Richard then with all my
+heart. Kilian had already deserted me, and was talking to Miss Leighton,
+who had come half-way down the steps to meet him, and who only gave me a
+glance and a very pretty smile and nod, when Mrs. Hollenbeck presented
+me to them. Miss Benson and Miss Palmer each gave me a hand, and looked
+me over horribly; and the tones of their voices, when they spoke to me,
+were so constrained and cold, and so different from the tones in which
+they addressed each other. I hated them.
+
+After a few moments of wretchedness, Sophie proposed to take me to my
+room. We went up the stairs, which were steep and old-fashioned, with a
+landing-place almost like a little room. My room was in a wing of the
+house, over the dining-room, and the windows looked out on the river. It
+was not large, but was very pretty. The windows were curtained, and the
+bed was dainty, and the little mantel was draped, and the ornaments and
+pictures were quaint and delightful to my taste.
+
+Sophie laid the shawls she had been carrying up for me upon the bed,
+and said she hoped I would find everything I needed, and would try to
+feel entirely at home, and not hesitate to ask for anything that would
+make me comfortable.
+
+Nothing could be kinder, but my affection and gratitude were fast dying
+out, and I was quite sure of one thing, namely, that I never should love
+Sophie if she spent her life in inviting me to pay her visits. She told
+me that tea would be ready in half an hour, and then left me. I sat down
+on the bed when she was gone, and wished myself back in Varick-street;
+and then cried, to think that I should be homesick for such a dreary
+home. But the appetites and affections common to humanity had not been
+left out of my heart, though I had been beggared all my life in regard
+to most of them. I could have loved a mother so--a sister--I could have
+had such happy feelings for a place that I could have felt was home.
+What matter, if I could not even remember the smile on my mother's lips;
+what matter, if no brother or sister had ever been born to me; if no
+house had ever been my rightful home? I was hungry for them all the
+same. And these first glimpses of the happy lives of others seemed to
+disaffect me more than ever with my own.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+MY COMPANIONS.
+
+     "Vous êtes belle: ainsi donc la moitié
+      Du genre humain sera votre ennemie."
+
+                      _Voltaire_.
+
+                 "Oh, I think the cause
+     Of much was, they forgot no crowd
+     Makes up for parents in their shroud."
+
+                 _R. Browning_.
+
+
+The servant came to call me down to tea while I was still sitting with
+my face in my hands upon the bed. I started up, lit the candles on the
+dressing-table, arranged my hair, washed the tears off my face, and
+hurried down the stairs. They were waiting for me in the parlor, and no
+doubt were quite impatient, as they had already waited for the arrival
+of the evening train, and it was nearly eight o'clock. The evening train
+had brought Mr. Eugene Whitney, of whom I can only say, that he was a
+very insignificant young man indeed. We all moved into the dining-room;
+the others took the seats they were accustomed to. Mr. Whitney and I,
+being the only new-comers, were advised which seats belonged to us by a
+trim young maid-servant, and I, for one, was very glad to get into mine.
+Mr. Whitney was my neighbor on one hand, the youngest of the Hollenbeck
+boys on the other. These were our seats:
+
+          Kilian,
+
+Miss Leighton, Miss Henrietta Palmer,
+
+Miss Benson,   Mr. Eugene Whitney,
+
+Tutor,         Myself,
+
+Boy,           Boy,
+
+      Mrs. Hollenbeck.
+
+The seat opposite me was not filled when we sat down.
+
+"Where is Mr. Langenau, Charley?" said his mother.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know, mamma," said Charley, applying himself to
+marmalade.
+
+"Charley doesn't see much of his tutor out of hours, I think," said Miss
+Benson.
+
+"A good deal too much of him in 'em," murmured Charley, between a
+spoonful of marmalade and a drink of milk.
+
+"Benny's the boy that loves his book," said Kilian; "he's the joy of his
+tutor's heart, I know," at which there was a general laugh, and Benny,
+the younger, looked up with a merry smile.
+
+The Hollenbeck boys were not fond of study. They were healthy and
+pretty; quite the reverse of intellectual; very fair and rosy, without
+much resemblance to their mother or her brothers. It was evident the
+acquisition of knowledge was far from being the principal pursuit of
+their lives, and the tutor was looked upon as the natural enemy of
+Charley, at the least.
+
+"I don't see what you ever got him for, mamma," said Charley. "I'd study
+just as much without him."
+
+"And that wouldn't be pledging yourself to very much, would it, Charley
+dear?"
+
+"Wish he was back in Germany with his ugly books," cried Charley.
+
+But--hush!--there was a sudden lull, as the tutor entered and took his
+place by Charley. He was a well-made man, evidently about thirty. He was
+so decidedly a gentleman, in manners and appearance, that even these
+spoiled boys treated him respectfully, and the young ladies and
+gentlemen at the table were more stiff than offensive in their manner.
+But he was so evidently not one of them!
+
+It is very disagreeable to be among people who know each other very
+well, even if they try to know you very well and admit you to their
+friendship. But I had no assurance that any one was trying to do this
+for _me_, and I am afraid I showed very little inclination to be
+admitted to their friendship. I could not talk, and I did not want to be
+talked to. I was even afraid of the little boys, and thought all the
+time that Charley was watching me and making signs about me to his
+brother, when in reality he was only telegraphing about the marmalade.
+
+In the meantime, without any attention to my feelings, the business of
+the tea-table proceeded. Mrs. Hollenbeck poured out tea, and kept the
+little boys under a moderate control. Kilian cut up some birds before
+him, and tried to persuade the young ladies to eat some, but nobody had
+appetite enough but Mr. Whitney and himself. Charlotte Benson, who was
+clever and efficient and exceedingly at home, cut up a cake that was
+before her, and gave the boys some strawberries, and offered some to me.
+Miss Palmer simply looked very handsome, and eat a biscuit or two, and
+tried to talk to Mr. Whitney, who seemed to have a good appetite and
+very little conversation. Miss Leighton gave herself up to attentions to
+Kilian; she was saying silly little things to him in a little low tone
+all the time, and offering him different articles before her, and
+advising him what he ought to eat; all of which seemed most interesting
+and important in dumb-show till you heard what it was all about, and
+then you felt ashamed of them. At times, I think, Kilian felt somewhat
+ashamed too, and tried to talk a little to the others; but most of the
+time he seemed to like it very well, and did not ask anything better
+than the excellent woodcock on his plate, and the pretty young woman
+by his side.
+
+"By the way," said Sophie, when the meal was nearly over, "I had a
+letter from Richard to-day."
+
+"Ah!" said Kilian, with a momentary release from his admirer. "And when
+is he coming home?"
+
+I looked up with quick interest, and met Mrs. Hollenbeck's eyes, which
+seemed to be always on me. Then I turned mine down the table
+uncomfortably, and found Charlotte Benson looking at me too. I did not
+know what I had done to be looked at, but wished they would look at
+themselves and let me take my tea (or leave it alone) in peace.
+
+"Not for two weeks yet," said his sister; "not for two whole weeks."
+
+"How sorry I am," said Charlotte Benson.
+
+"I think we are all sorry," said Henrietta the tranquil.
+
+"Miss d'Estrée confided to me that she'd be glad to see him," said
+Kilian, cutting up another woodcock and looking at his plate.
+
+"Indeed I shall," I said, with, a little sigh, not thinking so much
+about them as feeling most earnestly what a difference his coming would
+make, and how sure I should be of having at least one friend when he
+got here.
+
+"He seems to be having a delightful time," said his sister.
+
+"I am glad to hear that," I said, interested. "Generally he finds it
+such a bore. He doesn't seem to like to travel." I was rather startled
+at the sound of my own voice and the attention of my audience; but I had
+been betrayed into speaking, by my interest in the subject, and my
+surprise at hearing he was having such a pleasant time.
+
+"Ah!" she said, "don't you think he does? At any rate, he seems to be
+enjoying this journey, and to be in no hurry to come back. I looked for
+him last week."
+
+Warned by my last experience, I said nothing in answer; and after a
+moment Kilian said:
+
+"Well, if Richard's having a good time, you may be sure he's made some
+favorable negotiation, and comes home with good news for the firm.
+That's his idea of a good time, you know."
+
+"Ah!" said Sophie, gently, "that's his brother's idea of his idea. It
+isn't mine."
+
+Charlotte Benson seemed a little nettled at this, and exclaimed,
+
+"Mrs. Hollenbeck! you are making us all unhappy. You are leading us to
+suspect that the stern man of business is unbending. What's the
+influence at work? What makes this journey different from other
+journeys? Where does he tarry, oh, where?"
+
+"Nonsense!" said Sophie, with a little laugh. "You cannot say I have
+implied anything of the sort. Cannot Richard enjoy a journey without
+your censure or suspicion? You must be careful; he does not
+fancy teasing."
+
+"O, I shall not accuse him, you may be sure; that is, if he ever comes.
+Do you believe he really ever will?"
+
+"Not if he thinks you want him," said Kilian, amiably. "He has a great
+aversion to being made much of."
+
+"Yes, a family trait," interrupted Charlotte, at which everybody
+laughed, no one more cordially than Miss Leighton.
+
+"Leave off laughing at my Uncle Richard," said Benny, stoutly, with his
+cheeks quite flushed.
+
+"We have, dear, and are laughing at your Uncle Kilian. You don't object
+to that, I'm sure," and Charlotte Benson leaned forward and threw him a
+little kiss past the tutor, who wore a silent, abstracted look, in odd
+contrast with the animated expressions of the faces all around him.
+
+Benny did not like the joke at all, and got down from his chair and
+walked away without permission. We all followed him, going into the
+hall, and from thence to the piazza, as the night was fine. The tutor
+walked silently through the group in the hall to a seat where lay his
+book and hat, then passed through the doorway and disappeared
+from sight.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE TUTOR.
+
+     And now above them pours a wondrous voice,
+     (Such as Greek reapers heard in Sicily),
+     With wounding rapture in it, like love's arrows.
+
+     _George Eliot_.
+
+
+The next day, the first of my visit, was a very sultry one, and the rest
+of the party thought it was, no doubt, a very dull one.
+
+Kilian and Mr. Eugene Whitney went away in the early train, not to
+return, alas, till the evening of the following day. Miss Leighton was
+languid, and yawned incessantly, though she tried to appear interested
+in things, and was very attentive to me. Charlotte Benson and Henrietta
+laid strong-minded plans for the day, and carried them out faithfully.
+First, they played a game of croquet, under umbrellas, for the sun was
+blazing on the ground: that was for exercise; then, for mental
+discipline, they read history for an hour in the library; and then, for
+relaxation, under veils and sunhats, read Ruskin for two hours by
+the river.
+
+I cannot think Henrietta understood Ruskin, but I have no doubt she
+thought she did, and tried to share in her friend's enthusiasm. Sophie
+had a little headache, and spent much of the morning in her room. The
+boys were away with their tutor in the farm-house where they had their
+school-room, and the house seemed deserted and delightful. I wandered
+about at ease, chose my book, and sat for hours in the boat-house by the
+river, not reading Ruskin, nor even my poor little novel, but gazing and
+dreaming and wondering. It can be imagined what the country seemed to
+me, in beautiful summer weather, after the dreary years I had spent in a
+city-street.
+
+It is quite impossible to describe all that seemed starting into life
+within me, all at once--- so many new forces, so much new life.
+
+My home-sickness had passed away, and I was inclined to be very happy,
+particularly in the liberty that seemed to promise. Dinner was very
+quiet, and every one seemed dull, even Charlotte Benson, who ordinarily
+had life enough for all. The boys were there, but their tutor had gone
+away on a long walk and would not be back till evening. "_A la bonne
+heure_," cried Madame, with a little yawn; "freedom of the halls, and
+deshabille, for one afternoon."
+
+So we spent the afternoon with our doors open, and with books, or
+without books, on the bed.
+
+Nobody came into my room, except Mrs. Hollenbeck for a few moments,
+looking very pretty in a white peignoir, and rather sleepy at the same
+time; hoping I was comfortable and had found something to amuse me in
+the library.
+
+It seemed to be thought a great bore to dress, to judge from the
+exclamations of ennui which I heard in the hall, as six o'clock
+approached, and the young ladies wandered into each other's room and
+bewailed the necessity. I think Miss Leighton would have been very glad
+to have stayed on the bed, and tried to sleep away the hours that
+presented no amusement; but Charlotte Benson laughed at her so cruelly,
+that she began to dress at once, and said, she had not intended what she
+said, of course.
+
+I was the first to be ready, and went down to the piazza. The heat of
+the day was over and there was a soft, pleasant breeze. We were to have
+tea at seven o'clock, and while I sat there, the bell rang. The tutor
+came in from under the trees where he had been reading, looking rather
+pale after his long walk.
+
+He bowed slightly as he passed me, and waited at the other end of the
+piazza, reading as he stood, till the others came down to the
+dining-room. As we were seating ourselves he came in and took his place,
+with a bow to me and the others. Mrs. Hollenbeck asked him a little
+about his expedition, and paid him a little more attention than usual,
+being the only man.
+
+He had a most fortunate way of saying just the right thing and then
+being silent; never speaking unless addressed, and then conveying
+exactly the impression he desired. I think he must have appeared in a
+more interesting light that usual at this meal, for as we went out from
+the dining room Mary Leighton put her arm through mine and whispered
+"Poor fellow! How lonely he must be! Let's ask him to go and walk with
+us this evening."
+
+Before I could remonstrate or detach myself from her, she had twisted
+herself about, in a peculiarly supple and child-like manner that she
+had, and had made the suggestion to him.
+
+He was immeasurably surprised, no doubt, but he gave no sign of it.
+After a silence of two or three instants, during which, I think, he was
+occupied in trying to find a way to decline, he assented very sedately.
+
+Charlotte Benson and her friend, who were behind us, were enraged at
+this proceeding. During the week they had all been in the house
+together, they had never gone beyond speaking terms with the tutor, and
+this they had agreed was the best way to keep things, and it seemed to
+be his wish no less than theirs. Here was this saucy girl, in want of
+amusement, upsetting all their plans. They shortly declined to go to
+walk with us: and so Mary Leighton, Mr. Langenau, and I started alone
+toward the river.
+
+It must be confessed, Miss Leighton was not rewarded for her effort, for
+a stiffer and more uncomfortable companion could not be imagined. He
+entirely declined to respond to her coquetry, and she very soon found
+she must abandon this role; but she was nothing if not coquettish, and
+the conversation flagged uncomfortably. Before we reached home she was
+quite impatient, and ran up the steps, when we got there, as if it were
+a great relief. The tutor raised his hat when he left us at the door,
+turned back, and disappeared for the rest of the evening.
+
+The next morning, coming down-stairs half an hour before breakfast, I
+went into the library (a little room at the right of the front door),
+for a book I had left there. I threw myself into an easy-chair, and
+opened it, when I caught sight of the tutor, reading at the window. I
+half started to my feet, and then sank back again in confusion; for what
+was there to go away for?
+
+He rose and bowed, and resumed his seat and his book.
+
+The room was quite small, and we were very near each other. How I could
+possibly have missed seeing him as I entered, now surprised me. I longed
+to go away, but did not dare do anything that would seem rude. He
+appeared very much engrossed with his book, but I, for my part, could
+not read a word, and was only thinking how I could get away. Possibly he
+guessed at my embarrassment, for after about ten minutes he arose, and
+coming up to the table by which I sat, he took up a card, and placed it
+in his book for a mark, and shut it up, then made some remark to me
+about the day.
+
+The color was coming and going in my face.
+
+He must have felt sorry or curious, for he did not go directly away, and
+continued to talk of things that did not require me to answer him.
+
+I do not know what it was about his voice that was so different from the
+ordinary voices of people. There was a quality in it that I had never
+heard in any other. But perhaps it was in the ear that listened, as well
+as the voice that spoke. And apart from the tones, the words I never
+could forget. The most trivial things that he ever said to me, I can
+remember to this day.
+
+I believe that this was not of my imagination, but that others felt it
+in some degree as I did. It was this that made him such an invaluable
+teacher; he impressed upon those flesh-and-blood boys, in that one
+summer, more than they would have learned in whole years from ordinary
+persons. It was not very strange, then, that I was smitten with the
+strangest interest in all he said and did, and that his words made the
+deepest impression on me.
+
+No doubt it is pleasant to be listened to by one whose face tells you
+you are understood; and the tutor was not in a hurry to go away. He had
+got up from the window, I know, with the intention of going out of the
+room, but he continued standing, looking down at me and talking, for
+half an hour at least.
+
+The soft morning wind came in at the open door and window, with a scent
+of rose and honeysuckle: the pretty little room was full of the early
+sunshine in which there is no glare: I can see it all now, and I can
+hear, as ever, his low voice.
+
+He talked of the book I held in my hand, of the views on the river, of
+the pleasantness of country life. I fancy I did not say much, though I
+never am able to remember what I said when talking to him. Whatever I
+said was a mere involuntary accord with him. I never recollect to have
+felt that I did not agree with and admire every word he uttered.
+
+How different his manner from last night when he had talked with Mary
+Leighton; all the stiffness, the half-concealed repelling tone was
+gone. I had not heard him speak to any one, except perhaps once to
+Benny, as he spoke now. I was quite sure that he liked me, and that he
+did not class me with the others in the house. But when the
+breakfast-bell rang, he gave a slight start, and his voice changed; and
+such a frown came over his face! He looked at his watch, said something
+about the hour, and quickly left the room. I bent my head over my book
+and sat still, till I heard them all come down and go into the
+breakfast-room. I trusted they would not know he had been talking to me,
+and there was little danger, unless they guessed it from my cheeks being
+so aflame.
+
+At breakfast he was more silent than ever, and his brow had not quite
+got over that sudden frown. At dinner he was away again, as the
+day before.
+
+The day passed much as yesterday had done. About four o'clock there came
+a telegram from Kilian to his sister. He had been delayed, and Mr.
+Whitney would wait for him, and they would come the next evening by the
+boat. I think Mary Leighton could have cried if she had not been
+ashamed. Her pretty blue organdie was on the bed ready to put on. It
+went back into the wardrobe very quickly, and she came down to tea in a
+gray barége that was a little shabby.
+
+A rain had come on about six o'clock. At tea the candles were lit, and
+the windows closed. Every one looked moped and dull; the evening
+promised to be insufferable. Mrs. Hollenbeck saw the necessity of
+rousing herself and providing us some amusement. When Mr. Langenau
+entered, she met his bow with one of her best smiles: how the change
+must have struck him; for she had been very mechanical and polite to him
+before. Now she spoke to him with the charming manner that brought every
+one to her feet.
+
+And what was the cause of this sudden kindness? It is very easy for me
+to see now, though then I had not a suspicion. Alas! I am afraid that
+the cheeks aflame at breakfast-time were the immediate cause of the
+change. Mrs. Hollenbeck would not have made so marked a movement for an
+evening's entertainment: it seemed to suit her very well that I should
+talk to the tutor in the library before breakfast, and she meant to give
+me opportunities for talking to him in the parlor too.
+
+"A dreary evening, is it not?" she began. "What shall we all do?
+Charlotte, can't you think of something?"
+
+Charlotte, who had her own plans for a quiet evening by the lamp with a
+new book, of course could not think of anything.
+
+"Henrietta, at least you shall give us some music, and Mr. Langenau, I
+am sure you will be good enough to help us; I will send over to the
+school-room for that flute and those piles of music that I've seen upon
+a shelf, and you will be charitable enough to play for us."
+
+"I must beg you will not take that trouble."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Langenau, that is selfish now."
+
+Mrs. Hollenbeck did not press the subject then, but made herself
+thoroughly delightful during tea, and as we rose from the table renewed
+the request in a low tone to Mr. Langenau: and the result was, a little
+after eight o'clock he came into the parlor where we sat. A place was
+made for him at the table around which we were sitting, and Mrs.
+Hollenbeck began the process of putting him at his ease. There was no
+need. The tutor was quite as much at ease as any one, and, in a little
+while, imperceptibly became the person to whom we were all listening.
+
+Charlotte Benson at last gave up her book, and took her work-box
+instead. We were no longer moping and dull around the table. And bye and
+bye Henrietta, much alarmed, was sent to the piano, and her poor little
+music certainly sounded very meagre when Mr. Langenau touched the keys.
+
+I think he consented to play not to appear rude, but with the firm
+intention of not being the instrument of our entertainment, and not
+being made use of out of his own accepted calling. But happily for us,
+he soon forgot all about us, and played on, absorbed in himself and in
+his music. We listened breathlessly, the others quite as much engrossed
+as I, because they all knew much more of music than I did. Suddenly,
+after playing for a long while, he started from the piano, and came back
+to the table. He was evidently agitated. Before the others could say a
+word of thanks or wonder, I cried, in a fear of the cessation of what
+gave me such intense pleasure,
+
+"Oh, sing something; can't you sing?"
+
+"Yes, I can sing," he said, looking down at me with those dangerous
+eyes. "Will it give you pleasure if I sing for you?"
+
+He did not wait for an answer, but turned back to the piano.
+
+He had said "if I sing for you," and I knew that for me he was singing.
+I do not know what it was for others, but for me, it was the only true
+music that I had ever heard, the only music that I could have begged
+might never cease, but flood over all the present and the future,
+satisfying every sense. Other voices had roused and thrilled, this
+filled me. I asked no more, and could have died with that sound in
+my ears.
+
+"Why, Pauline! child! what is it?" cried Mrs. Hollenbeck, as the music
+ceased and Mr. Langenau. again came back to the circle round the table.
+Every one looked: I was choking with sobs.
+
+"Oh, don't, I don't want you to speak to me," I cried, putting away her
+hand and darting from the room. I was not ashamed of myself, even when I
+was alone in my room. The powerful magic lasted still, through the
+silence and darkness, till I was aroused by the voices of the others
+coming up to bed.
+
+Mrs. Hollenbeck knocked at my door with her bedroom candle in her hand,
+and, as she stood talking to me, the others strayed in to join her and
+to satisfy their curiosity.
+
+"You are very sensitive to music, are you not?" said Charlotte Benson,
+contemplatively. She had tried me on Mompssen, and the "Seven Lamps,"
+and found me wanting, and now perhaps hoped to find some other point
+less faulty.
+
+"I do not know," I said, honestly. "I seem to have been very sensitive
+to-night."
+
+"But you are not always?" asked Henrietta Palmer. "You do not always cry
+when people sing?"
+
+"Why, no," I said with great contempt. "But I never heard any one sing
+like that before."
+
+"He does sing well," said Mrs. Hollenbeck, thoughtfully.
+
+"Immense expression and a fine voice," added Charlotte Benson.
+
+"He has been educated for the stage, you may be sure," said Mary
+Leighton, with a little spite. "As Miss d'Estrée says, I never heard
+anyone sing like that, out of the chorus of an opera."
+
+"Well, I think," returned Charlotte Benson, "if there were many voices
+like that in ordinary choruses, one would be glad to dispense with the
+solos and duets."
+
+"Oh, you would not find his voice so wonderful, if you heard it out of a
+parlor. It is very well, but it would not fill a concert hall, much less
+an opera house. No; you may be sure he has been educated for some of
+those German choruses; you know they are very fine musicians."
+
+"Well, I don't know that it is anything to us what he was educated for,"
+said Charlotte Benson, sharply. "He has given us a very delightful
+evening, and I, for one, am much obliged to him."
+
+"_Et moi aussi"_ murmured Henrietta, wreathing her large beautiful arms
+about her friend, and the two sauntered away.
+
+Mary Leighton, in general ill-humor, and still remembering the walk of
+the last evening, desired to fire a parting-shot, and exclaimed, as she
+went out, "Well, I think it is something to us; I like to have
+gentlemen about me."
+
+"You need not be uneasy," said Mrs. Hollenbeck, a little stiffly. "I
+think Mr. Langenau is a gentleman."
+
+But at this moment his step was heard in the hall below, and there was
+an end put to the conversation.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+MATINAL.
+
+     Last night, when some one spoke his name,
+     From my swift blood that went and came
+     A thousand little shafts of flame
+     Were shivered in my narrow frame.
+
+                   _Tennyson_.
+
+
+The next morning was brilliant and cool, the earth and heavens shining
+after the rain of the past night. I was dressed long, long before
+breakfast: it would be so tiresome to wait in my room till the bell
+rang; yet if I went down-stairs, would it not look as if I wanted to see
+Mr. Langenau again? I need not go to the library, of course, but I could
+scarcely avoid being seen from the library if I went out. But why
+suppose that he would be down again so early? It was very improbable,
+and so, affectionately deceived, I put on a hat and walking-jacket and
+stole down the stairs. I saw by the clock in the lower hall that it was
+half an hour earlier than I had come down the morning before; at which I
+was secretly chagrined, for now there was no danger, _alias_ hope, of
+seeing Mr. Langenau.
+
+But probably he had forgotten all about the foolish half-hour that had
+given me so much to think about. I glanced into the library, which was
+empty, and hurried out of the hall-door, secretly disappointed.
+
+I took the path that led over the hill to the river. It passed through
+the garden, under the long arbors of grapevines, over the hill, and
+through a grove of maples, ending at the river where the boat-house
+stood. The brightness of the morning was not lost on me, and before I
+reached the maple-grove I was buoyant and happy. At the entrance of the
+grove (which was traversed by several paths, the principal coming up
+directly from the river) I came suddenly upon the tutor, walking
+rapidly, with a pair of oars over his shoulder. He started, and for a
+moment we both stood still and did not speak. I could only think with
+confusion of my emotion when he sang.
+
+"You are always early," he said, with his slight, very slight, foreign
+accent, "earlier than yesterday by half an hour," he added, looking at
+his watch. My heart gave a great bound of pleasure. Then he had not
+forgotten! How he must have seen all this.
+
+He stood and talked with me for some moments, and then desperately I
+made a movement to go on. I do not believe, at least I am not sure, that
+at first he had any intention of going with me. But it was not in human
+nature to withstand the flattery of such emotion as his presence seemed
+always to inspire in me; and then, I have no doubt, he had a certain
+pleasure in talking to me outside of that; and then the morning was so
+lovely and he had so much of books.
+
+He proposed to show me a walk I had not taken. There was a little
+hesitation in his manner, but he was reassured by my look of pleasure,
+and throwing down the oars under a tree, he turned and walked beside me.
+No doubt he said to himself, "America! This paradise of girlhood;--there
+can be no objection." It was heavenly sweet, that walk--the birds, the
+sky, the dewiness and freshness of all nature and all life. It seemed
+the unstained beginning of all things to me.
+
+The woods were wet; we could not go through them, and so we went a
+longer way, along the river and back by the road.
+
+This time he did not do all the talking, but made me talk, and listened
+carefully to all I said; and I was so happy, talking was not any effort.
+
+At last he made some allusion to the music of last night; that he was so
+glad to see that I loved music as I did. "But I don't particularly," I
+said in confusion, with a great fear of being dishonest, "at least I
+never thought I did before, and I am so ignorant. I don't want you to
+think I know anything about it, for you would be disappointed." He was
+silent, and, I felt sure, because he was already disappointed; in fear
+of which I went on to say--
+
+"I never heard any one sing like that before; I am very sorry that it
+gave any one an impression that I had a knowledge of music, when I
+hadn't. I don't care about it generally, except in church, and I can't
+understand what made me feel so yesterday."
+
+"Perhaps it is because you were in the mood for it," he said. "It is
+often so, one time music gives us pleasure, another time it does not."
+
+"That may be so; but your voice, in speaking, even, seems to me
+different from any other. It is almost as good as music when you speak;
+only the music fills me with such feelings."
+
+"You must let me sing for you again," he said, rather low, as we walked
+slowly on.
+
+"Ah; if you only will," I answered, with a deep sigh of satisfaction.
+
+We walked on in silence till we reached the gate: he opened it for me
+and then said, "Now I must leave you, and go back for the oars."
+
+I was secretly glad of this; since the walk had reached its natural
+limit and its end must be accepted, it was a relief to approach the
+house alone and not be the subject of any observation.
+
+Breakfast had began: no one seemed to feel much interest in my entrance,
+though flaming with red roses and red cheeks.
+
+They were of the sex that do not notice such things naturally, with much
+interest or admiration. They had hardly "shaken off drowsy-hed," and had
+no pleasure in anything but their breakfast, and not much in that.
+
+"How do you manage to get yourself up and dressed at such inhuman
+hours?" said Mary Leighton, querulously.
+
+"You are a reproach to the household, and we will not suffer it," said
+Charlotte Benson.
+
+"I never could understand this thing of getting up before you are
+obliged to," added Henrietta plaintively.
+
+But Sophie seemed well satisfied, particularly when Mr. Langenau came in
+and I looked down into my cup of tea, instead of saying good-morning to
+him. He did not say very much, though there was a good deal of babble
+among the others, principally about his music.
+
+It was becoming the fashion to be very attentive to him. He was made to
+promise to play in the evening; to bring down his books of music for the
+benefit of Miss Henrietta, who wanted to practice, Heaven knows what of
+his. His advice was asked about styles of playing and modes of
+instruction; he was deferred to as an authority. But very little he
+seemed to care about it all, I thought.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THREE WEEKS TOO LATE.
+
+     _Qui va à la chasse perd sa place_.
+
+     _De la main à la bouche se perd souvent la soupe_.
+
+       Distance all value enhances!
+     When a man's busy, why, leisure
+     Strikes him as wonderful pleasure.
+     Faith! and at leisure once is he,
+     Straightway he wants to be busy.
+
+     _R. Browning_.
+
+
+Two weeks more passed: two weeks that seem to me so many years when I
+look back upon them. Many more walks, early and late, many evenings of
+music, many accidents of meeting. It is all like a dream. At seventeen
+it is so easy to dream! It does not take two weeks for a girl to fall in
+love and make her whole life different.
+
+It was Saturday evening, and Richard was expected; Richard and Kilian
+and Mr. Eugene Whitney. Ah, Richard was coming just three weeks
+too late.
+
+We were all waiting on the piazza for them, in pretty toilettes and
+excellent tempers. It was a lovely evening; the sunset was filling the
+sky with splendor, and Charlotte and Henrietta had gone to the corner of
+the piazza whence the river could be seen, and were murmuring fragments
+of verses to each other. They were not so much absorbed, however, but
+that they heard the first sound of the wheels inside the gate, and
+hurried back to join us by the steps.
+
+Mary Leighton looked absolutely lovely. The blue organdie had seen the
+day at last, and she was in such a flutter of delight at the coming of
+the gentlemen that she could scarcely be recognized as the pale, flimsy
+young person who had moped so unblushingly all the week.
+
+"They are all three there," she exclaimed with suppressed rapture, as
+the carriage turned the angle of the road that brought them into sight.
+Mrs. Hollenbeck, quite beaming with pleasure, ran down the steps (for
+Richard had been away almost two months), and Mary Leighton was at her
+side, of course. Charlotte Benson and Henrietta went half-way down the
+steps, and I stood on the piazza by the pillar near the door.
+
+I was a little excited by their coming, too, but not nearly as much so
+as I might have been three weeks ago. A subject of much greater interest
+occupied my mind that very moment, and related to the chances of the
+tutor's getting home in time for tea, from one of those long walks that
+were so tiresome. I felt as if I hardly needed Richard now. Still, dear
+old Richard! It was very nice to see him once again.
+
+The gentlemen all sprang out of the carriage, and a Babel of welcomes
+and questions and exclamations arose. Richard kissed his sister, and
+answered some of her many questions, then shook hands with the young
+ladies, but I could see that his eye was searching for me. I can't tell
+why, certainly not because I felt at all shy, I had stepped back, a
+little behind the pillar and the vines. In an instant he saw me, and
+came quickly up the steps, and stood by me and grasped my hand, and
+looked exactly as if he meant to kiss me. I hoped that nobody saw his
+look, and I drew back, a little frightened. Of course, I know that he
+had not the least intention of kissing me, but his look was so eager and
+so unusual,
+
+"It is two months, Pauline," he said; "and are you well?" And though I
+only said that I was well and was very glad to see him, I am sure his
+sister Sophie thought that it was something more, for she had followed
+him up the steps and stood in the doorway looking at us.
+
+The others came up there, and Kilian, as soon as he could get out of the
+meshes of the blue organdie, came to me, and tried to out-devotion
+Richard.
+
+That is the way with men. He had not taken any trouble to get away from
+Mary Leighton till Richard came.
+
+A young woman only needs one lover very much in earnest, to bring about
+her several others, not so much, perhaps, in earnest, but very amusing
+and instructive. Richard went away very quickly, for I am sure he did
+not like that sort of thing.
+
+It was soon necessary for Mr. Kilian to suspend his devotion and go to
+his room to get ready for tea.
+
+When we all assembled again, at the table, I found that he had placed
+himself beside me, next his sister, little Benny having gone to bed.
+
+"Of course, the head of the table belongs to Richard; I never interfere
+there, and as everybody else is placed, this is the only seat that I can
+take, following the rose and thorn principle."
+
+"But that principle is not followed strictly," cried Charlotte Benson,
+who sat by Mary Leighton. "Here are two roses and no thorn."
+
+"Ah! What a strange oversight," he exclaimed, seating himself
+nevertheless. "The only way to remedy it will be to put the tutor in
+your place, Miss Benson, and you come opposite Miss Pauline. Quick;
+before he comes and refuses to move his Teutonic bones an inch."
+Charlotte Benson changed her seat and the vacant one was left between
+her and Mary Leighton.
+
+This is the order of our seats, for that and many following happy nights
+and days:
+
+           Richard,
+Mary Leighton,      Henrietta,
+The Tutor,          Mr. Eugene Whitney,
+Charlotte Benson,   Myself,
+Charley,            Kilian,
+           Sophie.
+
+Mary Leighton looked furious and could hardly speak a word all through
+the meal. It was particularly hard upon her, as the tutor did not come,
+and the chair was empty, and a glaring insult to her all the time.
+
+Kilian had done his part so innocently and so simply that it was hard to
+suspect him of any intention to pique her and annoy Richard, but I am
+sure he did it with just those two intentions. He was as thorough a
+flirt as any woman, and withal very fond of change, and I think my pink
+grenadine quite dazzled him as I stood on the piazza. Then came the
+brotherly and quite natural desire to outshine Richard and put things
+out a little. I liked it all very much, and was charmed to be of so much
+consequence, for I saw all this quite plainly. I laughed and talked a
+good deal with Kilian; he was delightful to laugh and talk with. Even
+Eugene Whitney found me more worth his weak attention than the beautiful
+and placid Henrietta.
+
+The amusement was chiefly at our end of the table. But amidst it, I did
+not fail to glance often at the door and wonder, uncomfortably, why the
+tutor did not come.
+
+As we left the table and lingered for a few moments in the hall, Richard
+came up to me and said, as he prepared to light his cigar, "Will you not
+come out and walk up and down the path here with me while I smoke?"
+
+I began to make some excuse, for I wanted to do nothing just then but
+watch the stairway to see if Mr. Langenau did not come down even then
+and go into the dining-room.
+
+But I reflected how ungracious it would seem to refuse this, when he had
+just come home, and I followed him out into the path.
+
+There was no moon, but the stars were very bright, and the air was sweet
+with the flower-beds in the grass along the path we walked.
+
+The house looked gay and pleasant as we walked up and down before it,
+with its many lighted windows, and people with bright dresses moving
+about on the piazza. Richard lit his cigar, and said, after a silence
+of a few moments, with a sigh, "It is good to be at home again."
+
+"But you've had a pleasant journey?"
+
+"No; the most tiresome that I ever made, and this last detention wore my
+patience out. It seemed the longest fortnight. I could not bear to think
+of you all here, and I away in such a dismal hole."
+
+"I suppose Uncle Leonard had no pity on you, as long as there was a
+penny to be made by staying there."
+
+"No; I spent a great deal of money in telegraphing to him for orders to
+come home, but he would not give up."
+
+"And how is Uncle Leonard; did you go to Varick-street?"
+
+"No, indeed; I did not waste any time in town. I only reached there
+yesterday."
+
+"I wonder Uncle Leonard let you off so soon."
+
+"He growled a good deal, but I did not stay to listen."
+
+"That's always the best way."
+
+"And now, Pauline, tell me how you like the place."
+
+"Like it! Oh, Richard, I think it is a Paradise," and I clasped my hands
+in a young sort of ecstacy.
+
+He was silent, which was a sign that he was satisfied. I went on after
+a moment, "I don't wonder that you all love it. I never saw anything
+half so beautiful. The dear old house is prettier than any new one that
+could be built, and the trees are so grand! And oh, Richard, I think the
+garden lying on the hillside there in the beautiful warm sun, with such
+royal flowers and fruit, is worth all the grape-houses and
+conservatories in the neighborhood. Your sister took us to three or four
+of the neighboring places a week or two ago. But I like this a hundred
+times the best. I should think you would be sorry every moment that you
+have to spend away from it."
+
+"I hope one of these days to live here altogether," he said in a low
+tone.
+
+It was so difficult for Richard to be unreserved that it is very likely
+this was the first time in his life that he had ever expressed this, the
+brightest hope he had.
+
+I could fancy all these few words implied--a wife, children, a happy
+home in manhood where he had been a happy child.
+
+"It belongs to Kilian and me, but it is understood I have the right to
+it when I am ready for it."
+
+"And your sister--it does not belong at all to her?"
+
+"No, she only keeps house for us. It would make a great change for
+Sophie if either of us married. But then I know that it would give her
+pleasure, for I am sure that she would not be selfish."
+
+I was not so sure, but, of course, I did not say so. At this moment,
+while Richard smoked and I walked silently beside him, a dark figure
+struck directly across the path before us. The apparition was so sudden
+that I sprang and screamed, and caught Richard by the arm.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said the tutor, with a quick look of surprise at me
+and then at Richard, and bowing, strode on into the house.
+
+"That's the German Sophie has taken for the boys, is it?" said Richard,
+knitting his brows, and looking after him, with no great approbation. "I
+don't half like the idea of his being here: I told Sophie so at
+starting. A governess would do as well for two years yet. What kind of a
+person does he seem to be?"
+
+"I don't know--that is--I can't tell exactly. I don't know him well
+enough," I answered in confusion, which Richard did not see.
+
+"No, of course not. You would not be likely to see him except at the
+table. But it is awkward having him here,--so much of the week, no man
+about; and one never knows anything about these Germans."
+
+"I thought--your sister said--you knew all about him," I said, in rather
+a low voice.
+
+"As much as one needs to know about a mere teacher. But the person you
+have in your house all the time is different."
+
+"But he is a gentleman," I put in more firmly.
+
+"I hope he is. He had letters to some friends of ours. But what are
+letters? People give them when they're asked for them, and half the time
+know nothing of the person for whom they do the favor, besides his name
+and general standing. Hardly that, sometimes." Then, as if to put away a
+tiresome and unwelcome subject, he began again to talk about the place.
+
+But I had lost my interest in the subject, and thought only of returning
+to the house.
+
+"Don't," I said, playfully putting out my hand as he took out another
+cigar to light. "You have smoked enough to-night. Do you know, you smoke
+a great deal more than is good for you."
+
+"Well, I will not smoke any more to-night if you say so. Only don't go
+in the house."
+
+"Oh, yes, you know we only came out to smoke."
+
+He stood in front of the path that led to the piazza and said, in an
+affectionate, gentle way, "Stay and walk a little longer. I have not
+told you half how glad I am that you are here at last."
+
+"Oh, as for that, you've got a good many weeks to tell me in. Besides,
+it's getting chilly," and I gave a little shiver.
+
+"If you're cold, of course," he said, letting me pass and following me,
+and added, with a shade of anxiety, "Why didn't you tell me before? I
+never thought of it, and you have no shawl."
+
+I felt ashamed of myself as I led the way up the piazza steps.
+
+In the hall, which was quite light, they were all standing, and Mr.
+Langenau was in the group. They were petitioning him for music.
+
+"Oh, he has promised that he will sing," said Sophie; "but remember he
+has not had his tea. I have ordered it for you, Mr. Langenau; it will be
+ready in a moment."
+
+Mr. Langenau bowed and turned to go up the stairs. His eye met mine, as
+I came into the light, dazzled a little by it.
+
+He went up the stairs; the others after a few moments, went into the
+parlor. I sat down on a sofa beside Mrs. Hollenbeck. Richard was called
+away by a person on business. There was a shaded lamp on a bracket above
+the sofa where we sat; Mrs. Hollenbeck was reading some letters she had
+just received, and I took up the evening paper, reading over and over an
+advertisement of books. Presently the servant came to Mrs. Hollenbeck
+and said that Mr. Langenau's tea was ready. She was sent up to tell him
+so, and in a few moments he came down. When he reached the hall, Sophie
+looked up with her most lovely smile.
+
+"You must be famished, Mr. Langenau; pray go immediately to the
+dining-room. I am sorry not to make your tea myself, but I hear Benny
+waking and must go to him. Will you mind taking my place, Pauline, and
+pouring out tea for Mr. Langenau?"
+
+I was bending over the paper; my face turned suddenly from red to pale.
+I said something inaudible in reply, and got up and went into the
+dining-room, followed by the tutor.
+
+It was several minutes before I looked at him. The servants had not
+favored us with much light: there was a branch of wax candles in the
+middle of the table. Mr. Langenau's plate was placed just at one side of
+the tray, at which I had seated myself. He looked pale, even to his
+lips. I began to think of the terrible walks in which he seemed to hunt
+himself down, and to wonder what was the motive, though I had often
+wondered that before. He took the cup of tea I offered him without
+speaking. Neither of us spoke for several minutes, then I said, rather
+irresolutely, "I am sure you tire yourself by these long walks."
+
+"Do you think so? No: they rest me."
+
+No doubt I felt more coquettish, and had more confidence than usual,
+from the successes of that evening, and from the knowledge that Richard
+and Kilian and Eugene Whitney, even, were so delighted to talk to me;
+otherwise I could never have said what I said then, by a sudden impulse,
+and with a half-laughing voice, "Do not go away again so long; it makes
+it so dull and tiresome."
+
+He looked at me and said, "It does not seem to me you miss me very
+much." But such a gleam of those dark, dangerous eyes! I looked down,
+but my breath came quickly and my face must have shown the agitation
+that I felt.
+
+At this moment Richard, released from his engagement in the library,
+came through the hall and stopped at the dining-room door. He paused for
+a moment at the door, walked away again, then came back and into the
+room, with rather a quicker step than usual.
+
+"Pauline," he said, and I started visibly, "They seem to be waiting for
+you in the parlor for a game of cards."
+
+His voice indicated anything but satisfaction. I half rose, then sank
+back, and said, hesitatingly, "Can I pour you some more tea, Mr.
+Langenau?"
+
+"If it is not troubling you too much," he said in a voice that a
+moment's time had hardened into sharpness.
+
+Oh, the misery of that cup of tea, with Richard looking at me on one
+side flushed and angry, and Mr. Langenau on the other, pale and cynical.
+My hands shook so that I could not lift the teakettle, and Richard
+angrily leaned down and moved it for me. The alcohol in the lamp flamed
+up and scorched my arm.
+
+"Oh Richard, you have burned me," I cried, dropping the cup and wrapping
+my handkerchief around my arm. In an instant he was all softness and
+kindness, and, I have no doubt, repentance.
+
+"I am very sorry," he said; "Does it hurt you very much? Come with me,
+and I will get Sophie to put something on it."
+
+But Mr. Langenau did not move or show any interest in my sufferings. I
+was half-crying, but I sat still and tried with the other hand to
+replace the cup and fill it. Seeing that I did not make much headway,
+and that Richard had stepped back, Mr. Langenau said, "Allow me," and
+held the cup while I managed to pour the tea into it. He thanked me
+stiffly, and without looking at either of them I got up and went out of
+the room, Richard following me.
+
+"Will you wait here while I call Sophie to get something for you?" he
+said a little coldly.
+
+"No, I do not want anything; I wish you would not say anything more
+about it; it only hurt me for a moment."
+
+"Will you go into the parlor, then?"
+
+"No--yes, that is," I said, and capriciously went, alone, for he did not
+follow me.
+
+I was wanted for cards, but I would not play, and sat down by one of the
+windows, a little out of the light. This window opened upon the piazza.
+After a little while Richard, walking up and down the piazza, stopped by
+it, and said to me: "I hope you won't think it unreasonable in me to
+ask, Pauline; but how in the world did you happen to be making tea for
+that--that man in there?"
+
+"I happened to make tea for Mr. Langenau because your sister asked me
+to," I said angrily; "you had better speak to her about it."
+
+"You may be sure I shall," he said, walking away from the window.
+
+Presently the tutor came in from the hall by the door near the piano,
+and sat down by it without being asked, and began to play softly, as if
+not to interrupt the game of cards. I could not help thinking in what
+good taste this was, since he had promised not to wait for any more
+importunities. The game at cards soon languished, for Charlotte Benson
+really had an enthusiasm for music, and was not happy till she was at
+liberty to give her whole attention to it. As soon as the players were
+released, Kilian came over and sat beside me. He rather wearied me, for
+I wanted to listen to the music, but he was determined not to see that,
+and chattered so that more than once Charlotte Benson turned impatiently
+and begged us not to talk. Once Mr. Langenau himself turned and looked
+at us, but Kilian only paused, and then went on again.
+
+Mary Leighton had fled to the piano and was gazing at the keys in a rapt
+manner, hoping, no doubt, to rouse Kilian to jealousy of the tutor.
+
+"Please go away," I said at last, "this is making me seem rude."
+
+"Do not tell me," he exclaimed, "that you are helping Mary Leighton and
+Sophie to spoil this German fellow. I really did not look for it in
+you. I--"
+
+"I can't stay here and be talked to," I said, getting up in despair.
+
+"Then come on the piazza," he exclaimed, and we were there almost before
+I knew what I was doing.
+
+I suppose every one in the room saw us go out: I was in terror when I
+thought what an insult it would seem to Mr. Langenau. We walked about
+the piazza for some time; I am afraid Mr. Kilian found me rather dull,
+for I could only listen to what was going on inside. At last he was
+called away by a man from the stable, who brought some alarming account
+of his beloved Tom or Jerry. If I had been his bride at the altar, I am
+sure he would have left me; being only a new and very faintly-lighted
+flame, he hurried off with scarcely an apology.
+
+I sat down in a piazza-chair, just outside the window at which we had
+been sitting. I looked in at the window, but no one could see me, from
+the position of my chair.
+
+Presently Mr. Langenau left the piano, and Mary Leighton, talking to him
+with effusion, walked across the room beside him, and took her seat at
+this very window. He did not sit down, but stood before her with his hat
+in his hand, as if he only awaited a favorable pause to go away.
+
+"Ah, where did Pauline go?" she said, glancing around. "But I suppose we
+must excuse her, for to-night at least, as he has just come home. I
+imagine the engagement was no surprise to you?"
+
+"Of what engagement do you speak?" he said.
+
+"Why! Pauline and Richard Vandermarck; you know it is quite a settled
+thing. And very good for her, I think. He seems to me just the sort of
+man to keep her steady and--well, improve her character, you know. She
+seems such a heedless sort of girl. They say her mother ran away and
+made some horrid marriage, and, I believe, her uncle has had to keep her
+very strict. He is very much pleased, I am told, with marrying her to
+Richard, and she herself seems very much in love with him."
+
+All this time he had stood very still and looked at her, but his face
+had changed slowly as she spoke. I knew then that what she had said had
+not pleased him. She went on in her babbling, soft voice:
+
+"His sister Sophie isn't pleased, of course, so there is nothing said
+about it here. It _is_ rather hard for her, for the place belongs to
+Richard, and besides, Richard has been very generous to her always. And
+then to see him marry just such a sort of person--you know--so young--"
+
+"Yes--so young," said Mr. Langenau, between his teeth, "and of such
+charming innocence."
+
+"Oh, as to that," said Mary Leighton, piqued beyond prudence, "we all
+have our own views as to that."
+
+The largess due the bearer of good news was not by right the meed of
+Mary Leighton. He looked at her as if he hated her.
+
+"Mr. Richard Yandermarck is a fortunate man," he said. "She has rare
+beauty, if he has a taste for beauty."
+
+"Men sometimes tire of that; if indeed she has it. Her coloring is her
+strong point, and that may not last forever;" and Mary's voice was no
+longer silvery.
+
+"You think so?" he said. "I think her grace is her strong point, '_la
+grâce encore plus belle que la beauté_,' and longer-lived beside. Few
+women move as she does, making it a pleasure to follow her with the
+eyes. And her height and suppleness: at twenty-five she will be regal."
+
+"Then, Mr. Langenau," she cried, with sudden spitefulness, "you _do_
+admire her very much yourself! Do you know, I thought perhaps you did.
+How you must envy Mr. Vandermarck!"
+
+A slight shrug of the shoulders and a slight low laugh; after which, he
+said, "No, I think not. I have not the courage that is necessary."
+
+"The courage! why, what do you mean by that?"
+
+"I mean that a man who ventures to love a woman in whom he cannot trust,
+has need for courage and for patience; perhaps Mr. Richard Vandermarck
+has them both abundantly. For me, I think the pretty Miss Pauline would
+be safer as an hour's amusement than as a life's companion."
+
+The words stabbed, killed me. With an ejaculation that could scarcely
+have escaped their ears, I sprang up and ran through the hall and up the
+stairs. Before I reached the landing-place, I knew that some one was
+behind me. I did not look or pause, but flew on through the hall till I
+reached my own door. My own door was just at the foot of the third-floor
+stairway. I glanced back, and saw that it was Mr. Langenau who was
+behind me. I pushed open my door and went half-way in the room; then
+with a vehement and sudden impulse came back into the hall and pulled it
+shut again and stood with my hand upon the latch, and waited for him to
+pass. In an instant more he was near me, but not as if he saw me; he
+could not reach the stairway without passing so near me that he must
+touch my dress. I waited till he was so near, and said, "Mr. Langenau."
+
+He raised his eyes steadily to mine and bowed low. I almost choked for
+one instant, and then I found voice and rushed on vehemently. "What she
+has told you is false; every word of it is false. I am not engaged to
+Richard Vandermarck; I never thought of such a thing till I came here,
+and found they talked about it. They ought to be ashamed, and I will go
+away to-morrow. And what she said about my mother is a wicked lie as
+well, at least in the way she meant it; and I shall hate her all my
+life. I have been motherless and lonely always, but God has cared for
+me, and I never knew before what evil thoughts and ways there were. I
+am not ashamed that I listened, though I didn't mean to stay at first.
+I'm glad I heard it all and know what kind of friends I have. And those
+last cruel words you said--I never will forgive you, never--never--never
+till I die."
+
+He had put his hand out toward me as if in conciliation, at least I
+understood it so. I pushed it passionately away, rushed into my room,
+bolted the door, and flung myself upon the bed with a frightful burst of
+sobs. I heard his hand upon the latch of the door, and he said my name
+several times in a low voice. Then he went slowly up the stairs. And I
+think his room must have been directly over mine, for, for hours I heard
+some one walking there; indeed, it was the last sound I heard, when,
+having cried all my tears and vowed all my vows, I fell asleep and
+forgot that I was wretched.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+SUNDAY.
+
+     _La notte é madre di pensieri_.
+
+     Now tell me how you are as to religion?
+     You are a clear good man--but I rather fear
+     You have not much of it.
+
+     _Faust_.
+
+
+It was all very well to talk about going away; but the matter looked
+very differently by daylight. It was Sunday; and I knew I could not go
+away for a day or two, and not even then without making a horrid sort of
+stir, for which I had not the courage in cold blood. Besides, I did not
+even know that I wanted to go if I could. Varick-street! Hateful,
+hateful thought. No, I could not go there. And though (by daylight) I
+still detested Mary Leighton, and felt ashamed about Richard, and
+remembered all Mr. Langenau's words (sweet as well as bitter),
+everything was let down a great many degrees; from the heights of
+passion into the plains of commonplace.
+
+My great excitement had worked its own cure, and I was so dull and weary
+that I did not even want to think of what had passed the night before.
+If I had a sentiment that retained any strength, it was that of shame
+and self-contempt. I could not think of myself in any way that did not
+make me blush. When, however, it came to the moment of facing every one,
+and going down to breakfast, I began to know I still had some
+other feelings.
+
+I was the last to go down. The bell had rung a very long while before I
+left my room. I took my seat at the table without looking at any one,
+though, of course, every one looked at me. My confused and rather
+general good-morning was returned with much precision by all. Somebody
+remarked that I did not look well. Somebody else remarked that was
+surely because I went to bed so early; that it never had been known to
+agree with any one. Some one else wanted to know why I had gone so
+early, and that I had been hunted for in all directions for a dance
+which had been a sudden inspiration.
+
+"But as you had gone away, and the musician could not be found, we had
+to give it up," said Charlotte Benson, "and we owe you both a grudge."
+
+"For my part, I am very sorry," said Mr. Langenau. "I had no thought
+that you meant to dance last night, or I should have stayed at the
+piano; I hope you will tell me the next time."
+
+"The next time will be to-morrow evening," said Mary Leighton. "Now,
+Mr. Langenau, you will not forget--or--or get excited about anything
+and go away?"
+
+I dared not look at Mr. Langenau's face, but I am sure I should not have
+seen anything pleasant if I had. I don't know what he answered, for I
+was so confused, I dropped a plate of berries which I was just taking
+from Kilian's hand, and made quite an uncomfortable commotion. The
+berries were very ripe, and they rolled in many directions on the
+table-cloth, and fell on my white dress.
+
+"Your pretty dress is ruined, I'm afraid," said Kilian, stooping down to
+save it.
+
+"I don't care about that, but I'm very sorry that I've stained the
+table-cloth," and I looked at Mrs. Hollenbeck as if I thought that she
+would scold me for it. But she quite reassured me. Indeed, I think she
+was so pleased with me, that she would not have minded seeing me ruin
+all the table-cloths that she had.
+
+"But it will make you late for church, for you'll have to change your
+dress," said Charlotte Benson, practically, glancing at the clock. I was
+very thankful for the suggestion, for I thought it would save me from
+the misery of trying to eat breakfast, but Kilian made such an outcry
+that I found I could not go without more comments than I liked.
+
+"You have no appetite either," said Mary Leighton. "I am ashamed to eat
+as much as I want, for here is Mr. Langenau beside me, who has only
+broken a roll in two and drank a cup of coffee."
+
+"I am not perhaps quite used to your American way of breakfasting," he
+returned quickly.
+
+"But you ate breakfasts when we first came," said the sweet girl gently.
+
+"Was not the weather cooler then?" he answered, "and I have missed my
+walk this morning."
+
+"Let me give you some more coffee, at any rate," said Sophie, with
+affectionate interest. Indeed, I think at that moment she absolutely
+loved him.
+
+In a few minutes I escaped from the table; when I came down from my room
+ready for church, I found that they were all just starting. (Richard, I
+suppose, would have waited for me.) The church was in the village, and
+not ten minutes' walk from the house. Kilian was carrying Mary
+Leighton's prayer-book, and was evidently intending to walk with her.
+
+Richard came up to me and said, "Sophie is waiting to know if you will
+let her drive you, or if you will walk."
+
+I had not yet been obliged to speak to Richard since I had heard what
+people said about us, and I felt uncomfortable.
+
+"Oh, let me drive if there is room," I said, without looking up. Sophie
+sat in her little carriage waiting for me. Richard put me in beside her,
+and then joined the others, while we drove away. Benny, in his white
+Sunday clothes, sat at our feet.
+
+"I think it is so much better for you to drive," said Mrs. Hollenbeck,
+"for the day is warm, and I did not think you looked at all well
+this morning."
+
+"No," I said faintly. And she was so kind, I longed to tell her
+everything. It is frightful at seventeen to have no one to tell your
+troubles to.
+
+At the gate Benny was just grumbling about getting out to open it, when
+Mr. Langenau appeared, and held it open for us. He was dressed in a
+flannel suit which he wore for walking. After he closed the gate, he
+came up beside the carriage, as Mrs. Hollenbeck very kindly invited him
+to do, by driving slowly.
+
+"Are you coming with us to church, Mr. Langenau?" asked Benny.
+
+"To church? No, Benny. I am afraid they would not let me in."
+
+"Why, yes, they would, if you had your good clothes on," said Benny.
+
+Mr. Langenau laughed, a little bitterly, and said he doubted, even then.
+"I am afraid I haven't got my good conscience on either, Benny."
+
+"But the minister would never know," said Benny.
+
+"That's very true; the ministers here don't know much about peoples'
+consciences, I should think."
+
+"Do ministers in any other places know any more?" asked Benny with
+interest.
+
+"Why, yes, Benny, in a good many countries where I've been, they do."
+
+"You are a Catholic, Mr. Langenau?" asked Mrs. Hollenbeck.
+
+"I once was; I have no longer any right to say it is my faith," he
+answered slowly.
+
+"What is it to be a Catholic?" inquired Benny, gazing at his tutor's
+face with wonder.
+
+"To be a Catholic, is to be in a safe prison; to have been a Catholic,
+is to be alone on a sea big and black with billows, Benny."
+
+"I think I'd like the prison best," said Benny, who was very much afraid
+of the water.
+
+"Ah, but if you couldn't get back to it, my boy."
+
+"Well, I think I'd try to get to land somewhere," Benny answered,
+stoutly.
+
+Mr. Langenau laughed, but rather gloomily, and we went on for a few
+moments in silence. The road was bordered with trees, and there was a
+beautiful shade. The horse was very glad to be permitted to go slow, not
+being of an ambitious nature.
+
+All this time I had been leaning back, holding my parasol very close
+over my face. Mr. Langenau happened to be on the side by me: once when
+the carriage had leaned suddenly, he had put his hand upon it, and had
+touched, without intending it, my arm.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he had said, and that was all he had said to me;
+and I had felt very grateful that Benny had been so inclined to talk. I
+trusted that nobody would speak to me, for my voice would never be
+steady and even again, I was sure, when he was by to listen to it.
+
+Now, however, he spoke to me: commonplace words, the same almost that
+every one in the house had addressed to me that morning, but how
+differently they sounded.
+
+"I am sorry that you are not well to-day, Miss d'Estrée."
+
+Mrs. Hollenbeck at this moment began to find some fault with Benny's
+gloves, and leaning down, talked very obligingly and earnestly with him,
+while she fastened the gloves upon his hands.
+
+Mr. Langenau took the occasion, as it was intended he should take it,
+and said rather low, "You will not refuse to see me a few moments this
+evening, that I may explain something to you?"
+
+I think he was disappointed that I did not answer him, only turned away
+my head. But I don't know in truth what other answer he had any right to
+ask. He did not attempt to speak again, but as we turned into the
+village, said, "Good-morning, I must leave you. Good-bye, Benny, since I
+have neither clothes nor conscience fit for church."
+
+Sophie laughed, and said, at least she hoped he would be home for
+dinner. He did not promise, but raising his hat struck off into a little
+path by the roadside, that led up into the woods.
+
+"What a pity," said Mrs. Hollenbeck musingly, "that a man of such fine
+intellect should have such vague religious faith."
+
+Mr. Langenau was at home for dinner, but he did not see me at that meal,
+for my head ached so, and I felt so weary that when I came up-stairs
+after church, it seemed impossible to go down again. I should have been
+very glad to make the same excuse serve for the remainder of the day,
+but really the rest and a cup of tea had so restored me, that no excuse
+remained at six o'clock.
+
+All families have their little Sunday habits, I have found; the Sunday
+rule in this house was, to have tea at half-past six, and to walk by the
+river till after the sun had set; then to come home and have sacred
+music in the parlor. After tea, accordingly, we took our shawls on our
+arms (it still being very warm) and walked down toward the river.
+
+I kept beside Mrs. Hollenbeck and Benny, where only I felt safe.
+
+The criticism I had heard had given me such a shock, I did not feel that
+I ever could be careful enough of what I said and did. And I vaguely
+felt my mother's honor would be vindicated, if I showed myself always a
+modest and prudent woman.
+
+"It was so well that I heard them," I kept saying to myself, but I felt
+so much older and so much graver. My silence and constraint were no
+doubt differently interpreted. Richard did not come up to me, except to
+tell me I had better put my shawl on, as I sat on the steps of the
+boat-house, with Benny beside me. The others had walked further on and
+were sitting, some of them on the rocks, and some on the boat that had
+been drawn up, watching the sun go down.
+
+"Tell me a story," said Benny, resting his arms on my lap, "a story
+about when you were a little girl."
+
+"Oh, Benny, that wouldn't make a pretty story."
+
+"Oh, yes, it would: all about your mamma and the house you used to live
+in, and the children you used to go to see."
+
+"Dear Benny! I never lived in but one old, dismal house. I never went
+to play with any children. I could not make a story out of that."
+
+"But your mamma. O yes, I'm sure you could if you tried very hard."
+
+"Ah, Benny! that's the worst of all. For my mamma has been with God and
+the good angels in the sky, ever since I was a little baby, and I have
+had a dreary time without her here alone."
+
+"Then I think you might tell me about God and the good angels,"
+whispered Benny, getting closer to me.
+
+I wrapped my arms around him, and leaning my face down upon his yellow
+curls, told him a story of God and the good angels in the sky.
+
+Dear little Benny! I always loved him from that night. He cried over my
+story: that I suppose wins everybody's heart: and we went together,
+looking at the placid river and the pale blue firmament, very far into
+the paradise of faith. My tears dropped upon his upturned face; and when
+the stars came out, and we were told it was time to go back to the
+house, we went back hand in hand, firm friends for all life from that
+Sunday night.
+
+"There is Mr. Langenau," said Benny; "waiting for you, I should think."
+
+Mr. Langenau was waiting for me at the piazza steps. He fixed his eyes
+on mine as if waiting for my permission to speak again. But I fastened
+my eyes upon the ground, and holding Benny tightly by the hand, went on
+into the house.
+
+
+
+Chapter IX.
+
+A DANCE.
+
+     It is impossible to love and to be wise.
+
+          _Bacon_.
+
+     Niente piu tosto se secca che lagrime.
+
+
+"This is what we must do about it," said Kilian, as we sat around the
+breakfast-table. "If you are still in a humor for the dance to-night, I
+will order Tom and Jerry to be brought up at once, and Miss Pauline and
+I will go out and deliver all the invitations."
+
+"Of which there are about five," said Charlotte Benson. "You can spare
+Tom and Jerry and send a small boy."
+
+"But what if I had rather go myself?" he said, "and Miss Pauline needs
+the air. Now there are--let me see," and he began to count up the
+dancing inhabitants of the neighborhood.
+
+"Will you write notes or shall we leave a verbal message at each door?"
+
+"Oh leave a verbal message by all means," said Charlotte Benson, a
+little sharply. "It won't be quite _en règle_, as Miss d'Estrée doesn't
+know the people, but so unconventional and fresh."
+
+"I do know them," I retorted, much annoyed, "conventionally at least:
+for they have all called upon me, though I didn't see them all. But I
+shall be very glad if you will take my place."
+
+"Oh, thank you; I wasn't moving an amendment for that end. We have made
+our arrangements for the morning, irrespective of the delivery
+of cards."
+
+"I shall have time to write the notes first, if Sophie would rather have
+notes sent," said Henrietta, who wrote a good hand and was very fond of
+writing people's notes for them.
+
+"Oh, thank you, dear; yes, perhaps it would be best, and save Pauline
+and Kilian trouble."
+
+So Henrietta went grandly away to write her little notes: a very large
+ship on a very small voyage.
+
+"And how about your music, Sophie," said Kilian, who was anxious to have
+all business matters settled relating to the evening.
+
+"Well, I suppose you had better go for the music-teacher from the
+village; he plays very well for dancing, and it is a mercy to me and to
+poor Henrietta, who would have to be pinned to the piano for the
+evening, if we didn't have him."
+
+"As to that, I thought we had a music-teacher of our own: can't your
+German be made of any practical account? Or is he only to be looked at
+and revered for his great powers?"
+
+"I didn't engage Mr. Langenau to play for us to dance," said Sophie.
+
+"Nor to lounge about the parlor every evening either," muttered Kilian,
+pushing away his cup of coffee.
+
+"Now, Mr. Kilian, pray don't let our admiration of the tutor drive you
+into any bitterness of feeling," cried Charlotte Benson, who had been
+treasuring up a store of little slights from Kilian. "You know he can't
+be blamed for it, poor man."
+
+Kilian was so much annoyed that he did not trust himself to answer, but
+rose from the table, and asked me if I would drive with him in half
+an hour.
+
+During the drive, he exclaimed angrily that Charlotte Benson had a
+tongue that would drive a man to suicide if he came in hearing of it
+daily. "Why, if she were as beautiful as a goddess, I could never love
+her. Depend upon it, she'll never get a husband, Miss Pauline."
+
+"Some men like to be scolded, I have heard," I said.
+
+"Well then, if you ever stumble upon one that does, just call me and
+I'll run and fetch him Charlotte Benson."
+
+The morning was lovely, and I had much pleasure in the drive, though I
+had not gone with any idea of enjoying it. It was very exhilarating to
+drive so fast as Kilian always drove; and Kilian himself always amused
+me and made me feel at ease. We were very companionable; and though I
+could not understand how young ladies could make a hero of him, and
+fancy that they loved him, I could quite understand how they should find
+him delightful and amusing.
+
+We delivered our notes, at more than one place, into the hands of those
+to whom they were addressed, and had many pleasant talks at the piazza
+steps with young ladies whom I had not known before. Then we went to the
+village and engaged the music-teacher, stopped at the "store" and left
+some orders, and drove to the Post-Office to see if there were letters.
+
+"Haven't we had a nice morning!" I exclaimed simply, as we drove up to
+the gate.
+
+"Capital," said Kilian. "I'm afraid it's been the best part of the day.
+I wish I had any assurance that the German would be half as pleasant. I
+beg your pardon, I don't mean your surly Teuton, but the dance that we
+propose to-night; I wish it had another name. Confound it! there he is
+ahead of us. (I don't mean the dance this time, you see.) I wish he'd
+turn back and open the gate for us. Holloa there!"
+
+Kilian would not have dared call out, if the boys had not been with
+their tutor. It was one o'clock, and they were coming from the
+farm-house back to dinner. At the call they all turned; Mr. Langenau
+stood still, and told Charles to go back and open the gate.
+
+Kilian frowned; he didn't like to see his nephew ordered to do anything
+by this unpleasant German. While we were waiting for the opening of the
+gate, the tutor walked on toward the house with Benny. As we passed
+them, Benny called out, "Stop, Uncle Kilian, stop, and take me in."
+Benny never was denied anything, so we stopped and Mr. Langenau lifted
+him up in front of us. He bowed without speaking, and Benny was the
+orator of the occasion.
+
+"You looked as if you were having such a nice time, I thought I'd like
+to come."
+
+"Well, we were," said Kilian, with a laugh, and then we drove on
+rapidly.
+
+At the tea-table Mr. Langenau said to Sophie as he rose to go away:
+"Mrs. Hollenbeck, if there is any service I can render you this evening
+at the piano, I shall be very glad if you will let me know."
+
+Mrs. Hollenbeck thanked him with cordiality, but told him of the
+provision that had been made.
+
+"But you will dance, Mr. Langenau," cried Mary Leighton, "we need
+dancing-men terribly, you know. Promise me you'll dance."
+
+"Oh," said Charlotte Benson, "he has promised me." Mr. Langenau bowed
+low; he got wonderfully through these awkward situations. As he left the
+room Kilian said in a tone loud enough for us, but not for him, to hear,
+"The Lowders have a nice young gardener; hadn't we better send to see if
+he can't come this evening?"
+
+"Kilian, that's going a little too far," said Richard in a displeased
+manner; "as long as the boys' tutor conducts himself like a gentleman,
+he deserves to be treated like a gentleman."
+
+"Ah, Paterfamilias, thank you. Yes, I'll think of it," and Kilian
+proposed that we should leave the table, as we all seemed to have
+appeased our appetites and nothing but civil war could come of staying
+any longer.
+
+It was understood we had not much time to dress: but when I came
+down-stairs, none of the others had appeared. Richard met me in the
+hall: he had been rather stern to me all day, but his manner quite
+softened as he stood beside me under the hall-lamp. That was the result
+of my lovely white mull, with its mint of Valenciennes.
+
+"You haven't any flowers," he said. Heavens! who'd have thought he'd
+ever have spoken in such a tone again, after the cup of tea I poured out
+for the tutor. "Let's go and see if we can't find some in these vases
+that are fit, for I suppose the garden's robbed."
+
+"Yes," I said, following him, quite pleased. For I could not bear to
+have him angry with me. I was really fond of him, dear, old Richard; and
+I looked so happy that I have no doubt he thought more of it than he
+ought. He pulled all the pretty vases in the parlor to pieces:
+(Charlotte and Henrietta and his sister had arranged them with such
+care!) and made me a bouquet of ferns, and tea-roses, and lovely, lovely
+heliotrope. I begged him to stop, but he went on till the flowers were
+all arranged and tied together, and no one came down-stairs till the
+spoilage was complete.
+
+All this time Mr. Langenau was in the library--restless, pretending to
+read a book. I saw him as we passed the door, but did not look again.
+Presently we heard the sound of wheels.
+
+"There," said Richard, feeling the weight of hospitality upon him,
+"Sophie isn't down. How like her!"
+
+But at the last moment, to save appearances, Sophie came down the
+stairs and went into the parlor: indolent, favored Sophie, who always
+came out right when things looked most against it.
+
+In a little while the empty rooms were peopled. Dress improved the young
+ladies of the house very much, and the young ladies who came were some
+of them quite pretty: The gentlemen seemed to me very tiresome and not
+at all good-looking. Richard was quite a king among them, with his
+square shoulders, and his tawny moustache, and his blue eyes.
+
+There were not quite gentlemen enough, and Mrs. Hollenbeck fluttered
+into the library to hunt up Mr. Langenau, and he presently came out with
+her. He was dressed with more care than usual, and suitably for evening:
+he had the _vive_ attentive manner that is such a contrast to most young
+men in this country: everybody looked at him and wondered who he was.
+The music-teacher was playing vigorously, and so, before the German was
+arranged, several impetuous souls flew away in waltzes up and down the
+room. The parlor was a very large room. It had originally been two
+rooms, but had been thrown into one, as some pillars and a slight arch
+testified. The ceiling was rather low, but the many windows which opened
+on the piazza, and the unusual size of the room, made it very pretty
+for a dance. Mary Leighton and the tutor were dancing; somebody was
+talking to me, but I only saw that.
+
+"How well he dances," I heard some one exclaim.
+
+I'm afraid it must have been Richard whom I forgot to answer just
+before: for I saw him twist his yellow moustache into his mouth and bite
+it; a bad sign with him.
+
+Kilian was to lead with Mary Leighton, and he came up to where we stood,
+and said to Richard, "I suppose you have Miss Pauline for your partner?"
+
+Now I had been very unhappy for some time, dreading the moment, but
+there was nothing for it but to tell the truth. So I said, "I hope you
+are not counting upon me for dancing? You know I cannot dance!"
+
+"Not dance!" cried Kilian, in amazement; "why, I never dreamed of that."
+
+"You don't like it, Pauline?" said Richard, looking at me.
+
+"Like it!" I said, impatiently. "Why, I don't know how; who did I ever
+have to dance with in Varick-street? Ann Coddle or old Peter? And Uncle
+Leonard never thought of such a thing as sending me to school."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me before, and we wouldn't have bothered about
+this stupid dance," said Kilian; but I think he didn't mean it, for he
+enjoyed dancing very much.
+
+Richard had to go away, for though he hated it, he was needed, as they
+had not gentlemen enough.
+
+The one or two persons who had been introduced to me, on going to join
+the dance, also expressed regret. Even Mrs. Hollenbeck came up, and said
+how sorry she was: she had supposed I danced.
+
+But they all went away, and I was left by one of the furthest windows
+with a tiresome old man, who didn't dance either, because his legs
+weren't strong enough, and who talked and talked till I asked him not
+to; which he didn't seem to like. But to have to talk, with the noise of
+the music, and the stir, of the dancing, and the whirl that is always
+going on in such a room, is penance. I told him it made my head ache,
+and besides I couldn't hear, and so at last he went away, and I was
+left alone.
+
+Sometimes in pauses of the dance Richard came up to me, and sometimes
+Kilian; but it had the effect of making me more uncomfortable, for it
+made everybody turn and look at me. Bye and bye I stole away and went on
+the piazza, and looked in where no one could see me. I could not go away
+entirely, for I was fascinated by the dance. I longed so to be dancing,
+and had such bitter feelings because I never had been taught. After I
+left the room, I could see Richard was uncomfortable; he looked often at
+the door, and was not very attentive to his partner. No one else seemed
+to miss me. Mr. Langenau talked constantly to Miss Lowder, with whom he
+had been dancing, and never looked once toward where I had been sitting.
+A long time after, when they had been dancing--hours it seemed to
+me--Miss Lowder seemed to feel faint or tired, and Mr. Langenau came out
+with her, and took her up-stairs to the dressing-room.
+
+Ashamed to be seen looking in at the window, I ran into the library and
+sat down. There was a student's lamp upon the table, but the room had no
+other light. I sat leaning back in a large chair by the table, with my
+bouquet in my lap, buttoning and unbuttoning absently my long white
+gloves. In a moment I heard Mr. Langenau come down-stairs alone: he had
+left Miss Lowder in the dressing-room to rest there: he came directly
+toward the library.
+
+He came half-way in the door, then paused. "May I speak to you?" he said
+slowly, fixing his eyes on mine. "I seem to be the only one who is
+forbidden, of those who have offended you and of those who have not."
+
+"No one has said what you have," I said very faintly.
+
+In an instant he was standing beside me, with one hand resting on the
+table.
+
+"Will you listen to me," he said, bending a little toward me and
+speaking in a quick, low voice, "I did say what you have a right to
+resent; but I said it in a moment when I was not master of my words. I
+had just heard something that made me doubt my senses: and my only
+thought was how to save myself, and not to show how I was staggered by
+it. I am a proud man, and it is hard to tell you this--but I cannot bear
+this coldness from you--and _I ask you to forgive me_"
+
+His eyes, his voice, had all their unconquerable influence upon me. I
+bent over Richard's poor flowers, and pulled them to pieces while I
+tried to speak. There was a silence, during which he must have heard the
+loud beating of my heart, I think: at last he spoke again in a lower
+voice, "Will you not be kind, and say that we are friends once more?"
+
+I said something that was inaudible to him, and he stooped a little
+nearer me to catch it. I made a great effort and commanded my voice and
+said, very low? but with an attempt to speak lightly, "You have not made
+it any better, but I will forget it."
+
+He caught my hand for one instant, then let it go as suddenly. And
+neither of us could speak.
+
+There is no position more false and trying than a woman's, when she is
+told in this way that a man loves her, and yet has not been told it;
+when she must seem not to see what she would be an idiot not to see;
+when he can say what he pleases and she must seem to hear only so much.
+I did no better and no worse than most women of my years would have
+done. At last the silence (which did not seem a silence to me, it was so
+full of new and conflicting thoughts,) was broken by the recommencement
+of the music in the other room. He had taken a book in his hands and was
+turning over its pages restlessly.
+
+"Why have you not danced?" he said at last, in a voice that still showed
+agitation.
+
+"I have not danced because I can't, because I never have been taught."
+
+"You? not taught? it seems incredible. But let me teach you. Will you?
+Teach you! you would dance by intention. And would love it--madly--as I
+did years ago. Come with me, will you?"
+
+"Oh, no," I said, half frightened, shrinking back, "I am not going to
+dance--ever."
+
+"Perhaps that is as well," he said in a low tone, meeting my eye for an
+instant, and telling me by that sudden brilliant gleam from his, that
+then he would be spared the pain of ever seeing me dancing with another.
+
+"But let me teach you something," he said after a moment. "Let me teach
+you German--will you?" He sank down in a chair by the table, and leaning
+forward, repeated his question eagerly.
+
+"Oh, yes, I should like it so much--if--."
+
+"If--if what? If it could be arranged without frightening and
+embarrassing you, you mean?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I wonder if you are not more afraid of being frightened and embarrassed
+than of any other earthly trial. There are worse things that come to us,
+Miss d'Estrée. But I will arrange about the German, and you need have no
+terror. How will I arrange? No matter--when Mrs. Hollenbeck asks you to
+join a class in German, you will join it, will you not?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"You promise?"
+
+"Oh, anything."
+
+"Anything? take care. I may fill up a check for thousands, if you give a
+blank."
+
+"I didn't give a blank; anything about German's what I meant."
+
+"Ah, that's safer, but not half so generous. And yet you're one who
+might be generous, I think."
+
+"But tell me about the German class."
+
+"I've nothing to tell you about it," he answered, "only that you've
+promised to learn."
+
+"But where are we to say our lessons, and what books are we to Study?"
+
+"Would you like to say a lesson now and get one step in advance of all
+the others?"
+
+"O yes! I shall need at least as much grace as that."
+
+"Then say this after me: 'ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN, WAS SIE MICH
+LEHREN.' Begin. 'ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN'--"
+
+"'ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN'--but what does it mean?"
+
+"Oh, that is not important. Learn it first. Can you not trust me? 'ICH
+WILL ALLES LERNEN, WAS SIE MICH LEHREN.'"
+
+"'ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN'--ah, you look as if my pronunciation were
+not good."
+
+"I was not thinking of that; you pronounce very well. 'ICH WILL ALLES
+LERNEN--'"
+
+"ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN, WAS SIE MICH LEHREN:--there _now_, tell me
+what it means."
+
+"Not until you learn it; _encore une fois_."
+
+I said it after him again and again, but when I attempted it alone, I
+made invariably some error.
+
+"Let me write it for you," he said, and pulling a book from his pocket,
+tore out a leaf and wrote the sentence on it. "There--keep the paper and
+study it, and say it to me in the morning."
+
+I have the paper still; long years have passed: it is only a crumpled
+little yellow fragment; but the world would be poorer and emptier to me
+if it were destroyed.
+
+I had quite mastered the sentence, saying it after him word for word,
+and held the slip of paper in my hand, when I heard steps in the hall. I
+knew Richard's step very well, and gave a little start. Mr. Langenau
+frowned, and his manner changed, as I half rose from my seat, and as
+quickly sank back in it again.
+
+"Is it that you lack courage?" he said, looking at me keenly.
+
+"I don't know what I lack," I cried, bending down my head to hide my
+flushed face; "but I hate to be scolded and have scenes."
+
+"But who has a right to scold you and to make a scene?"
+
+"Nobody: only everybody does it all the same."
+
+"Everybody, I suppose, means Mr. Richard Vandermarck, who is frowning at
+you this moment from the hall."
+
+"And it means you--who are frowning at me this moment from your seat."
+
+All this time Richard had been standing in the hall; but now he walked
+slowly away. I felt sure he had given me up. The people began to come
+out of the parlor, and I felt ready to cry with vexation, when I thought
+that they would again be talking about me. It was true, I am afraid,
+that I lacked courage.
+
+"You want me to go away?" he said, fixing his eyes intently on me.
+
+"O yes, if you only would," I said naïvely.
+
+He looked so white and angry when he rose, that I sprang up and put out
+my hand to stop him, and said hurriedly, "I only meant--that is--I
+should think you would understand without my telling you. A woman cannot
+bear to have people talk about her, and know who she likes and who she
+doesn't. It kills me to have people talk about me. I'm not used to
+society--I don't know what is right--but I don't think--I am afraid--I
+ought not to have stayed in here and talked to you away from all the
+others. It's that that makes me so uncomfortable. That, and Richard too.
+For I know he doesn't like to have me pleased with any one. Do not go
+away angry with me. I don't see why you do not understand."
+
+My incoherent little speech had brought him to his senses.
+
+"I am not going away angry," he said in a low voice, "I will promise not
+to speak to you again to-night. Only remember that I have feelings as
+well as Mr. Richard Vandermarck."
+
+In a moment more I was alone. Richard did not come near me, nor seem to
+notice me, as he passed through the hall. Presently Mr. Eugene Whitney
+came in, and I was very glad to see him.
+
+"Won't you take me to walk on the piazza?" I asked, for everybody else
+was walking there. He was only too happy; and so the evening ended
+commonplace enough.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+EVERY DAY FROM SIX TO SEVEN.
+
+     She wanted years to understand
+     The grief that he did feel.
+
+     _Surrey_.
+
+     Love is not love
+     That alters where it alteration finds.
+
+
+This was how the German class was formed.
+
+The next day, as we were leaving the dinner-table, Mr. Langenau paused a
+few moments by Sophie, in the hall, and talked with her about the boys.
+
+"Charley gets on very well with his German," he observed, "but Benny
+doesn't make much progress. He is too young to study much, and acquires
+chiefly by the ear. If you only had a German maid, or if you could speak
+with him yourself, he would make much better progress."
+
+"Yes, I wish I had more knowledge of the language," she replied; "I read
+it very easily, but cannot speak with any fluency."
+
+"Why will you never speak it with me?" he said. "And if you will permit
+me, I shall be very glad to read with you an hour a day. I have much
+leisure, and it would be no task to me."
+
+"I should like it very much, and you are very kind. But it is so hard
+to find an hour unoccupied, particularly with so many people in the
+house, whom I ought to entertain."
+
+"That is very true, unless you can make it a source of entertainment to
+them. Miss Benson--is she not a German scholar? She might like to
+join you."
+
+Then, I think, the clever Sophie's mind was illuminated, and the tutor's
+little scheme was revealed to her clear eye; she embraced it with
+effusion. "An admirable idea," she said, "and the others, too, perhaps,
+would join us if you would not mind. It would be one hour a day at least
+secure from _ennui:_ I shall have great cause to thank you, if we can
+arrange it. For these girls get so tired of doing nothing; my mind is
+always on the strain to think of an amusement. Charlotte! Come here, I
+want to ask you something."
+
+Charlotte Benson came, and with her came Henrietta. I was sitting on the
+sofa between the parlor-doors, and could not help hearing the whole
+conversation, as they were standing immediately before me.
+
+"Mr. Langenau proposes to us to read an hour a day with him in German.
+What do you think about it?"
+
+"Charming," said Charlotte with enthusiasm. "I cannot think of anything
+that would give me greater pleasure. Henrietta and I have read in German
+together for two winters, and it will be enchanting to continue it with
+such a master as Mr. Langenau."
+
+Henrietta murmured her satisfaction, and then Charlotte rushed into
+plans for the course, leaving me in despair, supposing I had been
+forgotten. What place I was to find in such advanced society I could not
+well imagine.
+
+Mr. Langenau never turned his head in my direction, and talked with Miss
+Benson with so much earnestness about the books into which they were to
+plunge, that I could not convince myself that all this was undertaken
+solely that he might teach me German. In a little while they seemed to
+have settled it all to their satisfaction, and he had turned to go away.
+My heart was in my throat. Mrs. Hollenbeck had not forgotten me. She
+said something low to Mr. Langenau.
+
+"Ah, true!" he said. "But does she know anything of German?" Then
+turning to me he said, with one of his dazzling sudden glances, "Miss
+d'Estrée, we are talking of making up a German class; do you understand
+the language?"
+
+"No," I said, meeting his eye for a moment, "I have only taken one
+lesson in my life," and then blushed scarlet at my own audacity.
+
+"Ah," said he, as if quite sorry for the disappointment, "I wish you
+were advanced enough to join us."
+
+Then Charlotte Benson, quite ignoring the interruption, began to ask him
+about a book that she wanted very much to find. Mr. Langenau had it in
+his room--a most happy accident, and there was a great deal said about
+it. I again was left in doubt of my fate. Again Sophie interposed. "We
+have forgotten Mary Leighton," she said, gently.
+
+"Does Miss Leighton know anything of German?"
+
+"Not a thing," said Henrietta.
+
+"What does she know anything of, but flirting?" said Charlotte with
+asperity, glancing out into the grounds where Kilian was murmuring
+softest folly to her under her pongee parasol.
+
+"Perhaps she'd like to learn," suggested Sophie. "She and Pauline might
+begin together; that is, if Mr. Langenau would not think it too much
+trouble to give them an occasional suggestion. And you, Charlotte, I am
+sure, could help them a great deal."
+
+Charlotte made no disguise of her disinclination to undertake to help
+them.
+
+Mr. Langenau expressed his willingness so unenthusiastically, that I
+think Mrs. Hollenbeck was staggered. I saw her glance anxiously at him,
+as if to know what really he might mean. She concluded to interpret
+according to the context, however, and went on.
+
+"But it will be so much better for all to undertake it, if one does.
+Suppose they try and see how it will work, either before or after
+our lesson."
+
+"_De tout mon coeur_," said Mr. Langenau, as if, however, his _coeur_
+had very little interest in the matter.
+
+"Well, about the hour?" said Charlotte, the woman of business; "we
+haven't settled that after all our talking."
+
+There was a great deal more, oh, a great deal more, and then it was
+settled that five in the afternoon should be considered the German
+hour--subject to alteration as circumstances should arise.
+
+Mrs. Hollenbeck very discreetly ordered that a beginning should not be
+made till the next day but one. "The gentlemen will all be here
+to-morrow, and there may be something else going on." I knew very well
+she was afraid of Richard, and thought he would not approve her zeal for
+our improvement.
+
+The first lesson was very dull work for me. It was agreed that Mary
+Leighton and I should take our lesson after the others, sitting beside
+them, however, for the benefit of such crumbs of information as might
+fall to us.
+
+Mr. Langenau took no special notice of me then, and very little that
+was flattering when Mary Leighton and I began our lesson proper. Mrs.
+Hollenbeck, Charlotte, and Henrietta took up their books and left, when
+the infant class was called. I do not think Mr. Langenau took great
+pains to make the study of the German tongue of interest to Miss
+Leighton. She was unspeakably bored, and never even learned the
+alphabet. She was very much unused to mental application, undoubtedly,
+and was annoyed at appearing dull. There was but one door open to her;
+to vote German a bore, and give up the class. She made her exit by that
+door on the occasion of the second lesson, and Mr. Langenau and I were
+left to pursue our studies undisturbed. The rendezvous was the piazza in
+fine weather, and the library when it was damp or cloudy. The fidelity
+with which the senior Germans gathered up their books and left, when
+their hour was over, was mainly due to the kind thoughtfulness of Mrs.
+Hollenbeck, who was always prompt, and always found some excuse for
+carrying away Charlotte and Henrietta with her when she went.
+
+It can be imagined what those hours were to me, those soft, golden
+afternoons. Sometimes we took our books and went out under the trees to
+some shaded seats, and sat there till the maid came out to call us in to
+tea. Happy, happy hours in dreamland! But what peril to me, and perhaps
+to him. It is vain to go over it all: it is enough that of all the happy
+days, that hour from six o'clock till tea-time was the happiest: and
+that with strange smoothness, day after day passed on without bringing
+interruption to it. At six the others went to ride or walk; I was never
+called, and did not even wonder at it.
+
+All this time Richard had been going every day to town and coming back
+by the evening train. It was pretty tiresome work, and he looked rather
+pale and worn; but I believe he could not stay away. I sometimes felt a
+little sorry when I saw how much he was out of spirits, but I was in
+such a happy realm myself, it did not depress me long: in truth, I
+forgot it when he was not actually before me, and sometimes even then.
+"I do not think you are listening to what I say," he said to me one
+night as he sat by me in the parlor. I blushed desperately, and tried to
+listen better. Ah! how often it happened after that. I blush again to
+think how much I pained him, and how silently he bore it all.
+
+The last days of July were very busy ones in the Wall-street office, and
+Richard did not give himself a holiday, till one Saturday, much to be
+remembered, the very last day of the month. I recall with penitence,
+the impatient feeling that I had when Richard told me he was going to
+take the day at home. I felt intuitively that it would spoil it all for
+me. After breakfast, we all played croquet, and then I shut myself into
+my room with my German books, and selfishly saw no one till dinner. At
+dinner I was excited and half frightened, as I always was when Mr.
+Langenau and Richard were both present, and both watching me; it was
+impossible to please either.
+
+Something was said about the afternoon, and Richard (who all this time
+knew nothing of the German class) said to me, evidently afraid of some
+other engagement being entered on, "I hope you will drive with me,
+Pauline, at five. I ordered the horses when I was down at the stables; I
+think the afternoon is going to be fine." It was rather a public way of
+asking one out of so many to go and take a drive; but in truth, Richard
+was too honest and straightforward to care who knew what he was in
+pursuit of, and too sore at heart and too indifferent an actor to
+conceal it if he had desired. But the invitation struck me with such
+consternation. At five o'clock! The flower and consummation of the day!
+The hour that I had been looking forward to, since seven the day before.
+I could not lose it. I would not go to drive. I hated Richard. I hated
+going to drive. I grew very brave, and was on the point of saying that
+I could not go, when I caught Sophie's eye. She made me a quick sign,
+which I dared not disobey. I blushed crimson, and did not lift my eyes
+again, but said in a low voice that I would go. Then my heart seemed to
+turn to lead, and all the glory and pleasure of the day was gone. It
+seemed to me of such vast importance, of such endless duration, this
+penance that I was to undergo. O lovers! Foolish, foolish men and women!
+I was like a child balked of its holiday; I wanted to cry--I longed to
+get away by myself. I did not dare to look at any one.
+
+Mr. Langenau excused himself, and left the table before the others went
+away. As we were leaving the table, Sophie, passing close by me, said
+quite low, "I would not say anything about the German class, Pauline.
+And it was a great deal better that you should go; you know Richard has
+not many holidays."
+
+"Yes, but you don't give up all your pleasures for him," I thought, but
+did not say.
+
+I went quickly to my room, and saw no one till I came down-stairs at
+five o'clock. I had on a veil, for my face was rather flushed, and my
+eyes somewhat the worse for crying. Richard was waiting for me at the
+foot of the stairs, and accompanied me silently to the wagon, which
+stood at the door. As we passed the parlor I could see, on the east
+piazza, Mr. Langenau and Charlotte already at their books. Both were so
+engrossed that they did not look up as we went through the hall. For
+that, Richard, poor fellow! had to suffer. I was too unreasonable to
+comprehend that Mr. Langenau's absorbed manner was a covering for his
+pique. It was enough torture to have to lose my lesson, without seeing
+him engrossed with some one else, whose fate was happier than mine.
+Perhaps, after all, he was fascinated by Charlotte Benson. She was
+bright, clever, and understood him so well. She admired him so much. She
+was, I was sure, half in love with him. (The day before I had concluded
+she liked Richard very much.) That was a very disagreeable drive. I
+complained of the heat. The sun hurt my eyes.
+
+"We can go back, if you desire it," said Richard, with a shade of
+sternness in his voice, stopping the horses suddenly, after two miles of
+what would have been ill-temper if we had been married, but was now
+perhaps only petulance.
+
+"I don't desire it," I said, quite frightened, "but I do wish we could
+go a little faster till we get into the shade."
+
+After that, there was naturally very little pleasure in conversation. I
+felt angry with Richard and ashamed of myself. For him, I am afraid his
+feelings were very bitter, and his silence the cover of a sore heart. We
+had started to take a certain drive; we both wished it over, I suppose,
+but both lacked courage to shorten it, or go home before we were
+expected. There was a brilliant sunset, but I am sure we did not see it:
+then the clouds gathered and the twilight came on, and we were
+nearly home.
+
+"Pauline," said Richard, hoarsely, not looking at me, and insensibly
+slackening the hold he had upon the reins; "will you let me say
+something to you? I want to give you some advice, if you will listen
+to me."
+
+"I don't want anybody to advise me," I said in alarm, "and I don't know
+what right you have to expect me to listen to you, Richard, unless it is
+that I am your guest; and I shouldn't think that was any reason why I
+should be made to listen to what isn't pleasant to me."
+
+The horses started forward, from the sudden emphasis of Richard's pull
+upon the reins; and that was all the answer that I had to my most
+unjustifiable words. Not a syllable was spoken after that; and in a few
+moments we were at the house. Richard silently handed me out; if I had
+been thinking about him I should have been frightened at the expression
+of his face, but I was not: I was only thinking--that we were at home,
+and that I was going to have the happiness of meeting Mr. Langenau.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+SOPHIE'S WORK.
+
+     A nature half transformed, with qualities
+     That oft betrayed each other, elements
+     Not blent, but struggling, breeding strange effects
+     Passing the reckoning of his friends or foes.
+
+     _George Eliot_.
+
+
+     High minds of native pride and force
+     Most deeply feel thy pangs, remorse!
+     Fear for their scourge, mean villains have,
+     Thou art the torturer of the brave.
+
+     _Scott_.
+
+
+This was what Sophie had done: she had invoked forces that she could not
+control, and she felt, as people are apt to feel when they watch their
+monster growing into strength, a little frightened and a little sorry.
+No doubt it had seemed to her a very small thing, to favor the folly of
+a girl of seventeen, fascinated by the voice and manner of a nameless
+stranger; it was a folly most manifest, but she had nothing to do with
+it, and was not responsible; a very small thing to allow, and to
+encourage what, doubtless, she flattered herself, her discouragement
+could not have subdued. It was very natural that she should not wish
+Richard to many any one; she was not more selfish than most sisters are.
+Most sisters do not like to give their brothers up. She would have to
+give up her home (one of her homes, that is,) as well. She did not think
+Richard's choice a wise one: she was not subject to the fascination of
+outline and coloring that had subjugated him, and she felt sincerely
+that she was the best judge. If Richard must marry (though in thinking
+of her own married life, she could not help wondering why he must), let
+him marry a woman who had fortune, or position, or talent. Of course
+there was a chance that this one might have money, but that would be
+according to the caprice of a selfish old man, who had never been known
+to show any affection for her.
+
+But money was not what Richard wanted: his sister knew much better what
+Richard wanted, than he knew himself. He wanted a clever woman, a woman
+who would keep him before the world and rouse him into a little ambition
+about what people thought of him. Sophie was disappointed and a little
+frightened when she found that Richard did not give up the outline and
+coloring pleasantly. She had thought he would be disillusionized, when
+he found he was thrown over for a German tutor, who could sing. She had
+not counted upon seeing him look ill and worn, and finding him stern and
+silent to her; to her, of whom he had always been so fond. She found he
+was taking the matter very seriously, and she almost wished that she had
+not meddled with the matter.
+
+And this German tutor--who could sing--well, it was strange, but he was
+the worst feature of her Frankenstein, and the one at which she felt
+most sorry and most frightened. Richard was very bad, to be sure, but he
+would no doubt get over it: and if it all came out well, she would be
+the gainer. As to "this girl for whom his heart was sick," she had no
+manner of patience with her or pity for her.
+
+"She must suffer: so do all;" she would undoubtedly have a hard future,
+no matter to which of these men who were so absurd about her, Fate
+finally accorded her: hard, if she married Richard without loving him
+(nobody knew better than Sophie how hard that sort of marriage was);
+hard, if she married the German, to suffer a lifetime of poverty and
+ill-temper and jealous fury. But about all that, Sophie did not care a
+straw. She knew how much women could live through, and it seemed to be
+their business to be wretched.
+
+But this man! And she could not gain anything by what he suffered, with
+his dangerous nature, his ungovernable jealousy, his possibly involved
+and unknown antecedents; what was to become of him, in case he could not
+have this girl of whom six weeks ago he had not heard? A pretty
+candidate to present to "mon oncle" of the Wall-street office, for the
+hand of the young lady trusted to their hospitality--a very pretty
+candidate--a German tutor--who could sing. If he took her, it was to be
+feared he would have to take her without more dowry than some very heavy
+imprecations. But could he take her, even thus? Sophie had some very
+strange misgivings. This man was desperately unhappy: was suffering
+frightfully: it made her heart ache to see the haggard lines deepening
+on his face, to see his colorless lips and restless eyes. She was sorry
+for him, as a woman is apt to be sorry for a fascinating man. And then
+she was frightened, for he was "no carpet knight so trim," to whom
+cognac, and cigars, and time would be a balm: this man was essentially
+dramatic, a dangerous character, an article with which she was
+unfamiliar. He was frantic about this silly girl: that was plain to see.
+Why then was he so wretched, seeing she was as irrationally in love
+with him?
+
+"If it only comes out right," she sighed distrustfully many times a day.
+She resolved never to interfere with anything again, but it came rather
+late, seeing she probably had done the greatest mischief that she ever
+would be permitted to have a hand in while she lived. She made up her
+mind not to think anything about it, but, unfortunately for that plan,
+she could not get out of sight of her work. If she had been a man, she
+would probably have gone to the Adirondacks. But being a woman she had
+to stay at home, and sit down among the tangled skeins which she had not
+skill to straighten.
+
+"If it only comes out right," she sighed again, the evening of that most
+uncomfortable drive, "If it only comes out right." But it did not look
+much like it.
+
+I had gone directly in to tea, and so had Richard. Richard's face
+silenced and depressed everybody at the table; and Mr. Langenau did
+not come.
+
+"There is going to be a terrible shower," said some one, and before the
+sentence was ended, there was a vivid flash of lightning that made the
+candles pale.
+
+"How rapidly it has come up," said Sophie. "Was the sky black when you
+came in, Richard?"
+
+"I do not know," said Richard, and nobody doubted that he told the
+truth.
+
+"It had begun to darken before we came up from the river." said
+Charlotte Benson. "The clouds were rising rapidly as we came in. It
+will be a fearful tempest."
+
+"Are the windows all shut?" said Sophie to the servant.
+
+"I should think so," exclaimed Kilian. "The heat is horrid."
+
+"Yes, it is suffocating," said Richard, getting up.
+
+As he went out of the dining-room, some one, I think Henrietta, said,
+"Well, I hope Mr. Langenau will get in safely; he was out on the river
+when we were on the hill."
+
+The storm was so sudden and so furious that everybody was concerned at
+hearing this; even Kilian made some exclamation of alarm.
+
+"Does he know anything about a boat?" he asked of Richard, who had
+paused in the doorway, hearing what was said.
+
+"I have no idea," said Richard, shortly, but he did not go away.
+
+"It isn't the sail-boat that he has, of course," said Kilian,
+thoughtfully. "He always goes out to row, I believe."
+
+"Why, no," said Charlotte Benson, "he's in the sail-boat; don't you
+remember saying, Henrietta, how bright the gleam of the sunset was on
+the sail, and all the water was so dark?"
+
+Kilian came to his feet very suddenly at these words.
+
+"That's a bad business," he said quickly to his brother. "I've no idea
+he can manage her in such a squall."
+
+Sophie gave a little scream, and Charlotte and Henrietta both grew very
+pale, as a frightful shock of thunder followed. The wind was furious,
+and the unfastened shutters in various parts of the house sounded like
+so many reports of pistols, and in an instant the whole force of the
+rain fell suddenly and at once upon the windows. Somewhere some glass
+was shattered, and all these sounds added to the sense of danger, and
+the darkness was so great and so sudden, that it was difficult to
+realize that half an hour before, the sunset could have whitened the
+sails of a boat upon the river.
+
+"I'm afraid it's too late to do much now," said Kilian, stopping in
+front of his brother in the doorway.
+
+"What's the use of talking in that way," returned Richard in a hoarse,
+low voice. "If you hav'nt more sense than to talk so before women, you
+can stay at home with them," he continued, striding across the hall, and
+picking up a lantern that stood in a corner near the door. Charlotte
+Benson caught up one of the candles from the table, and ran to him and
+lit the lamp within the lantern. Sophie threw a cloak over Kilian's
+shoulders, and Henrietta flew to carry a message to the kitchen. Richard
+pulled a bell that was a signal to the stable (the stable was very near
+the house), and in almost a moment's time two men, beside Kilian, were
+following him out into the tempest. We saw their lanterns flicker for an
+instant, and then they were swallowed up in the darkness. The fury of
+the storm increased every moment. The flashes of lightning were but a
+few seconds apart, and the roll of thunder was incessant. Every few
+moments, above this continued roar, would come an appalling crash which
+sounded just above our heads. The children were screaming with fear, the
+servants had come into the hall and seemed in a helpless sort of panic.
+Sophie was very pale and Mary Leighton clung hysterically to her.
+Charlotte Benson was the only one who seemed to be self-possessed enough
+to have done anything, if there had been anything to do. But there was
+not. All we could do was to try to behave ourselves with fortitude in
+view of the personal danger, and with composure in view of that of
+others. Presently there came a lull in the tempest, and we began to
+breathe freer; some one went to the door and opened it. A gust of cold
+wind swept through the hall and put out the lamp, at which the children
+and Mary Leighton renewed their cries of fright.
+
+The respite in the tempest was but temporary; before the lamp was relit
+and order restored, the storm had burst again upon us. This was, if
+anything, fiercer, but shorter lived. After fifteen or twenty minutes'
+rage, it subsided almost utterly, and we could hear it taking itself off
+across the heavens. I suppose the whole storm, from its beginning to its
+end, had not occupied more than three quarters of an hour, but it had
+seemed much longer.
+
+We were very glad to open the door and let the cool, damp air into the
+hall. The children were taken up-stairs, consoled with the promise that
+word should be sent to them when their uncles should return. The
+servants went feebly off to their domain; one was sent to sweep the
+piazza, for the rain had beaten in such torrents upon it that it was
+impossible to walk there, till it should be brushed away. Wrapped in
+their shawls, Henrietta and Charlotte Benson walked up and down the
+space that the servant swept, and watched and listened for a long
+half-hour. I took a cloak from the rack and, leaning against the
+door-post, stood and listened silently.
+
+From the direction of the river there was nothing to be heard. There was
+still distant thunder, but that was the only sound, that and the
+dripping of the rain off the leaves of the drenched trees. The wind was
+almost silent, and in the spaces of the broken clouds there were
+occasional faint stars. A fine, young tree, uprooted by the tempest, lay
+across the carriage-way before the house, its topmost branches resting
+on the steps of the piazza: the grass was strewed with leaves like
+autumn, and the paths were simply pools of water. Sophie, more than
+once, came to the door, and begged us to come in, for fear of the
+dampness and the cold, but no one heeded her suggestion. Even she
+herself came out very often, and looked and listened anxiously. Finally
+my ear caught a sound: I ran down the steps, and bent forward eagerly.
+There was some one coming along the garden-path that led up from the
+river. I could hear the water plashing as he walked, and he was coming
+rapidly. In a moment the others heard it too, and starting to the steps,
+stood still, and waited breathlessly. He had no lantern, for we could
+have seen that; he was almost at the steps before I could recognize him.
+It was Richard. I gave a smothered cry, and springing forward, held out
+my hands to stop him.
+
+"Tell me what has happened." He put aside my hands, and went past me
+without a second look.
+
+"There has nothing happened, but what he can tell you when he comes,"
+he said, as he strode past me up the steps, and on into the house. Then
+he was alive to tell me: the reaction was a little too strong for me,
+and I sat down on the steps to try and recover myself, for I was ill
+and giddy.
+
+In a few moments more, more steps sounded in the distance, this time
+slowly, several persons coming together. I started and ran up the steps,
+I don't exactly know why, and stood behind the others, who were crowding
+down, servants and all, to hear what was the news. Kilian came first,
+very drenched, and spattered, and subdued looking, then Mr. Langenau,
+leaning upon one of the men, very pale, but making an attempt to smile
+and speak reassuringly to Sophie, who met him with looks of great alarm.
+It evidently gave him dreadful pain to move, and when he reached the
+house he was quite faint. Charlotte Benson placed a chair, into which
+they supported him.
+
+"Run, Pauline, and get some brandy," said Sophie, putting a bunch of
+keys into my hand without looking at me.
+
+When I came back with the glass of brandy, he was conscious again, and
+looked at me and took the glass from my hand. The other man had been
+sent for the doctor from the village, who was expected every moment,
+and Mr. Langenau, who was now revived by stimulants, was quite
+reassuring, and attempted to laugh at us for being so much frightened.
+Then the young ladies' curiosity got the better of their terror, and
+they clamored for the history of the past two hours. This history was
+given them principally by Kilian. I cannot repeat it satisfactorily, for
+the reason that I don't know anything about jibs, and bowsprits, and
+masts, and centre-boards, and I did not understand it at the time; but I
+received enough out of the mass of evidence presented in that language,
+to be sure that there had been considerable danger, and that everybody
+had behaved well. In fact, Kilian's changed manner toward the tutor of
+itself was quite enough to show that he had behaved unexpectedly well.
+
+The unvarnished and unbowspritted and unjib-boomed tale was pretty much
+as follows: Mr. Langenau had found himself in the middle of the river,
+when the storm came on. I am afraid he could not have been thinking very
+much about the clouds, not to have noticed that a storm was rising;
+though every one agreed that they had never known anything like the
+rapidity of its coming up. Before he knew what he was about, a squall
+struck him, and he had great difficulty to right the boat. (Then
+followed a good deal about luffing and tacking and keeping her taut to
+windward; that is, I think that was where he wanted to keep her.) But
+whatever it was, he didn't succeed in doing it, and Kilian vouchsafed to
+say nobody could have done it. Then something split: I really cannot say
+whether it was the mast, or the bowsprit, or the centre-board, but
+whatever it was, it hurt Mr. Langenau so much that for a moment he was
+stunned. And then Kilian cannot see why he wasn't drowned. When he came
+to himself he was still holding the rudder in his hand.
+
+The other arm was useless from the falling of--this thing that
+split--upon it. And so the boat was floundering about in the gale till
+it got righted, and it was Mr. Langenau's presence of mind that saved
+him and the boat, for he never let go the rudder, and controlled her as
+far as he could, though he did not know where he was going, the
+blackness was so great, and the flashes did not show him the shore; and
+he was like one placed in the midst of a frightful sea wakened out of a
+dream, owing to the blow and the unconsciousness which followed.
+
+Then Richard came upon the stage as hero; he and one of the men had gone
+out in the only boat at hand, a very small one, toward the speck, which,
+by the flashes of lightning, he saw out upon the river. It was almost
+impossible to overhaul her, and it could not have been done at the rate
+she was going, of course; but then occurred that accident which rendered
+Mr. Langenau unconscious, and which brought things to a standstill for a
+moment. Kalian said we did not know anything about the storm up here at
+the house; that more than one tree had been struck within a few feet of
+him on the shore. The river was surging; the wind was furious; no one
+could imagine what it was who had not witnessed it, and he, for his
+part, never expected to see Richard come back to land. But Richard did
+come back, and brought back the disabled sail-boat and the injured man.
+That was the end of the story; which thrilled us all very much, as we
+knew the heroes, and had one of them before us, ghastly pale but
+uncomplaining.
+
+It seemed as if the doctor never would come! We were women, and we
+naturally looked to the coming of the doctor as the end of all the
+trouble. It was impossible to make the poor fellow comfortable. He could
+not lie down, he could not move without excruciating pain, and very
+frequently he grew quite faint. Charlotte Benson and Sophie administered
+stimulants; endeavored to ease his position with pillows and footstools;
+and did all the nameless soothing acts that efficient and good nurses
+alone understand; while I, paralyzed and mute, stood aside, scarcely
+able to bear the sight of his sufferings. I am sorry to say, I don't
+think he cared at all to have me by him. He was in such pain that he
+cared only for the attendance of those who could alleviate it in a
+measure; and the strong firm hand and the skilled touch were more to him
+than the presence of one who had nothing but excited and unavailing
+sympathy to offer. It was rather a stern fact walking into my
+dreamland, this.
+
+By and bye Kilian went away to take off his wet clothes, and he did not
+come back again, but sent down a message to his sister that he was very
+tired and should go to bed, but if he were wanted for anything he could
+be called. This was not heroic of Kilian, but, after the manner of men,
+he was apt to keep away from the sight of disagreeable things.
+
+After all, he could not do much good, but it was something to feel there
+was a man to call upon, besides Patrick, who was stupid; and I saw
+Charlotte Benson's lip curl when Kilian's message was brought down.
+
+Richard was in his room: we all thought he had done enough for one
+night, and had a right to rest.
+
+At last, after the most weary waiting, wheels were heard, and the doctor
+drove up to the door. The servants had begun to look very sleepy. Mary
+Leighton had slipped away to her room, and Sophie had told Henrietta
+and me to go, for we were really of no earthly use. We did not take her
+advice as a compliment, and did not go. Henrietta opened the door for
+the doctor, which was doing something though not much, as two of the
+maids stood prepared to do it if she did not.
+
+The doctor was a reassuring, quiet man, and became a pillar of strength
+at once. After talking a few moments with Mr. Langenau, and pulling and
+twisting him rather ruthlessly, he walked a little away with Sophie, and
+told her he wanted him got at once to his room, and he should need the
+assistance of one of the gentlemen. Would not Patrick do? Besides
+Patrick. Mr. Langenau's shoulder was dislocated, badly, and it must be
+set at once. It was a painful operation and he needed help. I was within
+hearing of this, and I was in great alarm. Sophie looked so too, and I
+don't think she liked disagreeable things any better than her brother,
+but she was a woman, and could not shirk them as he could.
+
+"Pauline," she said, finding me at her side as she turned, "run up and
+tell Richard that he must come down, quick. Tell him how it is, and that
+he must make haste."
+
+I ran up the stairs breathlessly, but feeling all the time that it was
+rather hard that I must be sent to Richard with this message. Sophie did
+not want to ask him to come down herself, and she thought me the most
+likely ambassador to bring him, but it was not a congenial embassy.
+Perhaps, however, she only asked me because I happened to be nearest
+her, and she was rather upset by what the doctor said.
+
+I knocked at Richard's door.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Oh, they want you to come down-stairs a minute. There's something to be
+done," panting and rather incoherent.
+
+"What is to be done?"
+
+"The Doctor's here, and he says he must have help."
+
+"Where's Kilian?"
+
+"Gone to bed."
+
+Some suppressed ejaculation, and he pushed back his chair, and rose, and
+came across the room: at least it sounded so, and I ran down the stairs
+again. He followed me in a moment. The Doctor came forward and talked to
+him a little while, and then Richard called Patrick, and told Sophie to
+see that Mr. Langenau's room was ready.
+
+"How can he get up two pairs of stairs," said Charlotte Benson, "when
+he cannot move an inch without such suffering?"
+
+"That's very true," the Doctor said. "I doubt if he could bear it. You
+have no room below?"
+
+"Put a bed in the library," said Charlotte Benson, and in ten minutes it
+was done; the servants no longer sleepy when they had any definite order
+to fulfill.
+
+"In the meantime," said Richard to his sister, "send those two to bed,"
+pointing out Henrietta and me.
+
+"I've told them to go, but they won't," said Sophie, somewhat sharply.
+
+Henrietta walked off, rather injured, but I would not go.
+
+Mr. Langenau had another faint attack, and I was quite certain he would
+die. Charlotte was making him breathe _sal volatile_ and Sophie ran to
+rub his hands. The Doctor was busy at the light about something.
+
+"The room is all ready," said the servant.
+
+"Very well; now Mr. Richard, if you please," the Doctor said.
+
+"Pauline," said Richard, coming to me as I stood at the foot of the
+balusters, "You can't do any good. You'd better go up-stairs."
+
+"Oh, Richard," I cried, "I think you're very cruel; I think you might
+let me stay."
+
+I suppose my wretchedness, and youthfulness, and folly softened him
+again, and he said, very gently, "I don't mean to be unkind, but it is
+best for you to go. You need not be so frightened: there isn't
+any danger."
+
+I moved slowly to obey him, but turned back and caught his hand and
+whispered, "You won't let them hurt him, Richard?" and then ran up the
+stairs. No doubt Richard thought I went to my own room; but I spent the
+next hour on the landing-place, looking down into the hall.
+
+It was rather a serious matter, getting Mr. Langenau even into the
+library, and it was well they had not attempted his own room. Patrick
+was called, and with his assistance and Richard's, he began to move
+across the hall. But half-way to the library-door, he fainted dead away,
+and Richard carried him and laid him on the bed, Patrick being worse
+than useless, having lost his head, and the Doctor being a small man,
+and only strong in science.
+
+Pretty soon the library-door closed, and Sophie and Charlotte were
+excluded. They walked about the hall, talking in low tones, and looking
+anxious. Later, there came groaning from within the closed door, and
+Charlotte Benson wrung her hands and listened. The groans continued for
+a long while: the misery of hearing them! After a while they ceased:
+then Richard opened the door, hastily, it seemed, and called "Sophie."
+
+Sophie ran forward, and the door closed again. There was a long silence,
+time enough for those who were outside to imagine all manner of horrid
+possibilities. Then the Doctor and Richard came out.
+
+"How is he, Doctor?" said Charlotte Benson, bravely, going to meet them,
+while I hung trembling over the landing-place.
+
+"Oh better, better, very comfortable," said the Doctor, in his calm
+professional tone.
+
+I could not help thinking those groans had not denoted a very high state
+of comfort; but maybe the Doctor knew best how people with dislocated
+shoulders and broken ribs are apt to express their sentiments of
+satisfaction.
+
+I listened with more than interest to their plans for the night: the
+Doctor was going away at once; two of the servants and Patrick were to
+relieve each other in sitting by him, while Richard was to throw himself
+on the sofa in the hall, to be at hand if anything were needed.
+
+"Which means, that you are to be awake all night," said Charlotte
+Benson. "You have more need of rest than we. Let Sophie and me take
+your place."
+
+Richard looked gratefully and kindly at her, but refused. The Doctor
+assured them again that there was no reason for anxiety; that Richard
+would probably be undisturbed all night; that he himself would come
+early in the morning. Then Richard came toward the stairs, and I escaped
+to my own room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+PRAEMONITUS, PRAEMUNITUS.
+
+     The fiend whose lantern lights the mead,
+       Were better mate than I!
+
+     _Scott_.
+
+     Fools, when they cannot see their way,
+     At once grow desperate,
+     Have no resource--have nothing to propose--
+     But fix a dull eye of dismay
+     Upon the final close.
+     Success to the stout heart, say I,
+     That sees its fate, and can defy!
+
+     _Faust_.
+
+
+Two weeks later, and things had not stood still; they rarely do, when
+there is so much at hand, and ripe for mischief; seventeen does not take
+up the practice of wisdom voluntarily. I do not think I was very
+different from other girls of seventeen, and I cannot blame myself very
+much that I spent all these days in a dream of bliss and folly; how
+could it have been otherwise, situated exactly as we were? This is the
+way our days were passed. Mr. Langenau was better, but still not able to
+leave his room. He was the hero, as a matter of course, and little
+besides his sufferings, his condition, and his prospects, was talked of
+at the table; which had the effect of making Kilian stay away two nights
+out of three, and of alienating Richard altogether. Richard went to town
+on Monday morning after the accident occurred, and it was now Friday of
+the following week, and he had not come back.
+
+It was a little dull for Mary Leighton and for Henrietta, perhaps;
+possibly for Charlotte Benson, but she did not seem to mind it much; and
+I had never found R---- so enchanting as that fortnight. Charlotte
+Benson liked to be Florence Nightingale in little, it was very plain;
+and naturally nothing made me so happy as to be permitted to minister to
+the wants of the (it must be confessed) frequently unreasonable
+sufferer. For the first few days, while he was confined to his bed, of
+course Charlotte and I were obliged to content ourselves with the
+sending of messages, the arranging of bouquets, the concocting of soups
+and jellies, and all the other coddling processes at our command. But
+when Mr. Langenau was able to sit up, Sophie (at the instance of
+Charlotte Benson, for she seemed to have renounced diplomacy herself,)
+arranged that the bed should be taken away during the daytime, and
+brought back again at night, and that Mr. Langenau should lie on the
+sofa through the day. This made it possible for us to be in the room,
+even without Sophie, though we began to think her presence necessary.
+That scruple was soon done away with, for it laid too great a tax on
+her, and restricted our attentions very much. The result was, we passed
+nearly the whole day beside him; Mary Leighton and Henrietta very often
+of the party, and Sophie occasionally looking in upon us. Sometimes when
+Charlotte Benson, as ranking officer, decreed that the patient needed
+rest, we took our books and work and went to the piazza, outside the
+window of his room.
+
+He would have been very tired of us, if he had not been very much in
+love with one of us. As it was, it must have been a kind of fool's
+paradise in which he lived, five pretty women fluttering about him,
+offering the prettiest homage, and one of them the woman for whom,
+wisely or foolishly, rightly or wrongly, he had conceived so violent
+a passion.
+
+As soon as he was out of pain and began to recover the tone of his
+nerves at all, I saw that he wanted me beside him more than ever, and
+that Charlotte Benson, with all her skill and cleverness, was as nothing
+to him in comparison. No doubt he dissembled this with care; and was
+very graceful and very grateful and infinitely interesting. His moods
+were very varying, however; sometimes he seemed struggling with the most
+unconquerable depression, then we were all so sorry for him; sometimes
+he was excited and brilliant; then we were all thrilled with admiration.
+And not unfrequently he was irritable and quite morose and sullen. And
+then we pitied, and admired, and feared him _à la fois_. I am sure no
+man more fitted to command the love and admiration of women ever lived.
+
+Charlotte Benson with great self-devotion had insisted upon teaching the
+children for two hours every day, so that Mr. Langenau might not be
+annoyed at the thought that they were losing time, and that Sophie might
+not be inconvenienced. It was the least that she could do, she reasoned,
+after the many lessons that Mr. Langenau had given us, with so much
+kindness, and without accepting a return. Henrietta volunteered for the
+service, also, and from eleven to one every day the boys were caught and
+caged, and made to drink at the fountain of learning; or rather to
+approach that fountain, of which forty Charlottes and Henriettas could
+not have made them drink.
+
+At that time Charlotte always decreed that Mr. Langenau should lie on
+the sofa and go to sleep. The windows were darkened, and the room was
+cleared of visitors. On this Friday morning, nearly two weeks after the
+accident, as I was following Sophie from the room (Charlotte having gone
+with Henrietta to capture the children), Mr. Langenau called after me
+rather imperiously, "Miss d'Estrée--Miss Pauline--"
+
+It had been a stormy session, and I turned back with misgivings. Sophie
+shrugged her shoulders and went away toward the dining-room.
+
+"What are you going away for, may I ask?" he said, as I appeared before
+him humbly.
+
+"Why, you know you ought to lie down and to rest," I tried to say with
+discretion, but it was all one what I said: it would have irritated him
+just the same.
+
+"I am rather tired of this surveillance," he exclaimed. "It is almost
+time I should be permitted to express a wish about the disposition of
+myself. As I do not happen to want to go to sleep, I beg I may be
+allowed the pleasure of your society for a little while."
+
+"I don't think it would give you much pleasure, and you know you don't
+feel as well to-day."
+
+"Again, may I be permitted to judge how I feel myself?"
+
+"Oh, yes, of course, but--"
+
+"But what, Miss d'Estrée?--No doubt you want to go yourself--I am sorry
+I thought of detaining you (with a gesture of dismissal). I beg you to
+excuse me, A sick man is apt to be unreasonable."
+
+"Oh, as to that, you know entirely well I do not want to go. You are
+unreasonable, indeed, when you talk as you do now. I only went away for
+your benefit."
+
+"_Qui s'excuse, s'accuse_."
+
+"But I am not excusing myself; and if you put it so I will go away at
+once."
+
+"_Si vous voulez_--"
+
+"But I don't '_voulez_'--Oh, how disagreeable you can be."
+
+"You will stay?"
+
+"Pauline!" called Sophie from across the hall.
+
+"There!" I exclaimed, interpreting it as the voice of conscience. I left
+my work-basket and book upon the table, and went out of the room.
+
+"You called me?" I said, following her into the parlor, where, shutting
+the door, she motioned me to a seat beside her. She had a slip of paper
+and an envelope in her hand, and seemed a little ill at ease.
+
+"I've just had a telegram from Richard," she said. "He's coming home
+to-night by the eleven o'clock train. It's so odd altogether. I don't
+know why he's coming. But you may as well read his message yourself,"
+she said with a forced manner, handing me the paper. It was as follows:
+
+Send carriage for me to eleven-thirty train to-night. Remember my
+injunctions, our last conversation, and your promises."
+
+"Well?" I said, looking up, bewildered and not violently interested, for
+I was secretly listening to the quick shutting of the library-door.
+
+"Why, you see," she returned, with a forced air of confidence that made
+me involuntarily shrink from her; I think she even laid her hand upon my
+sleeve, or made some gesture of familiarity which was unusual--
+
+"You see, that last conversation was--about you. Richard is annoyed
+at--at your intimacy with Mr. Langenau. You know just as well as I do
+how he feels, for no doubt he's spoken to you himself."
+
+"He never has," I said, quite shortly.
+
+"No?" and she looked rather chagrined. "Well--but at all events you know
+how he feels. Girls ar'nt slow generally to find out about those things.
+And he is really very unhappy about it, very. I wish, Pauline, you'd
+give it up, child. It's gone quite far enough; now don't you think so
+yourself? Mr. Langenau isn't the sort of man to be serious about, you
+know. It's all very well, just for a summer's amusement. But, you know,
+you mustn't go too far. I'm sure, dear, you're not angry with me: now
+you understand just what I mean, don't you?"
+
+No: not angry, certainly not angry. She went on, still with the
+impertinent touch upon my arm: "Richard made me promise that I would
+look after you, and not permit things to go too far. And you
+see--well--I'll tell you in confidence what I think his coming to-night
+means, and his message and all. I think--that is, I am afraid--he's
+found out something against Mr. Langenau since he's been away. I know he
+never has felt confidence in him. But I've always thought, perhaps that
+was because he was--well--a little jealous and suspicious. You know men
+are so apt to be suspicious; and I was sure, when he went away that last
+Monday morning, that he would not leave a stone unturned in finding out
+everything about him. It is that that's kept him, I am sure. Don't let
+that make you feel hardly toward Richard," she went on, noticing perhaps
+my look; "you know it's only natural, and besides, it's right. How would
+he answer to your uncle?"
+
+"It is I who should answer to my uncle," I returned, under my breath.
+
+"Yes, but you are in our house, in our care. You know, my dear child,
+you are very young and very inexperienced; you don't know how very
+careful people have to be."
+
+"Why don't you talk that way to Charlotte and Henrietta and Mary
+Leighton? Have I done anything so very different from them?" I answered,
+with a blaze of spirit.
+
+"No, dear," she said, with a little laugh, "only there are one or two
+men very much in love with you, and that makes everything so different."
+
+I blushed scarlet, and was silenced instantly, as she intended.
+
+"Now, maybe I am mistaken about his having discovered something," she
+went on, "but I can't make anything else out of Richard's message. He is
+not one to send off such a despatch without a reason. Evidently he is
+very uneasy; and I thought it was best to be perfectly frank with you,
+dear, and I know you'll do me the justice to say I have been, if Richard
+ever says anything to you about it. You mustn't blame me, you know, for
+the way he feels. I wish the whole thing was at an end," she said, with
+the first touch of sincerity. "And now promise me one thing," with
+another caressing movement of the hand, "Promise me, you won't go into
+the library again till Richard comes, and we hear what he has to say.
+Just for my sake, you know, my dear, for you see he would blame me if I
+did not keep a strict surveillance. You won't mind doing that, I'm
+sure, for me?"
+
+"I shall not promise anything," I returned, getting up, "but I am not
+likely to go near the library after what you've said."
+
+"That's a good child," she said, evidently much relieved, and thinking
+that the affair was very near its end. I opened the door, and she added:
+"Now go up-stairs, and rest yourself, for you look as if you had a
+headache, and don't think of anything that's disagreeable." That was a
+good prescription, but I did not take it.
+
+Of course, I did not go near the library; that was understood. After
+dinner, the servant brought in Mr. Langenau's tray untouched, and
+Charlotte Benson started up, and ran in to see what was the matter.
+Sophie went too, looking a little troubled. I think they were both
+snubbed: for ten minutes after, when I met Charlotte in the hall, she
+had an unusual flush upon her cheek, and Sophie I found standing at one
+of the parlor-windows, biting her lip, and tapping impatiently upon the
+carpet. Evidently the affair was not as near its placid end as she had
+hoped. She started a little when she saw me, and tried to look
+unruffled.
+
+"How sultry it is this afternoon!" she said. "Are you going up to your
+room to take a rest? stop in my room on your way, I want to show you
+those embroideries that I was telling Charlotte Benson of last night."
+
+"I did not hear you, and I do not know anything about them," I said,
+feeling not at all affectionate.
+
+"No? Oh, I forgot: it was while you and Henrietta were sitting in the
+library, and Charlotte and I were walking up and down the piazza while
+it rained. Why, they are some heavenly sets that I got this spring from
+Paris--Marshall picked them up one day at the _Bon Marché_--and verily
+they are _bon marché_. I never saw anything so cheap, and I was telling
+Charlotte that some of you might just as well have part of them, for I
+never could use the half. Come up and look them over."
+
+Now I loved "heavenly sets" as well as most women, but dress was not the
+bait for me at that moment. So I said my head ached and I could not look
+at them then, if she'd excuse me; and I went silently away to my room,
+not caring at all if she were pleased or not. I disliked and distrusted
+her more and more every moment, and she seemed to me so mean: for I knew
+all her worry came from the apprehension of what she might have to fear
+from Richard, not the thought of the suffering that he or that any one
+else endured.
+
+It was a long afternoon, but it reached its end, after the manner of
+all afternoons on record, even those of Marianna. When I came
+down-stairs they were all at tea and Kilian had arrived. A more
+enlivening atmosphere prevailed, and the invalid was not discussed. A
+drive was being canvassed. There was an early moon, and Kilian proposed
+driving Tom and Jerry before the open wagon, which would carry four,
+through the valley-road, to be back by half-past nine or ten o'clock.
+
+"But what am I to do," cried Kilian, "when there are five angels, and I
+have only room for three?"
+
+"Why, two will have to stay at home, according to my arithmetic," said
+Charlotte, good-naturedly, "and I've no doubt I shall be remainder."
+
+"If you stay, I shall stay with you," said Henrietta, dropping the
+metaphor, for metaphors, even the mildest, were beyond her reach
+of mind.
+
+Everybody wanted to stay, and everybody tried to be quite firm; but as
+no one's firmness but mine was based on inclination, the result was that
+Sophie and I were "remainder," and Mary Leighton, Charlotte, and
+Henrietta drove away with Kilian quite jauntily, at half-past seven
+o'clock. But before she went, Charlotte, who was really good-natured
+with all her sharpness and self-will, went into the library to speak to
+Mr. Langenau, and to show she did not resent the noonday slight,
+whatever that had been. But presently she came back looking rather
+anxious, and said to Sophie, ignoring me (whom she always did ignore if
+possible),
+
+"Do go and see what you can do for Mr. Langenau. He is really very far
+from well. His tea stands there, and he hasn't taken anything to eat. He
+looks feverish and excited, and I truly think he ought to see the
+Doctor. You know he promised the Doctor to stay in his room, and keep
+still all the rest of the week. But I am sure he means to come out
+to-morrow, and he even talks of going down to town. It will kill him if
+he does; I'm sure he's doing badly, and I wish you'd go and see to him."
+
+"Does he know Richard is coming up to-night?" asked Sophie, _sotto
+voce_, but with affected carelessness.
+
+"I do not know; oh yes, he does, I mentioned it to him at dinner-time, I
+remember now."
+
+"Well, I'll see if I can do anything for him; now go, they're waiting
+for you. Have a pleasant time."
+
+After they were gone, Sophie went into the library, but she did not stay
+very long. She came and sat beside me on the river-balcony, and talked a
+little, desultorily and absent-mindedly.
+
+Presently there was a call for "mamma," a hubbub and a hurry--soon
+explained. Charley, who had been running wild for the last two weeks,
+without tutor or uncle to control him, had just fallen from the mow, and
+hurt himself somewhat, and frightened himself much more. The whole house
+was in a ferment. He was taken to mamma's room, for he was a great baby
+when anything was the matter with him, and would not let mamma move an
+inch away from him. After assisting to the best of my ability in making
+him comfortable, and seeing myself only in the way, I went down-stairs
+again, and took my seat upon the balcony that overlooked the river.
+
+The young moon was shining faintly, and the air was soft and balmy. The
+house was very still; the servants, I think, were all in a distant part
+of the house, or out enjoying the moonlight and the idleness of evening.
+Sophie was nailed to Charley's bed up-stairs, trying to soothe him;
+Benny was sinking to sleep in his little crib. It seemed like an
+enchanted palace, and when I heard a step crossing the parlor, it made
+me start with a vague feeling of alarm. The parlor-window by me, which
+opened to the floor, was not closed, and in another moment some one came
+out and stood beside me. It was Mr. Langenau. I started up and
+exclaimed, "Mr. Langenau, how imprudent! Oh, go back at once."
+
+He seemed weak, and his hand shook as he leaned against the casement,
+but his eyes were glittering with a feverish excitement. He did not
+answer. I went on: "The Doctor forbade your coming out for several days
+yet--and the exertion and the night-air--oh, I beg you to go back."
+
+"Alone?" he said in a low voice.
+
+"No, oh no, I will go with you. Anything, only do not stay here a moment
+longer; come." And taking his hand (and how burning hot it was!) and
+drawing it through my arm, I started toward the hall. He had to lean on
+me, for the unusual exertion seemed to have annihilated all his
+strength. When we reached the library, I led him to a chair--a large and
+low and easy one, and he sank down in it.
+
+"You are not going away?" he asked, as he gasped for breath, "For there
+is something that must be said to-night."
+
+"No, I will not go," I answered, frightened to see him so, and agitated
+by a thousand feelings. "I will light the lamp, and read to you. Let me
+move your chair back from the window."
+
+"No, you must not light the lamp; I like the moonlight better. Bring
+your chair and sit here by me--here." He leaned and half-pulled toward
+him the companion to the chair on which he sat, a low, soft, easy one.
+
+I sat down in it, sitting so I nearly faced him. The moon was shining
+in at the one wide window: I can remember exactly the pattern that the
+vine-leaves made as the moonlight fell through them on the carpet at our
+feet. I had a bunch of verbena-leaves fastened in my dress, and I never
+smell verbena-leaves at any time or place without seeing before me that
+moon-traced pattern and that wide-open window.
+
+"Pauline," he said, in that low, thrilling voice, leaning a little
+toward me, "I have a great deal to say to you to-night. I have a great
+wrong to ask pardon for--a great sorrow to tell you of. I shall never
+call you Pauline again as I call you to-night. I shall never look into
+your eyes again, I shall never touch your hand. For we must part,
+Pauline; and this hour, which heaven has given me, is the last that we
+shall spend together on the earth."
+
+I truly thought that his fever had produced delirium, and, trying to
+conceal my alarm, I said, with an attempt to quiet him, "Oh, do not say
+such things; we shall see each other a great, great many times, I hope,
+and have many more hours together."
+
+"No, Pauline, you do not know so well as I of what I speak. This is no
+delirium; would to heaven, it were, and I might wake up from it. No, the
+parting must be said to-night, and I must be the one to speak it. We
+may spend days, perhaps, under the same roof--we may even sit at the
+same table once again; but, I repeat, from this day I may never look
+into your eyes again, I may never touch your hand. Pauline, can you
+forgive me? I know that you can love. Merciful Heaven! who so well as I,
+who have held your stainless heart in my stained hand these many dreamy
+weeks; and Justice has not struck me dead. Yes, Pauline, I know you've
+loved me; but remember this one thing, in all your bitter thoughts of me
+hereafter: remember this, you have not loved me as I have loved you. You
+have not given up earth and heaven both for me as I have done for you.
+For you? No, not for you, but for the shadow of you, for the thought of
+you, for these short weeks of you. And then, an eternity of absence, and
+of remorse, and of oblivion--ah, if it might be oblivion for you! If I
+could blot out of your life this short, blighting summer; if I could put
+you back to where you were that fresh, sweet morning that I walked with
+you beside the river! I loved you from that day, Pauline, and I drugged
+my conscience, and refused to heed that I was doing you a wrong in
+teaching you to love me. Pauline, I have to tell you a sad story: you
+will have to go back with me very far; you will have to hear of sins of
+which you never dreamed in your dear innocence. I would spare you if I
+could, but you must know, for you must forgive me. And when you have
+heard, you may cease to love, but I think you will forgive. Listen."
+
+Why should I repeat that terrible disclosure? why harrow my soul with
+going back over that dark path? Let me try to forget that such sins,
+such wrongs, such revenges, ever stained a human life. I was so young,
+so innocent, so ignorant. It was a strange misfortune that I should have
+had to know that which aged and changed me so. But he was right in
+saying that I had to know it. My life was bound involuntarily to his by
+my love, and what concerned him was my fate. Alas! He was in no other
+way bound to me than by my love: nor ever could be.
+
+I don't know whether I was prepared for it or not: I knew that something
+terrible and final was to come, and I felt the awe that attends the
+thoughts that words are final and time limited. But when I heard the
+fatal truth--that another woman lived to whom he was irrevocably
+bound--I heard it as in a dream, and did not move or speak. I think I
+felt for a moment as if I were dead, as if I had passed out of the ranks
+of the living into the abodes of the silent, and benumbed, and
+pulseless. There was such a horrible awe, and chill, and check through
+all my young and rapid blood. It was like death by freezing. It is not
+so pleasant as they say, believe me. But no pain: that came afterward,
+when I came to life, when I felt the touch of his hand on mine, and
+ceased to hear his cruel words.
+
+I had shrunk back from him in my chair, and sat, I suppose, like a
+person in a trance, with my hands in my lap, and my eyes fixed on him
+with bewilderment. But when he ceased to speak--and, leaning forward on
+one knee, clasped my hands in his, and drew me toward him, then indeed I
+knew I was not dead. Oh, the agony of those few moments--I tried to
+rise, to go away from him. But he held me with such strength--all his
+weakness was gone now. He folded his arms around my waist and held me as
+in a vise. Then suddenly leaning his head down upon my arms, he kissed
+my hands, my arms, my dress, with a moan of bitter anguish.
+
+"Not mine," he murmured. "Never mine but in my dreams. O wretched
+dreams, that drive me mad. Pauline, they will tell us that we must not
+dream--we must not weep, we must be stocks and stones. We must wear this
+weight of living death till that good Lord that makes such laws shall
+send us death in mercy. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years of suffering:
+that might almost satisfy Him, one would think. Pauline! you and I are
+to say good-bye to-night. Good-bye! People talk of it as a cruel word.
+Think of it: if it were but for a year, a year with hope at the end of
+it to keep our hearts alive, it would be terrible, and we should need be
+brave. The tears that lovers shed over a year apart; the days that have
+got to come and go, how weary. The nights--the nights that sleep flies
+off from, and that memory reigns over. Count them--over three hundred
+come in every year. One, you think while it is passing, is enough to
+kill you: one such night of restless torture, and how many shall we
+multiply our three hundred by? We are young, Pauline. You are a child, a
+very child. I am in the very flush and strength of manhood. There is
+half a century of suffering in me yet: this frame, this brain, will
+stand the wear of the hard years to come but too, too well. There is no
+hope of death. There is no hope in life. That star has set. Good God!
+And that makes hell--why should I wait for it--it cannot be worse there
+than here. Don't listen to me--it will not be as hard for you--you are
+so young--you have no sins to torture you--only a little love to conquer
+and forget. You will marry a man who lives for you, and who is patient
+and will wait till this is over. Ah, no: by Heaven! I can't quite stand
+it yet. Pauline, you never loved him, did you--never blushed for
+him--never listened for his coming with your lips apart and your heart
+fluttering, as I have seen you listen when you thought that I was
+coming? No, I know you never loved him: I know you have loved me
+alone--me--who ought to have forbidden you. Forgive--forgive--forgive
+me."
+
+A passion of tears had come to my relief, and I shook from head to foot
+with sobs. I cannot feel ashamed when I remember that he held me for one
+moment in his arms. He had been to me till that shock, strength, truth,
+justice: _the man I loved_. How could I in one instant know him by his
+sin alone, and undo all my trust? I knew only this, that it was for the
+last time, and that my heart was broken.
+
+I forgave him--that was an idle form; in my great love I never felt that
+there was anything to be forgiven, except the wrong that fate had done
+me, in making my love so hopeless. He told me to forget him; that seemed
+to me as idle; but all his words were precious, and all my soul was in
+his hand. When, at that moment, the sound of wheels upon the gravel
+came, and the sound of laughter and of voices, I sprang up; he caught me
+in his arms and held me closely. Another moment, the parting was over,
+and I was kneeling by my bed up-stairs, weeping, sobbing, hopeless.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE WORLD GOES ON THE SAME.
+
+     Into my chamber brightly
+       Came the early sun's good-morrow;
+     On my restless bed, unsightly,
+      I sat up in my sorrow.
+
+     _Faust._
+
+
+It is an amazing thing, the strength and power of pride. Pride, and the
+law of self-respect and self-preservation in our being, is the force
+that holds us in our course. When we reflect upon it, how few of all the
+myriads fly out from it and are lost. That I ate my meals; that I
+dressed myself with care; that I took walks and drives: that I did not
+avoid my companions, and listened patiently to what they chose to say:
+these were the evidences of that centripetal law within that was keeping
+me from destruction. It would be difficult to imagine a person more
+unhappy. Undisciplined and unfortified by the knowledge that
+disappointment is an integral part of all lives, there had suddenly come
+upon me a disappointment the most total. It covered everything; there
+was not a flicker of hope or palliation. And I had no idea where to go
+to make myself another hope, or in what course lay palliation. As we
+have prepared ourselves or have been prepared, so is the issue of our
+temptations. My great temptation came upon me, foolish, ignorant,
+unprepared: the wonder would have been if I had resisted it to my
+own credit.
+
+The days went on as usual at R----, and I must hold my place among the
+careless daughters and not let them see my trouble. Careless daughters,
+indeed they were, and I shuddered at the thought of their cold eyes: no
+doubt their eyes, bright as well as cold, saw that something was amiss
+with me; with all my bravery, I could not keep the signs of wretchedness
+out of my pale face. But they never knew the story, and they could only
+guess at what made me wretched. It is amazing (again) what power there
+is in silence, and how much you can keep in your hands if you do not
+open them. People may surmise--may invent, but they cannot know your
+secret unless you tell it to them, and their imaginings take so many
+forms, the multitude of things that they create blot out all definite
+design. Thus every one at R---- had a different theory about my loss of
+spirits and the relapse of Mr. Langenau, but no one ever knew what
+passed that night.
+
+Richard came. He was closeted with Sophie until after midnight, but I
+do not think he told her anything that she desired to know. I think he
+only tried to find out from her what had passed (and she did not know
+that I had been in the library since she spoke to me). If Mr. Langenau
+had been well, I have no doubt that it was his design to have dismissed
+him on the following day, no matter at what hazard. How much he knew I
+cannot tell, but enough to have warranted him in doing that, perhaps. He
+probably would have put it in Mr. Langenau's power to have gone without
+any coloring put upon his going that would have affected his standing in
+the household. This was his design, no doubt; otherwise he would have
+told his sister all. His delicate consideration for me made him guard as
+sacred the fact that I had wasted my hope and love so cruelly.
+
+He was not going away again, I soon found; _qui va à la chasse perd sa
+place_. He had lost his place, but he would stay and guard me all the
+same; and the chase for gold seemed given up for good and all.
+
+Kilian was in constant surprise, and made out many catechisms, but he
+got little satisfaction.
+
+Richard was going to have a few weeks' "rest," unless something should
+occur to call him back to town.
+
+He sought no interview with me, was kind and silent, but his eye was
+never off me. I think he watched his opportunity for saying what he had
+to say to Mr. Langenau, but such an opportunity seemed destined not
+to come.
+
+Mr. Langenau was ill the day after Richard came home--quite ill enough
+to cause alarm. He had a high fever, and the Doctor even seemed uneasy,
+and prescribed the profoundest quiet. After a day or two, however, he
+improved, and all danger seemed averted.
+
+As soon as he was strong enough, he was to be removed to his own room
+above, for the sake of quiet, and to release the household from its
+enforced tranquillity.
+
+All these particulars I heard at table, or from morning groups on the
+piazza: with stony cheeks, and eyes that looked unflinchingly into all
+curious faces: so works the law of self-defence.
+
+All but Richard, I am sure, were staggered, but he read with his heart.
+
+I never blushed now, I never faltered, I never said a word I did not
+mean to say. It was a struggle for life: though I did not value the
+life, and should have found it hard to say why I did not give up and
+let them see that I was killed.
+
+But I kept wondering how I should sustain myself if I should be called
+upon to meet him once again.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+GUARDED.
+
+     Forever at her side, and yet forever lonely,
+     I shall unto the end have made life's journey, only
+     Daring to ask for naught, and having naught received.
+
+     _Felix Arvers_.
+
+     Duty to God is duty to her; I think
+     God, who created her, will save her too
+     Some new way, by one miracle the more
+     Without me. Then, prayer may avail, perhaps.
+
+     _R. Browning_.
+
+
+"Mr. Langenau is coming down to-day," said Charlotte Benson in a
+stage-whisper, as we took our places at the table, a week after this. "I
+met him in the hall about an hour ago, looking like a ghost, and he told
+me he was coming down to dinner."
+
+"_Vraiment_," said Sophie, looking a little disconcerted. "Well, he
+shall have Charley's place. Charley isn't coming."
+
+"I hope he's in a better temper than that last day we saw him," said
+Henrietta.
+
+"Poor fellow!" said Charlotte, "that was the day before the fever began.
+It was coming on: that was the reason of it all, no doubt. He looks
+ghastly enough now. You'll forgive all, the moment that you see him."
+
+Charlotte had forgiven him herself, though she had never resumed the
+role of Florence Nightingale. Since he had given up the library and
+removed to his own room, he had been quite lost to all, and nobody
+seemed to have gone near him, not even Sophie, who would have been glad
+to forget that he existed, without doubt.
+
+Richard's eyes were on me as Charlotte said "Hush!" and a step crossed
+the hall in the pause that ensued. Kilian, sitting next me, began to
+talk to me at that moment, the moment that Mr. Langenau entered the
+room. And I think I answered quite coherently: though two sets of words
+were going through my brain, the answer to his commonplace question, and
+the words that Mr. Langenau had said that night, "Pauline, I shall never
+look into your eyes again, I shall never touch your hand."
+
+It seemed to me an even chance which sentence saw the day; but as the
+walls did not fall down about me and no face looked amazement, I found I
+must have answered Kilian's question with propriety.
+
+There were many voices speaking at once; but there was such a ringing in
+my ears, I could not distinguish who spoke, or what was said: for a
+moment I was lost, if any one had taken advantage of it. But gradually
+I regained my senses: one after another they each took up their guard
+again: and I looked up. And met his eyes? No; but let mine rest upon his
+face. And then I found I had not measured my temptation, and that there
+was something to do besides defending myself from others' eyes. For
+there was to defend myself from my own heart. The passion of pity and
+tenderness that rushed over me as my eyes fell on his haggard face, so
+strong and yet so wan, swept away for the moment the defences against
+the public gaze. I could have fallen down at his feet before them all
+and told him that I loved him.
+
+A few moments more of the sound of commonplace words, and the repulsion
+of every-day faces and expressions, swept me back into the circle of
+conventionalities, and brought me under the force of that current that
+keeps us from high tragedy.
+
+All during the meal Mr. Langenau was grave and silent, speaking little
+and then with effort. He had overrated his strength, perhaps, for he
+went away before the end of the dinner, asking to be excused, in a tone
+almost inaudible. After he had gone, a good many commentaries were
+offered. Kilian seemed to express the sense of the assembly when he
+said: "The man looks shockingly, and he's not out of the woods yet."
+
+Sophie looked troubled: she had some compunctions for the neglect of the
+last few days, perhaps.
+
+"What does the Doctor say?" pursued her brother.
+
+"Nothing, I suppose--for he hasn't been here for a week, almost."
+
+"Well, then, you'd better send for him, if you don't want the fellow to
+die on your hands. He's not fit to be out of bed, and you'll have
+trouble if you don't look out."
+
+"As if I hadn't had trouble," returned his sister, almost peevishly.
+
+"Well, I beg your pardon, Sophie. But I fancied you and Miss Charlotte
+were in charge; and I thought about ten days ago, your patient was in a
+fair way to be killed with kindness, and it's a little of a surprise to
+me to find he's being let alone so very systematically."
+
+"Why, to tell you the truth," cried Charlotte Benson, "we were turned
+out of office without much ceremony, one fine day after dinner. I am
+quite willing to be forgiving; but I don't think you can ask me to put
+myself in the way of being snubbed again to that extent."
+
+"The ungrateful varlet! what did he complain of? Hadn't he been coddled
+enough to please him? Did he want four or five more women dancing
+attendance on him?"
+
+"Oh, it was not want of attention he complained of. In fact," said
+Charlotte, coloring, "It was that he didn't like quite so much, and
+wanted to be allowed more liberty."
+
+Kilian indulged in a good laugh, which wasn't quite fair, considering
+Charlotte's candor.
+
+"But the truth is," said Charlotte, uneasily, "that he was too ill, that
+day, to be responsible for what he said. He was just coming down with
+the fever, and, you know, people are always most unreasonable then."
+
+"I'm very glad I never gave him a chance to dispense with me," said Mary
+Leighton, with a view to making herself amiable in Kilian's eyes.
+
+"I think he dispensed with you early in the season," said Charlotte,
+sharply. "Oh, hast thou forgotten that walk that he took, upon your
+invitation? Ah, Miss Leighton, his look was quite dramatic. I know you
+never have forgiven him."
+
+"I haven't the least idea what you are talking of," returned Mary
+Leighton, with bewildered and child-like simplicity.
+
+"Ah, then it was not as unique an occurrence as I hoped," said
+Charlotte, viciously. "I imagined it would make more of an impression."
+
+"Charlotte," interrupted Sophie, shocked at this open impoliteness, "I
+hope you are forgiving enough to break it to him that he's got to see
+the Doctor; for if he comes unexpectedly and goes up to his room, he
+will be dramatic, and that is so unpleasant, as we know to our sorrow."
+
+"Indeed, I shan't tell him," cried Charlotte, "you can take your life in
+your hand, and try it if you please; but I cannot consent to risk
+myself. There's Mary Leighton, she bears no malice. Perhaps she'll go
+with you as support."
+
+"Ha, ha!" cried Kilian. "Richard, you and I may be called on to bring up
+the rear. There's the General's old sword in the hall, and I'll take the
+Joe Manton from the shelf in the library."
+
+"Richard looks as if he disapproved of us all very much," said Sophie,
+and in truth Richard did look just so. He did not even answer these
+suggestions, but began after a moment to talk to Henrietta on
+indifferent matters.
+
+It was on this afternoon that a new policy was inaugurated at R----. We
+were taught to feel that we had been quite aggrieved by the dullness of
+the past two weeks or more, and that we must be compensated by some
+refreshing novelties.
+
+Richard was at the head of the movement--Richard with his sober cares
+and weary look. But the incongruity struck no one; they were too glad to
+be amused. Even Sophie brightened up. Charlotte was ready to throw her
+energies into any active scheme, hospital or picnic, charity-school or
+kettle-drum.
+
+"To-morrow will be just the sort of day for it," said Richard, "cool and
+fine. And half the pleasure of a picnic is not having time to get tired
+of it beforehand."
+
+"That's very true," said Charlotte; "but I don't see how we're going to
+get everybody notified and everything in order for nine o'clock
+to-morrow morning."
+
+"Nothing easier," said Kilian; "we'll go, directly after tea, to the De
+Witts and Prentices, and send Thomas with a note to the Lowders. Sophie
+has done her part in shorter time than that, very often; and I don't
+believe we should be starved, if she only gave half an hour's notice to
+the cook."
+
+What is heavier than pleasure-seeking in which one has no pleasure? I
+shall never forget the misery of those plans and that bustle. I dared
+not absent myself, and I could scarcely carry out my part for very
+heavy-heartedness. It seemed to me that I could not bear it, if the hour
+came, and I should have to drive away with all that merry party, and
+leave poor Mr. Langenau for a long, long day alone.
+
+I felt sure something would occur to release me: it could not be that I
+should have to go. With the exaggeration of youth, it seemed to me an
+impossibility that I could endure anything so grievous. How I hated all
+the careless, thoughtless, happy household! Only Richard, enemy as he
+was to my happiness, seemed endurable to me. For Richard was not
+merry-making in his heart, and I was sure he was sorry for me all the
+time he was trying to oppose me.
+
+Mr. Langenau was again in the Doctor's care, who came that evening, and
+who said to Richard, in my hearing, he must be kept quiet; he didn't
+altogether like his symptoms.
+
+Richard had his hands full, with great matters and small. Sophie had
+washed hers of the invalid; there had been some sharpish words between
+the sister and brother on the matter, I imagine, and the result was,
+Richard was the only one who did or would do anything for his comfort
+and safety.
+
+That day, after appearing at dinner, he came no more. I watched with
+feverish anxiety every step, every sound; but he came not. I knew that
+the Doctor's admonitions would not have much weight, nor yet Richard's
+opinion. I had the feeling that if he would only speak to me, only look
+at me once, it would ease that horrible oppression and pain which I was
+suffering. The agony I was enduring was so intolerable, and its real
+relief so impossible, like a child I caught at some fancied palliation,
+and craved only that. What would one look, one word be--out of a
+lifetime of silence and separation.
+
+No matter: it was what I raged and died for, just one look, just one
+word more. He had said he would never look into my eyes again: that
+haunted me and made me superstitious. I would _make_ him look at me. I
+would seize his hand and kneel before him, and tell him I should die if
+he did not speak to me once more. Once more! Just once, out of years,
+out of forever. I had thrown duty, conscience, thought to the winds. I
+had but one fear--that we should be finally separated without that word
+spoken, that look exchanged. I said to myself again and again, I shall
+die, if I cannot speak to him again. Beyond that I did not look. What
+better I should be after that speaking I did not care. I only longed and
+looked for that as a relief from the insufferable agony of my fate. One
+cannot take in infinite wretchedness: it is our nature to make dates and
+periods to our sorrows in our imagination.
+
+And so that horrid afternoon and evening passed, amid the racket and
+babel of visitors and visiting. I followed almost blindly, and did as
+the others did. The next morning dawned bright and cold. What a day for
+summer! The sun was brilliant, but the wind came from over icebergs; it
+seemed like "winter painted green."
+
+We were to start at nine o'clock. I was ready early, waiting on the
+piazza for the aid to fate that was to keep me from the punishment of
+going. No human being had spoken his name that morning. How should I
+know whether he were still so ill or no.
+
+The hour for starting had arrived. Richard, who never kept long out of
+sight of me, was busy loading the wagon that was to accompany us, with
+baskets of things to eat, and with wines and fruits. Kilian was
+engrossed in arranging the seats and cushions in the two carriages which
+had just driven to the door.
+
+Mary Leighton was fluttering about the flower-bed at the left of the
+piazza, making herself lovely with geranium and roses. Sophie, in a
+beautiful costume, was pacifying Charley, who had had a difference with
+his uncle Kilian. Charlotte and Henrietta were busy in their small way
+over a little basket of preserves; and two or three of the neighboring
+gentlemen, who were to drive with us, were approaching the house by a
+side-entrance.
+
+In a moment or two we should be ready to be off. What should I do? I was
+frantic with the thought that he might be worse, he might go away. I
+was to be absent such a length of time. I must--I would see him before
+we went. What better moment than the present, when everybody was engaged
+in this fretting, foolish picnic. I would run up-stairs--call to him
+outside his door--make him speak to me.
+
+With a guilty look around, I started up, stole through the group on the
+piazza, and ran to the stairs. But alas, Richard had not failed to mark
+my movements, and before my foot had touched the stair his voice
+recalled me. I started with a guilty look, and trembled, but dared not
+meet his eye.
+
+"Pauline, are you going away? We are just ready start."
+
+If I had had any presence of mind I should have made an excuse, and gone
+to my own room for a moment, and taken my chance of getting to the floor
+above; but I suppose he would have forestalled me. I could not command a
+single word, but turned back and followed him. As we got into the
+carriage, the voices and the laughing really seemed to madden me.
+Driving away from the house, I never shall forget the sensation of
+growing heaviness at my heart; it seemed to be turning into lead. I
+glanced back at the closed windows of his room and wondered if he saw
+us, and if he thought that I was happy.
+
+The length of that day! The glare of that sun! The chill of that
+unnatural wind! Every moment seemed to me an hour. I can remember with
+such distinctness the whole day, each thing as it happened;
+conversations which seemed so senseless, preparations which seemed so
+endless. The taste of the things I tried to eat: the smell of the grass
+on which we sat, and the pine-trees above our heads: the sound of fire
+blazing under the teakettle, and the pained sensation of my eyes when
+the smoke blew across into our faces: the hateful vibration of Mary
+Leighton's laugh: all these things are unnaturally vivid to me at
+this day.
+
+I don't know what the condition of my brain must have been, to have
+received such an exaggerated impression of unimportant things.
+
+"What can I do for you, Miss Pauline?" said Kilian, throwing himself
+down on the grass at my feet. I could not sit down for very impatience,
+but was walking restlessly about, and was now standing for a moment by a
+great tree under which the table had been spread. It was four o'clock,
+and there was only vague talk of going home; the horses had not yet been
+brought up, the baskets were not a quarter packed. Every one was
+indolent, and a good deal tired; the gentlemen were smoking, and no one
+seemed in a hurry.
+
+When Kilian said, "What can I do for you. Miss Pauline?" I could not
+help saying, "Take me home."
+
+"Home!" cried Kilian. "Here is somebody talking about going home. Why,
+Miss Pauline, I am just beginning to enjoy myself! only look, it is but
+four o'clock."
+
+"Oh, let us stay and go home by moonlight," cried Mary Leighton, in a
+little rapture.
+
+"Would it not be heavenly!" said Henrietta.
+
+"How about tea?" said Charlotte. "We shall be hungry before moonlight,
+and there isn't anything left to eat."
+
+"How material!" cried Kilian, who had eaten an enormous dinner.
+
+"We shall all get cold," said Sophie, who loved to be comfortable, "and
+the children are beginning to be very cross."
+
+"Small blame to them," muttered a dissatisfied man in my ear, who had
+singled me out as a companion in discontent, and had pursued me with his
+contempt for pastoral entertainments, and for this entertainment
+in especial.
+
+"Well, let the people that want to stay, stay; but let us go home," I
+said, hastily.
+
+"That is so like you, Pauline," exclaimed Mary Leighton, in a voice that
+stung me like nettles.
+
+"It is very like common-sense," I said, "if that's like me."
+
+"Well, it isn't particularly."
+
+"Let dogs delight," said Kilian, "I have a compromise to offer. If we go
+home by the bridge we pass the little Brink hotel, where they give
+capital teas. We can stop there, rest, get tea, have a dance in the
+'ball-room,' sixteen by twenty, and go home by moonlight, filling the
+souls of Miss Leighton and Henrietta with bliss."
+
+A chorus of ecstasy followed this; Sophie herself was satisfied with the
+plan, and exulted in the prospect of washing her face, and lying down on
+a bed for half an hour, though only at a little country inn. Even this
+low form of civilized life was tempting, after seven hours spent in
+communion with nature on hard rocks.
+
+Great alacrity was shown in getting ready and in getting off. I could
+not speak to any one, not even the dissatisfied man, but walked away by
+myself and tried to let no one see what I was feeling. After all was
+ready, I got into the carriage beside one of the Miss Lowders, and the
+dissatisfied man sat opposite. He wore canvas shoes and a corduroy suit,
+and sleeve-buttons and studs that were all bugs and bees. I think I
+could make a drawing of the sleeve-button on the arm with which he held
+the umbrella over us; there were five different forms of insect-life
+represented on it, but I remember them all.
+
+"I'm afraid you haven't enjoyed yourself very much," said Miss Lowder,
+looking at me rather critically.
+
+"I? why--no, perhaps not; I don't generally enjoy myself very much."
+
+Somebody out on the front seat laughed very shrilly at this: of course
+it was Mary Leighton, who was sitting beside Kilian, who drove. I felt I
+would have liked to push her over among the horses, and drive on.
+
+"Isn't her voice like a steel file?" I said with great simplicity to my
+companions. The dissatisfied man, writhing uncomfortably on his seat,
+four inches too narrow for any one but a child of six, assented
+gloomily. Miss Lowder, who was twenty-eight years old and very well
+bred, looked disapproving, and changed the subject. Not much more was
+said after this. Miss Lowder had a neuralgic headache, developed by the
+cold wind and an undigested dinner eaten irregularly. She was too polite
+to mention her sufferings, but leaned back in the carriage and
+was silent.
+
+My vis-à-vis was at last relieved by the declining sun from his task,
+and so the umbrella-arm and its sleeve-button were removed from my range
+of vision.
+
+We counted the mile-posts, and we looked sometimes at our watches, and
+so the time wore away.
+
+Kilian and Mary Leighton were chattering incessantly, and did not pay
+much attention to us. Kilian drove pretty fast almost all the way, but
+sometimes forgot himself when Mary was too seductive, and let the horses
+creep along like snails.
+
+"There's our little tavern," cried Kilian at last, starting up the
+horses.
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry," murmured Mary Leighton, "we have had such a lovely
+drive."
+
+My vis-à-vis groaned and looked at me as this observation reached us. I
+laughed a little hysterically: I was so glad to be at the half-way
+house--and Mary Leighton's words were so absurd. When we got out of the
+carriage, the dissatisfied man stretched his long English limbs out, and
+lighting his cigar, began silently to pace the bricks in front of
+the house.
+
+Kilian took us into the little parlor (we were the first to arrive), and
+committed us to the care of a thin, tired-looking woman, and then went
+to see to the comfort of his horses.
+
+The tired woman, who looked as if she never had sat down since she grew
+up, took us to some rooms, where we were to rest till tea was ready. The
+rooms had been shut up all day, and the sun had been beating on them:
+they smelled of paint and dust and ill-brushed carpets. The water in the
+pitchers was warm and not very clear: the towels were very small and
+thin, the beds were hard, and the pillows very small, like the towels:
+they felt soft and warm and limp, like sick kittens. We threw open the
+windows and aired the rooms, and washed our faces and hands: and Miss
+Lowder lay down on the bed and put her head on a pile of four of the
+little pillows collected from the different rooms. Mary Leighton spent
+the time in re-arranging her hair, and I walked up and down the hall,
+too impatient to rest myself in any way.
+
+By-and-by the others came, and then there was a hubbub and a clatter,
+and poor Miss Lowder's head was overlooked in the mêlée; for these were
+all the rooms the house afforded for the entertainment of wayfarers, and
+as there were nine ladies in our party, it is not difficult to imagine
+the confusion that ensued.
+
+Benny and Charley also came to have their hair arranged, and it devolved
+on Charlotte and me to do it, as their mamma had thrown herself
+exhausted on one of the beds, and with the bolsters doubled up under her
+head, was trying to get some rest.
+
+It was fully half-past seven before the tea-bell rang. I seized Benny's
+hand, and we were the first on the ground. I don't know how I thought
+this would be useful in hurrying matters, for Benny's tea and mine were
+very soon taken, and were very insignificant fractions of the
+general business.
+
+There were kerosene lamps on the table, and everything was served in the
+plainest manner, but the cooking was really good, and it was evident
+that the tired woman had been on her feet all her life to some purpose.
+Almost every one was hungry, and the contrast to the cold meats, and the
+hard rocks, and the disjointed apparatus of the noonday meal, was very
+favorable.
+
+Richard had put me between himself and Benny, and he watched my
+undiminished supper with disapprobation: but I do not believe he ate
+much more himself. He put everything that he thought I might like,
+before me, silently: and I think the tired woman (who was waitress as
+well as cook), must have groaned over the frequent changing of my plate.
+
+"Do not take any more of that," he said, as I put out my hand for
+another cup of coffee.
+
+"Well, what shall I take?" I exclaimed peevishly. But indeed I did not
+mean to be peevish, nor did I know quite what I said, I was so
+miserable. Richard sighed as he turned away and answered some question
+of Sophie; who was quite revived.
+
+Charlotte and Henrietta each had an admirer, one of the Lowders, and a
+young Frenchman who had come with the Lowders.
+
+It had evidently been a very happy day with all the young ladies from
+the house. After tea the gentlemen must smoke, and after the smoking
+there was to be dancing. The preparations for the dancing created a good
+deal of amusement and consumed a great deal of time. Kilian and young
+Lowder went a mile and a half to get a man to play for them. When he
+came, he had to be instructed as to the style of music to be furnished,
+and the rasping and scraping of that miserable instrument put me beside
+myself with nervousness. Then the "ball-room" had to be aired and
+lighted; then the negro's music was found to be incompatible with modern
+movements; even a waltz was proved impossible, and nobody would consent
+to remember a quadrille but Richard. So they had to fall back upon
+Virginia reels, and everybody was made to dance.
+
+The dissatisfied man was at my side when the order was given. He turned
+to me languidly, and offered me his hand.
+
+"No," I exclaimed, biting my lips with impatience, and added, "You will
+excuse me, won't you?"
+
+He said, with grave philosophy, "I really think it will seem shorter
+than if we were looking on."
+
+I accepted this wise counsel, and went to dance with him. And what a
+dance it was! The blinking kerosene lamps at the sides of the room, the
+asparagus boughs overhead, the grinning negro on the little platform by
+the door: the amused faces looking in at the open windows: the romping,
+well-dressed, pretty women: the handsome men who were trying to act like
+clowns: the noise of laughing and the calling out of the figures: all
+this, I am sure, I never shall forget. And, strange to say, I somewhat
+enjoyed it after all. The coffee had stimulated me: the music was merry:
+I was reckless, and my companions were full of glee. Even the _ennuyé_
+skipped up and down the room like a school-boy: I never shall forget
+Richard's happy and relieved expression, when I laughed aloud at
+somebody's amusing blunder.
+
+Then came the reaction, when the dancing was over, and we were getting
+ready to go home. It was a good deal after ten o'clock, and the night
+was cold. There were not quite shawls enough, no preparations having
+been made for staying out after dark. Richard went up to Sophie (I was
+standing out by the steps to be ready the moment the carriages should
+come), and I heard him negotiating with her for a shawl for me. She was
+quite impatient and peremptory, though _sotto voce_. The children needed
+both her extra ones, and there was an end of it.
+
+I did not care at all, and feeling warm with dancing, did not dread what
+I had not yet felt. I pulled my light cloak around me, and only longed
+for the carriage to arrive. But after we had started and were about
+forty rods from the door, quite out of the light of the little tavern,
+just within a grove of locust-trees (the moon was under clouds),
+Richard's voice called out to Kilian to stop, and coming up to the side
+of the carriage, said, "Put this around you, Pauline, you haven't got
+enough." He put something around my shoulders which felt very warm and
+comfortable: I believe I said, Thank you, though I am not at all sure,
+and Kilian drove on rapidly.
+
+By-and-by, when I began to feel a little chilly, I drew it together
+round my throat: the air was like November, and, August though it was,
+there was a white frost that night. I was frightened when I found what I
+had about my shoulders. It was Richard's coat. I called to Kilian to
+stop a moment, I wanted to speak to Richard. But when we stopped, the
+carriage in which he was to drive was just behind us--and some one in it
+said, Richard had walked. He had not come back after he ran out to speak
+to us--must have struck across the fields and gone ahead. And Richard
+walked home, five miles, that night! the only way to save himself from
+the deadly chill of the keen air, without his coat.
+
+When we drove into the gate, at home, I stooped eagerly forward to get a
+sight of the house through the trees. There was a light burning in the
+room over mine: that was all I wanted to know, and with a sigh of relief
+I sank back.
+
+When we went into the hall, I remembered to hang Richard's coat upon a
+rack there, and then ran to my room. I could not get any news of Mr.
+Langenau, and could not hear how the day had gone with him: could only
+take the hope that the sight of the little lamp conveyed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+I SHALL HAVE SEEN HIM.
+
+     Go on, go on:
+     Thou canst not speak too much; I have deserved
+     All tongues to talk their bitterest.
+
+     _Winter's Tale_.
+
+
+Of course, the night was entirely sleepless after such, a day. I was
+over-tired, and the coffee would have been fatal to rest in any case. I
+tossed about restlessly till three o'clock, and then fell into a
+heavy sleep.
+
+The sun was shining into the room, and I heard the voices of people on
+the lawn when I awoke. When I went down, after a hurried and nervous
+half-hour of dressing, I found the morning, apparently, half gone, and
+the breakfast-table cleared.
+
+Mary Leighton, with a croquet mallet in her hand, was following Kilian
+through the hall to get a drink of water. She made a great outcry at me
+and my appearance.
+
+"What a headache you must have," she cried. "But ah! think what you've
+missed, dear! The tutor has been down at breakfast, or rather at the
+breakfast-table, for he didn't eat a thing. He is a, little paler than
+he was at dinner day before yesterday--and he's gone up-stairs; and
+we've voted that we hope he'll stay there, for he depresses us just to
+look at him."
+
+And then, with an unmeaning laugh, she tripped on after Kilian to get
+that drink of water, which was nothing but a ticket for a moment's
+_tête-à-tête_ away from the croquet party. Richard had seen me by this
+time, and came in and asked how I felt, and rang the bell in the
+dining-room, and ordered my breakfast brought. He did not exactly stay
+and watch it, but he came in and out of the dining-room enough times to
+see that I had everything that was dainty and nice (and to see, alas!
+that I could not eat it); for that piece of news from Mary Leighton had
+levelled me with the ground again.
+
+That I had missed seeing him was too cruel, and that he looked so ill;
+how could I bear it?
+
+After my breakfast was taken away, I went into the hall, and sat down on
+the sofa between the parlor doors. Pretty soon the people came in from
+the croquet ground, talking fiercely about a game in which Kilian and
+Mary had been cheating. Charlotte Benson was quite angry, and Charley,
+who had played with her, was enraged. I thought they were such, fools
+to care, and Richard looked as if he thought they were all silly
+children. The day was warm and close, such a contrast to the day before.
+The sudden cold had broken down into a sultry August atmosphere. The
+sun, which had been bright an hour ago, was becoming obscured, and the
+sky was grayish. Every one felt languid. We were all sitting about the
+hall, idly, when a servant brought a note. It was an invitation; that
+roused them all--and for to-day. There was no time to lose.
+
+The Lowders had sent to ask us all to a croquet party there at four
+o'clock.
+
+"What an hour!" cried Sophie, who was tired; "I should think they might
+have let us get rested from the picnic."
+
+But Charlotte and Henrietta were so much charmed at the prospect of
+seeing so soon the Frenchman and the young devoted Lowder, that they
+listened to no criticism on the hour or day.
+
+"How nice!" they said, "we shall get there a little before five--play
+for a couple of hours--then have tea on the lawn, perhaps--a little
+dance, and home by moonlight." It was a ravishing prospect for their
+unemployed imaginations, and they left no time in rendering
+their answer.
+
+For myself, I had taken a firm resolve. I would never repeat the misery
+of yesterday; nothing should persuade me to go with them, but I would
+manage it so that I should be free from every one, even Richard.
+
+Croquet parties are great occasions for pretty costumes; all this was
+talked over. What should I wear? Oh, my gray grenadine, with the violet
+trimmings, and a gray hat with violet velvet and feather.
+
+"You have everything so perfect for that suit," said Mary Leighton, in a
+tone of envy. "Cravat and parasol and gloves of just the shade
+of violet."
+
+"And gray boots," I said. "It _is_ a pretty suit." No one but Sophie had
+such expensive clothes as I, but I cannot say at that moment they made
+me very happy. I was only thinking how improbable that the gray suit
+would come out of the box that day, unless I should be obliged to dress
+to mislead the others till the last.
+
+The carriages (for we filled two), were to be at the door at four
+o'clock punctually. The Lowders were five miles away: the whole thing
+was so talked about and planned about, that when dinner was over, I felt
+we had had a croquet party, and quite a long one at that.
+
+Mr. Langenau did not come to dinner; Sophie sent a servant to his room
+after we were at table, to ask him if he would come down, or have his
+dinner sent to him; but the servant came back, saying he did not want
+any dinner, with his compliments to Mrs. Hollenbeck.
+
+"_À la bonne heure_" cried Kilian. "A skeleton always interferes with my
+appetite at a feast."
+
+"It is the only thing, then, that does, isn't it?" asked Charlotte, who
+seemed to have a pick at him always.
+
+"No, not the only thing. There is one other--just one other."
+
+"And, for the sake of science, what is that?"
+
+"A woman with a sharp tongue, Miss Charlotte.--Sophie, I don't think
+much of these last soups. Your famous cook's degenerating, take
+my word."
+
+And so on, while Charlotte colored, and was silent through the meal. She
+knew her tongue was sharp; she knew that she was self-willed and was not
+humble. But she had not taken herself in hand, religiously; to take
+one's self in hand morally, or on grounds of expediency, never amounts
+to much; and such taking in hand was all that Charlotte had as yet
+attempted. In a little passion of self-reproach and mortification, she
+occasionally lopped off ugly shoots; but the root was still vigorous and
+lusty, and only grew the better for its petty pruning. Richard looked
+very much displeased at his brother's rudeness, and tried to make up
+for it by great kindness and attention.
+
+About this time I had become aware of what were Sophie's plans for
+Richard. In case he must marry (to be cured of me), he was to marry
+Charlotte, who was so capable, so sensible, of so good family, so much
+indebted to Sophie, and so decidedly averse to living in the country.
+Sophie saw herself still mistress here, with, to be sure, a shortened
+income, and Richard and his wife spending a few weeks with her in the
+summer. I do not know how far Charlotte entered into these plans.
+Probably not at all, consciously; but I became aware that, as a little
+girl, Richard had been her hero; and he did not seem to have been
+displaced by any one entirely yet. But I took a very faint interest in
+all this. I should have cared, probably, if I had seen Richard devoted
+to her. He seemed to belong to me, and I should have resented any
+interference with my rights. But I did not dread any. I knew, though I
+took little pleasure in the knowledge, that he loved me with all his
+good and manly heart; and it never seemed a possibility that he
+could change.
+
+The simple selfishness of young women in these matters is appalling.
+Richard was mine by right of conquest, and I owed him no gratitude for
+the service of his life. That other was the lord who had the right
+inalienable over me. I bent myself in the dust before him. I would have
+taken shame itself as an honor from his hands. I thought of him day and
+night. I filled my soul with passionate admiration for his good deeds,
+his ill deeds, his all. And the other was as the ground beneath my feet,
+of which I seldom thought.
+
+Richard met me at the foot of the stairs, after dinner, as I was going
+up.
+
+"Pauline, will you go in the carriage with Charlotte and Sophie? I am
+going to drive."
+
+"Oh, it doesn't make any difference," I answered, with confusion.
+"Anywhere you choose."
+
+I think he had misgivings about my going from that moment; to allay
+which, I called out something about my costume to Sophie as I went up to
+my room. The day was growing duller, and stiller, and grayer. I sat by
+the window and watched the leaden river. It was like an afternoon in
+September, before the chill of the autumn has come. Not a leaf moved
+upon the trees, not a cloud crept over the sky. It was all one dim,
+gray, gloomy stillness overhead. I wondered if they would have rain.
+_They_, not I, for I was going to stay at home, and before they came
+back I should have seen him. I said that over and over to myself with
+bated breath, and cheeks that burned like flame. Every step that passed
+my door made me start guiltily. Once, when some one knocked, I pulled
+out my gray dress, and flung it on the bed, before I answered.
+
+It was approaching four o'clock. I undressed myself rapidly, put on a
+dressing-sack, and threw myself upon the bed. What should I say when
+they came for me? They could not _make_ me go. I felt very brave. At
+last the carriages drove up to the door. I crept to the window to see if
+any one was ready. While I was watching through the half-closed blinds,
+some one crossed the piazza. My heart gave a great leap, and then every
+pulse stood still. It was Mr. Langenau. His step was slower than it used
+to be, and, I thought, a little faltering. He crossed the road, and took
+the path that led through the grove and garden to the river. He had a
+book under his arm; he must be going to the boat-house to sit there and
+read. My heart gave such an ecstasy of life to my veins at the thought,
+that for a moment I felt sick and faint, as I drew back from the window.
+
+I threw myself on the bed as some one knocked. It was a servant to tell
+me they were ready. I sent word to Mrs. Hollenbeck that I was not well,
+and should not be able to go with them. Then I lay still and waited in
+much trepidation for the second knock. I heard in a few moments the
+rustle of Sophie's dress outside. She was not pleased at all. She could
+scarcely be polite. But then everything looked very plausible. There lay
+my dress upon the bed, as if I had begun to dress, and I was pale and
+trembling, and I am sure must have looked ill enough to have convinced
+her that I spoke the truth.
+
+She made some feeble offer to stay and take care of me. "Oh, pray
+don't," I cried, too eagerly, I am afraid. And then she said her maid
+should come and stay with me, for the children were going with them, and
+there would be nothing for her to do. I stammered thanks, and then she
+went away. I did not dare to move till after I had heard both carriages
+drive off, and all voices die away in the distance.
+
+Bettina came to the door, and was sent away with thanks. Then I began to
+dress myself with very trembling hands. This was new work to me, this
+horrible deception. But all remorse for that, was swallowed up in the
+one engrossing thought and desire which had usurped my soul for the days
+just passed.
+
+It was a full half-hour before I was ready, my hands shook so
+unaccountably, and I could scarcely find the things I wanted to put on.
+When I went to the door I could hardly turn the key, I felt so weak,
+and I stood in the passage many minutes before I dared go on. If any
+one had appeared or spoken to me, I am quite sure I should have fainted,
+my nerves were in such a shaken state.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+AUGUST THIRTIETH.
+
+     Were Death so unlike Sleep,
+     Caught this way? Death's to fear from flame, or steel,
+     Or poison doubtless; but from water--feel!
+
+     _Robert Browning_.
+
+
+I met no one in the hall or on the piazza. The house was silent and
+deserted: one of the maids was closing the parlor windows. She did not
+look at me with any surprise, for she had not probably heard that I
+was ill.
+
+Once in the open air I felt stronger. I took the river-path, and walked
+quickly, feeling freed from a nightmare: and my mind was filled with one
+thought. "In a few moments I shall be beside him, I shall make him look
+at me, he cannot help but touch my hand." I did not think of past or
+future, only of the greedy, passionate present. My infatuation was at
+its height. I cannot imagine a passion more absorbing, more unresisted,
+and more dangerous. I passed quickly through the garden without even
+noticing the flowers that brushed against my dress.
+
+As I reached the grove I thought for one instant of the morning that he
+had met me here, just where the paths intersected. At that moment I
+heard a step; and full of that hope, with a quick thrill, I glanced in
+the direction of the sound. There, not ten yards from me, coming from
+the opposite direction, was Richard. I felt a shock of disappointment,
+then fear, then anger. What right had he to dog me so? He looked at me
+without surprise, but as if his heart was full of bitterness and sorrow.
+He approached, and turned as if to walk with me.
+
+"I want to be alone," I said angrily, moving away from him.
+
+"No, Pauline," he answered with a sigh, as he turned from me, "you do
+not want to be alone."
+
+Full of shame and anger, and jarred with the shock and fear, I went on
+more slowly. The wood was so silent--the river through the trees lay so
+still and leaden. If it had not been for the fire burning in my heart, I
+could have thought the world was dead.
+
+There was not a sound but my own steps; should I soon meet him, would he
+be sitting in his old seat by the boat-house door, or would he be
+wandering along the dead, still river-bank? What should I say to him? O!
+he would speak. If he saw me he would have to speak.
+
+I soon forgot that I had met Richard, that I had been angry; and again
+I had but this one thought.
+
+The pine cones were slippery under my feet. I held by the old trees as I
+went down the bank, step by step. I had to turn and pass a clump of
+trees before I reached the boat-house door.
+
+I was there! With a beating heart I stepped up on the threshold. There
+were two doors, one that opened on the path, one that opened on the
+river. The house was empty. I had a little sinking pang of
+disappointment, but I passed on to the door looking out on the river. By
+this door was a seat, empty, but on this lay a book and a straw hat. I
+could feel the hot blushes cover my face, my neck, as I caught sight of
+these. I stooped down, feeling guilty, and took up the book. It was a
+book which he had read daily to me in our lesson-hours. It had his name
+on the blank page, and was full of his pencil-marks. I meant to ask him
+to give me this book; I would rather have it than anything the world
+held, when I should be parted from him. _When!_ I sat down on the seat
+beside the door, with the book lying in my lap, the straw hat on the
+bench. I longed to take it in my hands--to wreathe it with the clematis
+that grew about the door, as I had done one foolish, happy afternoon,
+not three weeks ago. But with a strange inconsistency, I dared not
+touch it; my face grew hot with blushes as I thought of it.
+
+How should I meet him? Now that the moment I had longed for had arrived,
+I wondered that I had dared to long for it. I felt that if I heard his
+step, I should fly and hide myself from him. The recollection of that
+last interview in the library--which I had lived over and over, nights
+and days, incessantly, since then, came back with fresh force, fresh
+vehemence. But no step approached me, all was silent; it began to
+impress me strangely, and I looked about me. I don't know at what moment
+it was, my eye fell upon the trace of footsteps on the bank, and then on
+the mark of the boat dragged along the sand; a little below the
+boat-house it had been pushed off into the water.
+
+I started to my feet, and ran down to the water's edge (at the
+boat-house the trees had been in the way of my seeing the river any
+distance).
+
+I stood still, the water lapping faintly on the sand at my feet; it was
+hardly a sound. I looked out on the unruffled lead-colored river: there,
+about quarter of a mile from the bank, the boat was lying: empty
+--motionless. The oars were floating a few rods from her, drifting
+slowly, slowly, down the stream.
+
+The sight seemed to turn my warm blood and blushes into ice: even
+before I had a distinct impression of what I feared, I was benumbed. But
+it did not take many moments for the truth, or a dread of it, to
+reach my brain.
+
+I covered my eyes with my hands, then sprang up the bank and called
+wildly.
+
+My voice was like a madwoman's, and it must have sounded far on that
+still air. In less than a moment Richard came hurrying with great
+strides down the path. I sprang to him, and caught his arm and dragged
+him to the water's edge.
+
+"Look," I whispered--pointing to the hat and book--and then out to the
+boat. I read his face in terror. It grew slowly, deadly white.
+
+"My God!" he said in a tone of awe. Then shaking me from him, sprang up
+the bank, and his voice was something fearful as he shouted, as he
+ran, for help.
+
+There were men laboring, two or three fields off. I don't know how long
+it took them to get to him, nor how long to get a boat out on the water,
+nor what boat it was. I know they had ropes and poles, and that they
+were talking in eager, hurried voices, as they passed me.
+
+I sat on the steps that led down the bank, clinging to the low railing
+with my hands: I had sunk down because my strength had given way all at
+once, and I felt as if everything were rocking and surging under me.
+Sometimes everything was black before me, and then again I could see
+plainly the wide expanse of the river, the wide expanse of the gray sky,
+and between them--the empty, motionless boat, and the floating oars
+beyond upon the tide.
+
+The voices of the men, and the splashing of the water, when at last they
+were launched and pulling away from shore, made a ringing, frightful
+noise in my head. I watched till I saw them reach the boat--till I saw
+one of them get over in it. Then while they groped about with ropes and
+poles, and lashed their boats together, and leaned over and gazed down
+into the water, I watched in a strange, benumbed state.
+
+But, by-and-by, there were some exclamations--a stir, and effort of
+strength. I saw them pulling in the ropes with combined movement. I saw
+them leaning over the side of the boat, nearest the shore, and together
+trying to lift something heavy over into it. I saw the water dripping as
+they raised it--and then I think I must have swooned. For I knew nothing
+further till I heard Richard's voice, and, raising my head, saw him
+leaping from the boat upon the bank. The other boat was further out, and
+was approaching slowly. I stood up as he came to me, and held by
+the railing.
+
+"I want you to go up to the house," he said, gently, "there can be no
+good in your staying here."
+
+"I will stay," I cried, everything coming back to me. "I will--will see
+him."
+
+"There is no hope, Pauline," he said, in a quick voice, for the boat was
+very near the bank, "or very little--and you must not stay. Everything
+shall be done that can be done. I will do all. But you must not stay."
+
+"I will," I said, frantically, trying to burst past him. He caught my
+arms and turned me toward the boat-house, and led me through it, out
+into the path that went up to the grove.
+
+"Go home," he said, in a voice I never shall forget. "You shall not make
+a spectacle for these men. I have promised you I will do all. Mind you
+obey me strictly, and go up to your room and wait there till I come."
+
+I don't know how I got there. I believe Bettina found me at the entrance
+to the garden, and helped me to the house, and put me on my bed.
+
+An hour passed--perhaps more--and such an hour! (for I was not for a
+moment unconscious, after this, only deadly faint and weak), and then
+Richard came. The door was a little open, and he pushed it back and
+came in, and stood beside the bed.
+
+I suppose the sight of me, so broken and spoiled by suffering, overcame
+him, for he stooped down suddenly, and kissed me, and then did not speak
+for a moment.
+
+At last he said, in a voice not quite steady, "I didn't mean to be hard
+on you, Pauline. But you know I had to do it."
+
+"And there isn't any--any--" I gasped for the words, and could hardly
+speak.
+
+"No, none, Pauline," he said, keeping my hand in his. "The doctors have
+just gone away. It was all no use."
+
+"Tell me about it," I whispered.
+
+"About what?" he said, looking troubled.
+
+"About how it happened."
+
+"Nobody can tell," he answered, averting his face. "We can only
+conjecture about some things. Don't try to think about it. Try to rest."
+
+"How does he look?" I whispered, clinging to his hand.
+
+"Just the same as ever; more quiet, perhaps," he answered, looking
+troubled.
+
+I gave a sort of gasp, but did not cry. I think he was frightened, for
+he said, uneasily, "Let me call Bettina; she can give you
+something--she can sit beside you."
+
+I shook my head, and said, faintly, "Don't let her come."
+
+"I have sent for Sophie," he said, soothingly. "She will soon be here,
+and will know what to do for you."
+
+"Keep her out of this room," I cried, half raising myself, and then
+falling back from sudden faintness. "Don't let her come _near_ me," I
+panted, after a moment, "nor any of them, but, most of all, Sophie;
+remember--don't let her even look at me;" and with moaning, I turned my
+face down on the pillow. I had taken in about a thousandth fraction of
+my great calamity by that time. Every moment was giving to me some
+additional possession of it.
+
+Some one at that instant called Richard, in that subdued tone that
+people use about a house in which there is one dead.
+
+"I have got to go," he said, uneasily. I still kept hold of his hand.
+"But I will come back before very long; and I will tell Bettina to bring
+a chair and sit outside your door, and not let any one come in."
+
+"That will do," I said, letting go his hand, "only I don't want my door
+shut tight."
+
+I felt as if the separation were not so entire, so tremendous, while I
+could hear what was going on below, and know that no door was shut
+between us--no door! Bettina, in a moment more, had taken up her station
+in the passage-way outside.
+
+I heard people coming and going quietly through the hall below. I heard
+doors softly shut and opened.
+
+I knew, by some intuition, that _he_ was lying in the library. They
+moved furniture with a smothered sound; and when I heard two or three
+men sent off on messages by Richard, even the horses' hoofs seemed to be
+muffled as they struck the ground. This was the effect of the coming in
+of death into busy, household life. I had never been under the roof with
+it before.
+
+About dusk a servant came to the door, with a tray of tea and something
+to eat, that Mr. Richard had sent her with.
+
+"No," I said, "don't leave it here."
+
+But, in a few moments, Richard himself brought it back. I can well
+imagine how anxious and unhappy he felt. He had, perhaps, never before
+had charge of any one ill or in trouble, and this was a strange
+experience.
+
+"You must eat something, Pauline," he said. "I want you to. Sit up, and
+take this tea."
+
+I was not inclined to dispute his will, but raised my head, and drank
+the tea, and ate a few mouthfuls of the biscuit. But that made me too
+ill, and I put the plate away from me.
+
+"I am very sorry," I said, meekly, "but I can't eat it. I feel as if it
+choked me."
+
+He seemed touched with my submissiveness, and, giving Bettina the tray,
+stood looking down at me as if he did not know how to say something that
+was in his mind. Suddenly my ear, always quick, now exaggeratedly so,
+caught sound of carriage-wheels. I started up and cried, "They are
+coming," and hid my face in my hands.
+
+"Don't be troubled," he said, "you shall not be disturbed."
+
+"Oh, Richard," I exclaimed, as he was going away, after another
+undecided movement as if to speak, "you know what I want."
+
+"Yes, I know," he said, in a low voice.
+
+"And now they're come, I cannot. They will see him, and I cannot."
+
+"Be patient. I will arrange for you to go. Don't, don't, Pauline."
+
+For I was in a sort of spasm, though no tears came, and my sobs were
+more like the gasps of a person being suffocated, than like one
+in grief.
+
+"If you will only be quiet, I will take you down, after a few hours,
+when they are all gone to their rooms. Pauline, you'll kill me; don't do
+so--Pauline, they'll hear you. Try not to do so; that's right--lie down
+and try to quiet yourself, poor child. I can't bear to go away; but
+there is Sophie on the stairs."
+
+He had scarcely time to reach the hall before Sophie burst upon him with
+almost a shriek.
+
+"What is this horrible affair, Richard? What a terrible disgrace and
+scandal! we never shall get over it. Will it get in the papers, do you
+think? I am so ill--I have been in such a state since the news came.
+Such a drive home as this has been! Oh, Richard, tell me all about it
+quickly. Where is Pauline? how does she bear it?" making for my door.
+
+Richard put out his hand and stopped her. I had sprung up from the bed,
+and stood, trembling violently, at the further extremity of the room. I
+do not know what I meant to do if she came in, for I was almost beside
+myself at that moment.
+
+She was persistent, angry, agitated. How well I knew the curiosity that
+made her so intent to gain admission to me. It was not so much that I
+dreaded being a spectacle, as the horror and hatred I felt at being
+approached by her coldness and hypocrisy, while I was so sore and
+wounded. I was hardly responsible; I don't think I could have borne the
+touch of her hand.
+
+But Richard saved me, and sent her away angry. I crept back to the bed,
+and lay down on it again. I heard the others whispering as they passed
+through the hall. Mary Leighton was crying; Charlotte was silent. I
+don't think I heard her voice at all.
+
+After a long while I heard them go down, and go into the dining-room.
+They spoke in very subdued tones, and there was only the slightest
+movement of china and silver, to indicate that a meal was going on. But
+this seemed to give me a more frantic sense of change than anything
+else. I flung myself across the bed, and another of those dreadful,
+tearless spasms seized me. Everything--all life--was going on just the
+same; even in this very house they were eating and drinking as they ate
+and drank before--the very people who had talked with him this day; the
+very table at which he had sat this morning. Oh! they were so heartless
+and selfish: every one was; life itself was. I did not know where to
+turn for comfort. I had a feeling of dreading every one, of shrinking
+away from every one.
+
+"Oh!" I said to myself, "if Richard is with them at the table, I never
+want to see him again."
+
+But Richard was not with them. In a moment or two he came to the door,
+only to ask me if I wanted anything, and to say he would come back
+by-and-by.
+
+There was a question which I longed so frantically to ask him, but
+which I dared not; my life seemed to hang on the answer. _When were they
+going to take him away?_ I had heard something about trains and
+carriages, and I had a wild dread that it was soon to be.
+
+I went to the door and called Richard back, and made him understand what
+I wanted to know. He looked troubled, and said in a low tone,
+
+"At four o'clock we go from here to meet the earliest train. I have
+telegraphed his friends, and have had an answer. I am going down myself,
+and it is all arranged in the best way, I think. Go and lie down now,
+Pauline; I will come and take you down soon as the house is quiet."
+
+Richard went away unconscious of the stab his news had given me. I had
+not counted on anything so sudden as this parting. While he was in the
+house, while I was again to look upon his face, the end had not come;
+there was a sort of hope, though only a hope of suffering, something to
+look forward to, before black monotony began its endless day.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+BESIDE HIM ONCE AGAIN.
+
+     There are blind ways provided, the foredone
+     Heart-weary player in this pageant world
+     Drops out by, letting the main masque defile
+     By the conspicuous portal.
+
+     _R. Browning_.
+
+
+     What is this world? What asken men to have?
+     Now with his love--now in his cold grave--
+     Alone, withouten any companie!
+
+     _Chaucer_.
+
+
+The tall old clock, which stood by the dining-room door, had struck two,
+and been silent many minutes, before Richard came to me. I had spent
+those dreadful hours in feverish restlessness: my room seemed
+suffocating to me. I had walked about, had put away my trinkets, I had
+changed my dress, and put on a white one which I had worn in the
+morning, and had tried to braid my hair.
+
+The quieting of the house, it seemed, would never come. It was twelve
+o'clock before any one came up-stairs. I heard one door after another
+shut, and then sat waiting and wondering why Richard did not come, till
+the moments seemed to grow to centuries. At last I heard him at the
+door, and I went toward it trembling, and followed him into the hall. He
+carried a light, for up-stairs it was all dark, and when we reached the
+stairway, he took my hand to lead me. I was trembling very much; the
+hall below was dimly lit by a large lamp which had been turned low. Our
+steps on the bare staircase made so much noise, though we tried to move
+so silently. It was weird and awful. I clung to Richard's hand in
+silence. He led me across the hall, and stopped before the library-door.
+He let go my hand, and taking a key from his pocket, put it in the lock,
+turned it slowly, then opened the door a little way, and motioned me
+to enter.
+
+Like one in a trance, I obeyed him, and went in alone. He shut the door
+noiselessly, and left me with the dead.
+
+That was the great, the immense hour of my life. No vicissitude, no
+calamity of this mortal state, no experience that may be to come, can
+ever have the force, the magnitude of this. All feelings, but a child's
+feelings, were comparatively new to me, and here, at one moment, I had
+put into my hand the plummet that sounded hell; anguish, remorse,
+fear--a woman's heart in hopeless pain. For I will not believe that any
+child, that any woman, had ever loved more absolutely, more
+passionately, than I had loved the man who lay there dead before me. But
+I cannot talk about what I felt in those moments; all that concerns what
+I write is the external.
+
+The--coffin was in the middle of the room, where the table ordinarily
+stood--where my chair had been that night, when he told me his story.
+Surely if I sinned, in thought, in word, _that_ night, I paid its full
+atonement, _this_. Candles stood on a small table at the head of where
+he lay, and many flowers were about the room. The smell of
+verbena-leaves filled the air: a branch of them was in a vase that some
+one had put beside his coffin. The fresh, cool night-air came in from
+the large window, open at the top.
+
+His face was, as Richard said, much as in life, only quieter. I do not
+know what length of time Richard left me there, but at last, I was
+recalled to the present, by his hand upon my shoulder, and his voice in
+a whisper, "Come with me now, Pauline."
+
+I rose to my feet, hardly understanding what he said, but resisted when
+I did understand him.
+
+"Come with me," he said, gently, "You shall come back again and say
+good-bye. Only come out into the hall and stay awhile with me; it is not
+good for you to be here so long."
+
+He took my hand and led me out, shutting the door noiselessly. He took
+me across the hall, and into the parlor, where there was no light,
+except what came in from the hall. There was a sofa opposite the door,
+and to that he led me, standing himself before me, with his perplexed
+and careworn face. I was very silent for some time: all that awful time
+in the library, I had never made a sound: but suddenly, some thought
+came that reached the source of my tears, and I burst into a passion of
+weeping. I am not sure what it was: I think, perhaps, the sight of the
+piano, and the recollection of that magnificent voice that would never
+be heard again, Whatever it was, I bless it, for I think it saved my
+brain. I threw myself down upon the sofa, and clung to Richard's hand,
+and sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed.
+
+Poor fellow! my tears seemed to shake him terribly. Once he turned away,
+and drew his hand across his brow, as if it were a little more than he
+could bear. But some men, like many women, are born to sacrifice.
+
+He tried to comfort and soothe me with broken words. But what was there
+to say?
+
+"Oh, Richard," I cried, "What does it all mean? why am I so punished?
+was it so very wicked to have loved him after I knew all? Was all this
+allowed to come because I did that? Answer me, tell me; tell me what
+you think."
+
+"No, Pauline, I don't think that was it. Don't talk about it now. Try to
+be quiet. You are not fit to think about it now."
+
+"But, Richard, what else can it mean? I know, I know that it is the
+truth. God wouldn't have sent such a punishment upon me if he hadn't
+seen my sin."
+
+"It's more likely He sent it to--" and then he paused.
+
+I know now he meant, it was more likely He had sent it to save me from
+the sins of others; but he had the holy charity not to say it.
+
+"Oh," I cried, passionately, "When all the sin was mine, that he should
+have had to die: when he never came near me, never looked at me: when he
+would rather die than break his word to me. That night in the library,
+after he had told me all, he said, 'I will never look into your eyes
+again, I will never touch your hand;' and though we were in the same
+room together after that, and in the same house all this time, and
+though he knew I loved him so--he never looked at me, he never turned
+his eyes upon me; and I--I was willing to sin for him--to die for him. I
+would have followed him to the ends of the earth, not twelve hours ago."
+
+"Hush, Pauline," said Richard huskily, "you don't know what you're
+saying--you are a child."
+
+"No, I'm not a child--after to-day, after to-night--I am not a
+child--and I know too well what I say--too well--too well. Richard, you
+don't know what has been in my heart. That night, he held me in his arms
+and kissed me--when he said good-bye. Then I was innocent, for I was
+dazed by grief and had not come to my senses, after what he told me. But
+to-day I said--_to-day_--to have his arms around me once again--to have
+him kiss me once again as he kissed me then--I would go away from all I
+ever had been taught of right and duty, and would be satisfied."
+
+"Then, thank God for what has come," said Richard, hoarsely, wiping from
+his forehead the great drops that had broken out upon it.
+
+"No!" I cried with a fresh burst of weeping. "No, I cannot thank God,
+for I want him back again. _I want him_. I had rather die than be
+separated from him. I cannot thank God for taking him away from me. Oh,
+Richard, what shall I do? I loved him, loved him so. Don't look so
+stern; don't turn away from me. You used to love me. Could you thank God
+for taking me away from you, out of your arms, warm, and strong, and
+living, and making me cold, and dumb, and stiff, like _that_?"
+
+"Yes, Pauline, if it had been to save us both from sin."
+
+"You don't know what love is, if you say that."
+
+"I know what sin is, better than you do, maybe. Listen, Pauline. I've
+loved you ever since I saw you; men don't often love better than I have
+loved you; but I'd rather drag you, to-night, to that black river there,
+and hold you down with my own hands till the breath left your body, than
+see you turn into a sinful woman, and lead the life of shame you tell me
+you had it in your heart to lead, to-day."
+
+"Is it so very awful?" I whispered with a shiver, my own emotion stilled
+before his. "I only loved him!"
+
+"Forget you ever did," he said, rising, and pacing up and down the room.
+
+I put my hands before my face, and felt as if I were alone in the world
+with sin. If this unspoken, passionate, sweet thought, that I had
+harbored, were so full of danger as to force God to blast me with such
+punishment, as to drive this tender, generous, loving man to wish me
+dead, what must be the blackness of the sin from which I had been saved,
+if I were saved? If there were, indeed, anything but shocks of woe and
+punishment, and deadly despair and darkness, in this strange world in
+which I found myself. There was a silence. I rose to my feet. I don't
+know what I meant to do or where to go; my only impulse was to hide
+myself from the eyes of my companion, and to go away from him, as I had
+hidden myself from all others, since I was smitten with this
+chastisement.
+
+"Forgive me, Pauline," he said, coming to my side. "It is the second
+time I have been harsh with you this dreadful day. This is what comes of
+selfishness. I hope you will forget what I have said."
+
+I still turned to go away, feeling afraid of him and ashamed before him.
+He put out his hand to stop me.
+
+"Pauline, remember, I have been sorely tried. I would do anything to
+comfort you. I haven't another wish in my heart but to be of use
+to you."
+
+"Oh, Richard," I cried, bursting into tears afresh, and hiding my eyes,
+"if you give me up and drive me away from you, I am all alone. There
+isn't another human being that I love or that cares for me. Dear
+Richard, do be good to me; do be sorry for me."
+
+"I am sorry for you, Pauline; you know that."
+
+"And you will take care of me?" I cried, stretching out my arms toward
+him, with a sudden overwhelming sense of my loneliness and destitution.
+
+"Yes, Pauline, to the end of my life or of yours; as if you were my
+sister or almost my child."
+
+"Dear Richard," I whispered, as I buried my face on his arm, "if it were
+not for you I should not live through this dreadful time. I hope I shall
+die soon; as soon as I am better. But till I do die, I hope you will be
+good to me, and love me." And I pressed his hand against my cheek and
+lips, like the poor, frantic, grief-bewildered child that I was.
+
+At this moment there came a sound of movement in the stables: I heard
+one of the heavy doors thrown open, and a man leading a horse across the
+stable-floor. (The windows were open and the night was very still.)
+Richard started, and looked uneasily at his watch, stepping to the door
+to get the light.
+
+"How late is it?" I faltered.
+
+"Half-past three," he said, turning his eyes away, as if he could not
+bear the sight of my face. I do not like to remember the dreadful
+moments that followed this: the misery that I put upon Richard by my
+passionate, ungoverned grief. I threw myself upon the floor, I clung to
+his knees, I prayed him to delay the hour of going--another hour,
+another day. I said all the wild and frantic things that were in my
+heart, as he closed the library-door and led me to my room.
+
+"Try to say your prayers, Pauline," was all he could answer me.
+
+I did try to say them, as I knelt by the window, and saw in the dull,
+gray dawn, those two carriages drive slowly from the door.
+
+Richard went away alone. Kilian indeed came down-stairs just as he was
+starting.
+
+Sophie had awakened, and called him into her room for a few moments.
+
+Then he came down, and I saw him get into the carriage alone, and motion
+the man to drive on, after that other--which stood waiting a few rods
+farther on.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+A JOURNEY.
+
+     He, full of modesty and truth,
+     Loved much, hoped little, and desired nought.
+
+     _Tasso_.
+
+
+     Fresh grief can occupy itself
+       With its own recent smart;
+     It feeds itself on outward things,
+       And not on its own heart.
+
+     _Faber_
+
+
+A thing which surprises me very much in looking over those days of
+suffering, is, that during that day a frightful irritability is the
+emotion that I most remember--an irritability of feeling, not of
+expression: for I lay quite still upon the bed all day, and only
+answered, briefly and simply, the questions of Sophie and the maid.
+
+I could not sleep: it was many hours since I had slept: but nothing
+seemed further from possibility than sleeping. The lightest sound
+enraged my nerves: the approach of any one made me frantic. I lay with
+my hands crushed together, and my teeth against each other, whenever
+Sophie entered the room.
+
+She tried to be sympathetic and kind: but she was not much encouraged.
+Toward afternoon, she left me a good deal alone. "I wonder how people
+feel when they are going mad," I said, getting up and putting cold water
+on my head. I was so engaged with the strange sensations that pursued
+me, that I did not dwell upon my trouble.
+
+"Is this the way you feel when you are going to die? or what happens if
+you never go to sleep?" My body was so young and healthy, that it was
+making a good fight.
+
+Just at dusk, Richard returned. In a little while, about half an hour,
+Sophie came and told me Richard would like to see me in her little
+dressing-room.
+
+The day of panic and horror was over, and proprieties must begin their
+sway. I felt I hated Sophie for making me go out of my own room, but I
+pulled a shawl over my shoulders and followed her across the hall into
+her little room. There Richard was waiting for me. He gave me a chair,
+and then said, "You needn't wait, Sophie," and sat down beside me.
+
+Sophie went away half angry, and Richard looked at me uneasily.
+
+"I thought you'd want to see me," he said.
+
+"Yes," I answered; "I wish you'd tell me everything," but in so
+commonplace a voice, I know that he was startled.
+
+"You do not feel well, do you? Maybe we'd better not talk about it now."
+
+"Oh, yes. You might as well tell me all to-night."
+
+"Well, everything is done. The two persons to whom I telegraphed met me
+at the station. There was very little delay. I went with them to the
+cemetery."
+
+"I am very glad of that. I thought perhaps you wouldn't go. Was there a
+clergyman, or don't they have a clergyman when--when--"
+
+"There was a clergyman," said Richard, briefly.
+
+"I hope you'll take me there some time," I said dreamily. "Should you
+know where to go--exactly?"
+
+"Exactly," he answered. "But, Pauline, I am afraid you havn't rested at
+all to-day. Have you slept?"
+
+"No; and I wish I could; my head feels so strangely--light, you
+know--and as if I couldn't think."
+
+"Haven't you seen the Doctor?"
+
+"No--and that's what I want to say. I _won't_ have the Doctor here; and
+I want you to take me home to-morrow morning, early, I have put a good
+many of my clothes into my trunk, and Bettina will help me with the
+rest to-night. Isn't there any train before the five o'clock?"
+
+"No," said Richard, uneasily. "Pauline, I think you'd better not arrange
+to go away to-morrow."
+
+"If you don't take me out of this house I shall go mad. I have been
+thinking about it all day, and I know I shall."
+
+Richard was silent for a moment, then, with the wise instinct of
+affection, wonderful in man, and in a man who had had no experience in
+dealing with diseased or suffering minds, he acquiesced in my plan to
+go; told me that we would take the earliest train, and interested me in
+thoughts about my packing. About nine o'clock he came to my room-door,
+and I heard some one with him. It was the Doctor.
+
+I turned upon Richard a fierce look, and said, very quietly, he might go
+away, for I would not see the Doctor. After that, they tried me with
+Sophie, but with less success; and, finally, Richard came back alone,
+with a glass in his hand.
+
+"Take this, Pauline, it will make you sleep."
+
+I wanted to sleep very much, so I took it.
+
+Bettina had finished my packing, and had laid my travelling dress and
+hat upon a chair.
+
+"Shall Bettina come and sleep on the floor, by your bed?" asked Richard,
+anxiously.
+
+"No, I would not have her for the world."
+
+"Maybe you might not wake in time," said Richard, warily.
+
+That was very true: so I let Bettina come. Richard gave her some
+instructions at the door, and she came in and arranged things for the
+night, and lay down on a mattress at the foot of my bed.
+
+The sedative which the Doctor sent did not work very well. I had very
+little sleep, and that full of such hideous, freezing dreams, that every
+time I woke, I found Bettina standing by my bed, looking at me with
+alarm. I had been screaming and moaning, she said, The screaming and
+moaning and sleeping (such as it was), were all over in about two hours,
+and then I had the rest of the night to endure, with the same strange,
+light feeling in my head--the restlessness not much, but
+somewhat abated.
+
+I was very glad that Bettina was in the room, for though she was sleepy,
+and always a little stupid, she was human, and I was a coward, both in
+the matter of loneliness and of suffering. I made her sit by me, and
+take hold of my hand, and I asked her several times if she had ever been
+with any one that died, or that--I did not quite dare to ask her about
+going mad.
+
+My questions seemed to trouble her. She crossed herself, and shuddered,
+and said, No, she had never been with any one that died, and she prayed
+the good God never to let her be.
+
+"You'll have to be with one person that dies, Bettina. That's yourself.
+You know it's got to come. We've all got to go out at that gate," and I
+moaned, and turned my face away.
+
+"Let me call Mr. Richard," said Bettina, very much afraid. I would have
+given all the world to have seen Richard then; but I knew it was
+impossible, and I said, No, it would soon be morning.
+
+Long before morning, I heard Richard up and walking about the house. We
+were to leave the house at half-past four. By four, all the trunks, and
+shawls, and packages, were strapped and ready, and I was sitting
+dressed, and waiting by the window.
+
+Bettina liked very much better to pack trunks, and put rooms in order,
+than to sit still and hold a person's hot hands, in the middle of the
+night, and have dreadful questions asked her; and she had been very
+active and efficient. Soon Richard called her to come down and take my
+breakfast up to me. I could not eat it, and it was taken away. Then the
+carriage came, and the wagon to take the baggage. Finally, Richard came,
+and told me it was time to start, if I were ready.
+
+Sophie came into the room in a wrapper, looking very dutiful and
+patient, and said all that was dutiful and civil. But I suppose I was a
+fiery trial to her, and she wished, no doubt, that she had never seen
+me, or better, that Richard never had. All this I felt, through her
+decently framed good-bye, but I did not care at all; to be out of her
+sight as soon as possible, was all that I requested.
+
+When we went down in the hall, Richard looked anxiously at me, but I did
+not feel as if I had ever been there before; I really had no feeling. I
+said good-bye to Bettina, who was the only servant that I saw, and
+Richard put me into the carriage. When, we drove away, I did not even
+look back. As we passed out of the gate, I said to him, "What day of the
+month is it to-day?"
+
+"It is the first of September," he returned.
+
+"And when did I come here?" I asked.
+
+"Early in June, was it not?" he said. "You know I was not here."
+
+"Then it is not three months," and I leaned back wearily in the
+carriage, and was silent.
+
+Before we reached the city, Richard had good reason to think that I was
+very ill. He made me as comfortable as he could, poor fellow! but I was
+so restless, I could not keep in one position two minutes at a time.
+Several times I turned to him and said, "It is suffocating in this car;
+cannot the window be put up?" and when it was put up, I would seem to
+feel no relief, and in a few moments, perhaps, would be shaking with a
+nervous chill. It must have been a miserable journey, as I remember it.
+Once I said to Richard, after some useless trouble I had put him to, "I
+am very sorry, Richard, I don't know how to help it, I feel so
+dreadfully."
+
+Richard tried to answer, but his voice was husky, and he bent his head
+down to arrange the bundle of shawls beneath my feet. I knew that there
+were tears in his eyes, and that that was the reason that he did not
+speak. It made me strangely, momentarily grateful.
+
+"How strange that you should be so good," I said dreamily, "when Sophie
+is so hateful, and Kilian is so trifling. I think your mother must have
+been a good woman."
+
+I had never talked about Richard's mother before, never even thought
+whether he had had one or not, in my supreme and light-hearted
+selfishness. But the mind, at such a point as I was then, makes strange
+plunges out of its own orbit.
+
+"And she died when you were little?"
+
+"Yes, when I was scarcely twelve years old."
+
+"A woman ought to be very good when it makes so much difference to her
+children. Richard, did my uncle ever tell you anything about my
+mother--what sort of a woman she was, and whether I am like her?"
+
+"He never said a great deal to me about it," Richard answered, not
+looking at me as he talked. "He thinks you are like her, very
+strikingly, I believe."
+
+"Think! I haven't even a scrap of a picture of her, and no one has ever
+talked to me about her. All I have are some old yellow letters to my
+father, written before I was born. I think she loved my father very
+much. The noise of these cars makes me feel so strangely. Can't we go
+into the one behind? I am sure it cannot be so bad."
+
+"This is the best car on the train, Pauline. I know the noise is very
+bad, but try to bear it for a little while. We shall soon be there." And
+so on, through the weary journey.
+
+At one station Richard got out, and I saw him speaking to several men. I
+believe he was hoping to find a doctor, for he was thoroughly
+frightened.
+
+Before we reached the city I was past being frightened for myself, for I
+was suffering too much to think of what might be the result of my
+condition. When we left the cars, and Richard put me in a carriage, the
+motion of the carriage and its jarring over the stones were almost
+unendurable. Richard was too anxious now to say much to me. The
+expression of relief on his face as we reached Varick-street was
+unspeakable. He hurried up the steps and rang the bell, then came back
+for me, and half carried me up the steps.
+
+The door was opened by Ann Coddle, who was thrown into a helpless state
+of amazement by seeing me, not knowing why in this condition I did come,
+or why I came at all. She shrieked, and ejaculated, and backed almost
+down the basement stairs. Richard sternly told her she was acting like a
+fool, and ordered her to show him where Miss Pauline's room was, that he
+might take her to it.
+
+"But her room isn't ready," ejaculated Ann, coming to herself, which was
+a wretched thing to come to, as poor Richard found.
+
+"Not ready? well, make it ready, then. Go before me and open the
+windows, and I will put her on the sofa till you have the bed ready
+for her."
+
+"The sofa--oh, Mr. Richard, it's all full of her dear clothes that have
+come up from the wash."
+
+"Well, then, take them off--idiot--and do as you are told."
+
+"Oh, Miss Pauline--oh, my poor, dear lamb. Oh, I'm all in a flutter; I
+don't know what to do. I'd better call the cook."
+
+"Well, call the cook, then," said Richard, groaning, "only tell her to
+be quick."
+
+All this time Richard was supporting me up the stairs. As we reached the
+top, Richard called out, "Tell Peter I want him at once, to take a
+message for me."
+
+Ann was watching our progress up the stairs, with groans and
+ejaculations, forgetting that she was to call the cook. At the mention
+of Peter she exclaimed,
+
+"He's laid up with the rheumatism, Mr. Richard. Oh, whatever shall we
+do!"
+
+When we reached the middle of the second pair of stairs, I was almost
+helpless; Richard took me in his arms, and carried me.
+
+"Is it this door, Pauline dear?" he said, opening the first he came to.
+
+I should think the room had not been opened since I went away, it was so
+warm and close.
+
+Richard carried me to the sofa, and scattered the _lingerie_ far and
+wide as he laid me down upon it, and went to open the windows. Then he
+went to the bell and pulled it violently. In a few moments the cook came
+up (accompanied by Ann). She was a huge, unwieldy woman, but she had
+some intelligence, and knew better than to whimper.
+
+"Miss Pauline is ill," he said, "and I want you to stay by her, and not
+leave her for a moment, till I come back. Make that woman get the room
+in order instantly, and keep everything as quiet as you can." To me: "I
+am going to bring a doctor, and I shall be back in a few moments. Do not
+worry, they will take good care of you."
+
+When I heard Richard shut the carriage-door and drive away rapidly, I
+felt as if I were abandoned, and by the time he returned with the
+Doctor, I was in a state that warranted them in supposing me
+unconscious, tossing and moaning, and uttering inarticulate words.
+
+The Doctor stood beside me, and talked about me to Richard with as much
+freedom as if I had been a corpse.
+
+"I may as well be frank with you," he said, after a few moments of
+examination. "I apprehend great trouble from the brain. How long has she
+been in this condition?"
+
+"She has been unlike herself since yesterday; as soon as I saw her, at
+seven o'clock last night, I noticed she was looking badly. She answered
+me in an abstracted, odd way, and was unlike herself, as I have said.
+But she had been under much excitement for some time."
+
+"Tell me, if you please, all about it; and how long she has been under
+this excitement."
+
+"She has been often agitated, and quite overstrained in feeling for some
+time. Three weeks ago I thought her looking badly. Two days ago she had
+a frightful shock--a suicide--which she was the first to discover. Since
+then I do not think that she has slept."
+
+"Ah! poor young lady. She has had a terrible experience, and is paying
+for it. Now for what we can do for her. In the first place, who takes
+care of her?" with a look about the room.
+
+"You may well ask. I have just brought her home, and find here, the
+man-servant ill, one woman too old and inactive to perform much service,
+and another to whom I would not trust her for a moment. I must ask
+_you_, who shall I get to take care of her?"
+
+"You have no friend, no one to whom you could send in such a case? One
+of life and death,--I hope you understand?"
+
+"None," answered Richard, with a groan. "There is not a person in the
+city to whom I could send for help. All my family--all our friends, are
+away. Is there no one that can be got for money--any money? no nurse
+that you could recommend?"
+
+"I have a list of twenty. Yesterday I sent to every one, for a dangerous
+case of hemorrhage, and could not find one disengaged. It may be
+to-morrow night before you get on the track of one that is at liberty,
+if you hunt the city over. And this girl is in need of instant care; her
+life hangs on it, you must see."
+
+"In God's name, then," said Richard, with a groan, pacing up and down
+the room, "what am I to do?"
+
+"In _His_ name, if you come, to that," said the Doctor, who was a good
+sort of man, notwithstanding his professional cool ways, "there is a
+sisterhood, that I am told offer to do things like this. I never sent to
+them, for I only heard of it a short time ago; but if you have no
+objection to crosses, and caps, and ritualistic nonsense in its highest
+flower, I have no doubt, that they will let you have a sister, and that
+she'll do good service here."
+
+"The direction," said Richard, too eager to be civil. "How am I to get
+there?"
+
+The Doctor pulled over a pocket-case of loose papers, and at last found
+one, which he handed his companion.
+
+"I give you three quarters of an hour to get back," he said. "I will
+stay here till then, at all events. Do not waste any time--nor spare any
+eloquence," he added to himself, as Richard hurried from the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+SISTER MADELINE.
+
+     Yes! it is well for us: from these alarms,
+     Like children scared, we fly into thine arms;
+     And pressing sorrows put our pride to rout
+     With a swift faith which has not time to doubt.
+
+     _Faber._
+
+
+     Learn by a mortal yearning to ascend
+     Towards a higher object. Love was given,
+     Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end;
+     For this the passion to excess was driven---
+     That self might be annulled; her bondage prove
+     The fetters of a dream, opposed to love.
+
+     _Wordsworth_.
+
+
+The next thing that I recall, is rousing from slumber, or something
+related to slumber, and seeing a tall woman in the dress of a sister,
+standing by my bed. It was night, and there was a lamp upon a table
+near. The unusual dress, and the unfamiliarity of her whole appearance,
+made me start and stare at her, half raising myself in the bed.
+
+"Why did you come here?" I said. "Who sent for you?"
+
+"I came because you were sick and suffering, and I was sent in the Name
+----" and bending her head slightly, she said a Name too sacred for
+these pages.
+
+I gave a great sigh of relief, and sank back on my pillow. Her answer
+satisfied me, for I was not able to reason. I let her hold my hand; and
+all through that dark and troubled time submitted to her will, and
+desired her presence, and was soothed by her voice and touch.
+
+Sister Madeline was not at all the ideal sister, being tall and dark,
+and with nothing peculiarly devotional or pensive in her cast of
+feature. Her face was a fine, earnest one. Her movements were full of
+energy and decision, though not quick or sharp. The whole impression
+left was that of one by nature far from humility, tenderness, devotion;
+but, by the force of a magnificent faith, made passionately humble,
+devout from the very heart, more than humanly compassionate and tender.
+
+I never felt toward her as if she were "born so"--but as if she were
+rescued from the world by some great effort or experience; as if it were
+all "made ground," reclaimed from nature by infinite patience and
+incessant labor. She lived the life of an angel upon the earth. I never
+saw her, by look, by word, or tone, transgress the least of the
+commandments, so wonderful was the curb she held over all her human
+feelings. Nor was this perfection attained by a sudden and grand
+sacrifice; the consecration of herself to the religious life was not the
+"single step 'twixt earth and heaven," but it was attained by daily and
+hourly study--by the practice of a hundred self-denials--by the most
+accurate science of spiritual progress.
+
+Doubtless, saints can be made in other ways, but this is one way they
+can be made, starting with a sincere intention to serve God. At least,
+so I believe, from knowing Sister Madeline.
+
+She made a great change in my life, and I owe her a great deal. It is
+not strange I feel enthusiasm for her. I cannot bear to think what my
+coming back to life would have been without her.
+
+Of the alarming nature of my illness, I only know that there were
+several days when Richard never left the house, but waited, hour after
+hour, in the library below, for the news of my condition, and when even
+Uncle Leonard came home in the middle of the day, and walked about the
+house, silent and unapproachable.
+
+One night--how well I remember it! I had been convalescent, I do not
+know how long; I had passed the childish state of interest in my
+_bouilli_, and fretfulness about my _peignoir_; my mind had begun to
+regain its ordinary power, and with the first efforts of memory and
+thought had come fearful depression and despondency. I was so weak,
+physically, that I could not fight against this in the least. Sister
+Madeline came to my bedside, and found me in an agony of weeping. It was
+not an easy matter to gain my confidence, for I thought she knew nothing
+of me, and I was not equal to the mental effort of explaining myself;
+she was only associated with my illness. But at last she made me
+understand that she was not ignorant of a great deal that troubled me.
+
+"Who has told you?" I said, my heart hardening itself against Richard,
+who could have spoken of my trouble to a stranger.
+
+"You, yourself," she answered me.
+
+"I have raved?" I said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And who has heard me?"
+
+"No one else. I sent every one else from the room whenever your delirium
+became intelligible."
+
+This made me grateful toward her; and I longed for sympathy. I threw my
+arms about her and wept bitterly.
+
+"Then you know that I can never cry enough," I said.
+
+"I do not know that," she answered. After a vain attempt to soothe me
+with general words of comfort, she said, with much wisdom, "Tell me
+exactly what thought gives you the most pain, now, at this moment."
+
+"The thought of his dreadful act, and that by it he has lost his soul."
+
+"We know with Whom all things are possible," she said, "and we do not
+know what cloud may have been over his reason at that moment. Would it
+comfort you to pray for him?"
+
+"Ought I?" I asked, raising my head.
+
+"I do not know any reason that you ought not," she returned. "Shall I
+say some prayers for him now?"
+
+I grasped her hand: she took a little book from her pocket, and knelt
+down beside me, holding my hand in hers. Oh, the mercy, the relief of
+those prayers! They may not have done him any good, but they did me. The
+hopeless grief that was killing me, I "wept it from my heart" that hour.
+
+"Promise me one thing," I whispered as she rose, "that you will read
+that prayer, every hour during the day, to-morrow, by my bed, whether I
+am sleeping or awake."
+
+"I promise," she said, and I am sure she kept her word, that day and
+many others after it.
+
+During my convalescence, which was slow, I had no other person near me,
+and wanted none. Uncle Leonard came in once a day, and spent a few
+minutes, much to his discomfort and my disadvantage. Richard I had not
+seen at all, and dreaded very much to meet. Ann Coddle fretted me, and
+was very little in the room.
+
+Over these days there is a sort of peace. I was entering upon so much
+that was new and elevating, under the guidance of Sister Madeline, and
+was so entirely influenced by her, that I was brought out of my trouble
+wonderfully. Not out of it, of course, but from under its crushing
+weight. I know that I am rather easily influenced, and only too ready to
+follow those who have won my love. Therefore, I am in every way thankful
+that I came at such a time under the influence of a mind like that of
+Sister Madeline.
+
+But the time was approaching for her to go away. I was well enough to do
+without her, and she had other duties. The sick-room peace and
+indulgence were over, and I must take up the burden of every-day life
+again. I was very unhappy, and felt as if I were without stay
+or guidance.
+
+"To whom am I to go when I am in doubt?" I said; "you will be so far
+away."
+
+"That is what I want to arrange: the next time you are able to go out, I
+want to take you to some one who can direct you much better than I."
+
+"A priest?" I asked. "Tell me one thing: will he give me absolution?"
+
+"I suppose he will, if he finds that you desire it."
+
+"What would be the use of going to him for anything else?" I said. "It
+is the only thing that can give me any comfort."
+
+"All people do not feel so, Pauline."
+
+"But you feel so, dear Sister Madeline, do you not? You can understand
+how I am burdened, and how I long to have the bands undone?"
+
+"Yes, Pauline, I can understand."
+
+I am not inclined to give much weight to my own opinions, and as for my
+feelings, I know they were, then, those of a child, and in many ways
+will always be. I can only say what comforted me, and what I longed for.
+There had always been great force to me, in the Scripture that says,
+"Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whosesoever
+sins ye retain, they are retained," even before I felt the burden of
+my sins.
+
+I had once seen the ordination of a priest, and I suppose that added to
+the weight of the words ever after in my mind. I never had any doubt of
+the power then conferred, and I no sooner felt the guilt and stain of
+sin upon my soul, than I yearned to hear the pardon spoken, that Heaven
+offered to the penitent. I had been tangibly smitten; I longed to be
+tangibly healed.
+
+Whatever shame and pain there was about laying bare my soul before
+another, I gladly embraced it, as one poor means at my command of
+showing to Him whom I had offended, that my repentance was actual, that
+I stopped at no humiliation.
+
+It may very well be that these feelings would find no place in larger,
+grander, more self-reliant natures; that what healed my soul would only
+wound another. I am not prepared to think that one remedy is cure for
+all diseases, but I know what cured mine. I bless God for "the soothing
+hand that Love on Conscience laid." I mark that hour as the beginning of
+a fresh and favored life; the dawning of a hope that has not yet
+lost its power
+
+                                "to tame
+     The haughty brow, to curb the unchastened eye,
+     And shape to deeds of good each wavering aim."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE HOUR OF DAWN.
+
+     Slowly light came, the thinnest dawn,
+       Not sunshine, to my night;
+     A new, more spiritual thing,
+       An advent of pure light.
+
+     All grief has its limits, all chastenings their pause;
+     Thy love and our weakness are sorrow's two laws.
+
+
+The winter that followed seemed very long and uneventful. After Sister
+Madeline went away, my days settled themselves into the routine in which
+they continued to revolve for many months. I was as lonely as formerly,
+save for the companionship of well-chosen books, and for the direction
+of another mind, which I felt to be the truest support and guidance. I
+was taught to bend to my uncle's wishes, and to give up constant
+church-going, and visiting among the poor, which would have been such a
+resource and occupation to me. And so my life, outwardly, was very
+little changed from former years--years that I had found almost
+insupportable, without any sorrow; and yet, strange to say, I was
+not unhappy.
+
+My hours were full of little duties, little rules. (I suppose my heart
+was in them, or I should have found them irksome.) Above all, I was not
+permitted to brood over the past: I was taught to feel that every
+thought of it indulged, was a sin, and to be accounted for as such: I
+could only remember the one for whom I mourned, on my knees, in my
+prayers. This checked, as nothing else could have done, the morbid
+tendency of grief, in a lonely, unoccupied, undisciplined mind. I was
+thoroughly obedient, and bent myself with all simplicity to follow the
+instructions given me. Sometimes they seemed very irrelevant and
+useless, but I never rebelled against any, even one that seemed as hard
+to flesh and blood as this. And I have, sooner or later, seen the wisdom
+of them all, as I have worked out the problem of my correction.
+
+Obedient as I was, though, and simple as the routine of my life
+continued, sometimes there came crises that were beyond my strength.
+
+I can remember one; it was a furious storm--a day that nailed one in the
+house. There was something in the rage without that disturbed me; I
+wandered about the house, and found myself unable to settle to any task.
+Some one to speak to! Oh, it was so dreary to be alone. I went into my
+uncle's room where there were many books. Among those that were there I
+found one in French, (I have no idea how it came there, I am sure my
+uncle had never read it.) I carelessly turned it over, and finally
+became absorbed in it. I came upon this passage:
+
+     Quel plus noir abîme d'angoisse y a-t-il an monde que le
+     coeur d'un suicide? Quand le malheur d'un homme est dû à
+     quelque circonstance de sa vie, on pent espérer de l'en voir
+     délivrer par un changement qui pent survenir dans sa
+     position. Mais lorsque ce malheur a sa source en lui; quand
+     c'est l'âme elle-même qui est le tourment de l'âme; la vie
+     elle-même qui est le fardeau de la vie; que faire, que de
+     reconnaître en gémissant qu'il n'y a rien à faire--rien,
+     selon le monde; et qu'un tel homme, plus à plaindre que ce
+     prisonnier que l'histoire nous peint dans les angoisses de la
+     faim, se repaissant de sa propre chair, est réduit à dévorer
+     la substance même de son âme dans les horreurs de son
+     désespoir. Et qu'imagine-t-il done pour échapper à lui-même,
+     comme à son plus cruel ennemi? Je ne dis pas: 'Où ira-t-il
+     loin de l'esprit de Dieu? où fuira-t-il loin de sa face?' Je
+     demande, où ira-t-il loin de son propre esprit? où fuira-t-il
+     loin de sa propre face? Où descendra-t-il qu'il ne s'y suive
+     lui-même; où se cachera-t-il qu'il ne s'y trouve encore?
+     Insensé, dont la folie égale la misère, quand tu te seras
+     tué, on dira: 'Il est mort;' mais ce sont les autres qui le
+     diront; ce ne sera pas toi-même. Tu seras mort pour ton
+     pays, mort pour ta ville, mort pour ta famille; mais pour
+     toi-même, pour ce qui pense en toi, hélas! pour ce qui
+     souffre en toi, tu vivras toujours.
+
+     Et comment ne sens-tu pas, que pour cesser d'être malheureux,
+     ce n'est pas ta place qu'il faut changer, c'est ton coeur.
+     Que tu disparaisses sous les flots, qu'un plomb meurtrier
+     brise ta tête, ou qu'un poison subtil glace tes veines; quoi
+     que tu fasses, et où que tu ailles, tu n'y peux aller qu'avec
+     toi-même, qu'avec ton coeur, qu'avec ta misère! Que dis-je?
+     Tu y vas avec un compte de plus à rendre, à la rencontre du
+     grand Dieu qui doit te juger; tu y vas avec l'éternité de
+     plus pour souffrir, et le temps de moins pour te repentir!
+
+     A moins que tu ne penses peut-être, parceque l'oeil de
+     l'homme n'a rien vu au-delà de la tombe, que cette vie n'ait
+     pas de suite. Mais non, tu ne saurais le croire! Quand tous
+     les autres le penseraient, toi, tu ne le pourrais pas. Tu as
+     une preuve d'immortalité qui t'appartient en propre. Cette
+     tristesse qui te consume, est quelque chose de trop intime et
+     de trop profond pour se dissoudre avec tes organes, et ce qui
+     est capable de tant souffrir ne pent pas s'aller perdre dans
+     la terre. Les vers hériteront de la poussière de ton corps,
+     mais l'amertume de ton âme, qui en héritera? Ces extases
+     sublimes, ces tourments affreux; ces hauteurs des cieux, ces
+     profondeurs des abîmes; qu'y a-t-il d'assez grand ou d'assez
+     abaissé, d'assez élevé ou d'assez avili pour les revêtir en
+     ta place? Non, tu ne saurais jamais croire que tout meurt
+     avec le corps; ou si tu le pouvais tu n'en serais que plus
+     insensé, plus misérable encore.
+
+It is proof how child-like I had been, how obedient in suppressing all
+forbidden thoughts, that these words smote me with such horror. I had
+indulged in no speculation; I had never thought of him as haunted by the
+self he fled; as still bound to an inexorable and inextinguishable life,
+
+                     "With time and hope behind him cast,
+     And all his work to do with palsied hands and cold."
+
+The terrors I had had, had been vague. I had thought dimly of
+punishment, more keenly of separation. If I had analysed my thoughts, I
+suppose I should have found annihilation to have been my belief--death
+forever, loss eternal. But this--if this were truth--(and it smote me as
+the truth alone can smite), oh, it was maddening. To my knees! To my
+knees! Oh, that I might live long years to pray for him! Oh, that I
+might stretch out my hands to God for him, withered with age and shrunk
+with fasting, and strong but in faith and final perseverance! Oh, it
+could not be too late! What was prayer made for, but for a time like
+this? What was this little breath of time, compared with the Eternal
+Years, that we should only speak _now_ for each other to our merciful
+God, and never speak for each other afterward? Spirits are forever; and
+is prayer only for the days of the body?
+
+It was well for me that none of the doubts that are so often expressed
+had found any lodgment in my brain; if I had not believed that I had a
+right to pray for him, and that my prayers might help him, I cannot
+understand how I could have lived through those nights and days
+of thought.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+APRSÉ PERDRE, PERD ON BIEN.
+
+     What to those who understand
+     Are to-day's enjoyments narrow,
+     Which to-morrow go again,
+     Which are shared with evil men,
+     And of which no man in his dying
+     Taketh aught for softer lying?
+
+
+It was now early spring: the days were lengthening and were growing
+soft. Lent (late that year) was nearly over. I had begun to think much
+about the summer, and to wonder if I were to pass it in the city. There
+was one thing that the winter had developed in me, and that was, a sort
+of affection for my uncle. I had learned that I owed him a duty, and had
+tried to find ways of fulfilling it; had taken a little interest in the
+house, and had tried to make him more comfortable. Also I had prayed
+very constantly for him, and perhaps there is no way more certain of
+establishing an affection, or at least a charity for another, than that.
+
+In return, he had been a little more human to me than formerly, had
+shown some interest in my health, and continued appreciation of the fact
+that I was in the house. Once he had talked to me, for perhaps half an
+hour, about my mother, for which I was unspeakably grateful. Several
+times he had given me a good deal of money, which I had cared much less
+about. Latterly he had permitted me to go to church alone, which had
+seemed to me must be owing to Richard's intervention.
+
+Richard had been almost as much as formerly at the house: my uncle was
+becoming more and more dependent on him. For myself, I did not see as
+much of him as the year before. We were always together at the table, of
+course. But the evenings that Richard was with my uncle, I thought it
+unnecessary for me to stay down-stairs. Besides, now, they almost always
+had writing or business affairs to occupy them.
+
+It was natural that I should go away, and no one seemed to notice it.
+Richard still brought me books, still arranged things for me with my
+uncle (as in the matter of going to church alone), but we had no more
+talks together by ourselves, and he never asked me to go anywhere with
+him. At Christmas he sent me beautiful flowers, and a picture for my
+room. Sophie I rarely saw, and only longed never to see Benny was
+permitted to come and spend a day with me, at great intervals, and I
+enjoyed him more than his mother or his uncle.
+
+One day my uncle went down to his office in his usual health; at three
+o'clock he was brought home senseless, and only lived till midnight,
+dying without recovering speech or consciousness. It was a sudden
+seizure, but what everybody had expected; everybody was shocked for the
+moment, and then wondered that they were. It was very appalling to me; I
+was so unhappy, I almost believed I loved him, and I certainly mourned
+for him with simplicity and affection.
+
+The preparations for the funeral were so frightful, and all the thoughts
+it brought so unnerving, that I was almost ill. A great deal came upon
+me, in trying to manage the wailing servants, and in helping Richard in
+arrangements.
+
+It was the day after the funeral; I was tired, out, and had lain down on
+the sofa in the dining-room, partly because I hated to be alone
+up-stairs, and partly because it was not far from lunch-time, and I felt
+too weary to take any needless steps. I don't think ever in my life
+before I had lain down on that sofa, or had spent two hours except, at
+the table, in that room. It was a most cheerless room, and no one ever
+thought of sitting down in it, except at mealtime. I closed the shutters
+and darkened it to suit my eyes, which ached, and I think must have
+fallen asleep.
+
+The parlor was the room which adjoined the dining-room (only two large
+rooms on one floor, as they used to build), and separated from it by
+heavy mahogany columns and sliding-doors. These doors were half-way
+open, and I was roused by voices in the parlor. As soon as I recovered
+myself from the sudden waking, I recognized Sophie's and then Richard's.
+I wondered what Richard was doing up-town at that hour, and so Sophie
+did too, for she asked him very plainly.
+
+"I thought I ought to come to see Pauline," she said, "but I did not
+suppose I should find you here in the middle of the day."
+
+"There is something that I've got to see Pauline about at once," he
+said, "and so I was obliged to come up-town."
+
+"Nothing has happened?" she said interrogatively.
+
+"No," he answered, evasively.
+
+But she went on: "I suppose it's something in relation to the will; I
+hope she's well provided for, poor thing."
+
+"Sophie," said her brother, with a change of tone, "You'll have to hear
+it some time, and perhaps you may as well hear it now. It is that that I
+have come up-town about; there has been some strange mistake made; there
+is no will."
+
+"No will!" echoed Sophie, "Why, you told me once--"
+
+"That he had left her everything. So he told me twice last year; so I
+have always believed to be the case. Since the day he died, the most
+faithful search has been made; there is not a corner of his office, of
+his library, of his room, that I have not hunted through. He was so
+methodical in business matters, so exact in the care of his papers, that
+I had little hope, after I had gone through his desk. I cannot
+understand it. It is altogether dark to me."
+
+"What can have made him change his mind about it, Richard? Can he have
+heard anything about last summer?"
+
+"Not from me, Sophie. But I have sometimes thought he knew, from
+allusions that he has made to her mother's marriage, more than once
+this winter."
+
+"He was very angry about that, at the time, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, I imagine so. The man she married was poor, and a foreigner: two
+things he hated. I never heard there was anything against him but
+his poverty."
+
+"How can he have heard about Mr. Langenau?" said Sophie, musingly.
+
+"I think Pauline must have told him," said Richard.
+
+"Pauline? never. She is much too clever; she never told him. You may be
+quite sure of _that_."
+
+"Pauline clever! Poor Pauline!" said Richard, with a short, sarcastic
+laugh, which had the effect of making Sophie angry.
+
+"I am willing," she said, "that she should be as stupid and as good as
+you can wish--. To whom does the money go?" she added, as if she had not
+patience for the other subject.
+
+"To a brother, with whom he had a quarrel, and whom he had not seen for
+over sixteen years."
+
+"Incredible!"
+
+"But there had been some sort of a reconciliation, at least an exchange
+of letters, within these three months past."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"And it is in consequence of hearing from him, and being pressed by his
+lawyer for an immediate settlement of the estate, that I have come up to
+tell Pauline, and to prepare her for her changed prospects."
+
+"And what do you propose to advise?" asked Sophie, with a chilling
+voice.
+
+"Heaven knows, Sophie," answered her brother, with a heavy sigh. "I see
+nothing ahead for the poor girl, but loneliness and trial. She is
+utterly unfit to struggle with the world. And she has not even a shelter
+for her head."
+
+"Richard," interrupted his sister, with intensity of feeling in her
+voice, "I see what you are trying to persuade yourself: do not tell me,
+after what has passed, you still feel that you are bound to her--"
+
+"_Bound!_" exclaimed Richard, with a vehemence most strange in him, as,
+pacing the room, he stood still before his sister. His back was toward
+me. She was so absorbed she did not see me as I darted past the
+folding-doors into the hall. As I flew panting up to my own room, I
+remember one feeling above all others, the first feeling of affection
+toward the house that I had ever had. It was mine no longer, my home
+never again; I had no right to stay in it a moment: my own room was not
+mine any more--the room where I had learned to pray, and to try to lead
+a good life--the room where I had lain when I was so near to death--the
+room where Sister Madeline had led me to such peaceful, quiet thoughts.
+I had but one wish now, not to see Richard, to escape Sophie, to get
+away forever from this house to which I had no right. I pulled down my
+hat and my street things, and dressed so quickly, that I had slipped
+down the stairs, and out into the street, before they had ceased talking
+in the parlor. I heard their voices, very low, as I passed through the
+hall. I fully meant never to come back to the house again--not to be
+turned out.
+
+My heart swelled as the door closed behind me. It was dreadful not to
+have a home. I was so unused to being in the street alone, that I felt
+frightened when I reached the cars and stopped them.
+
+I was going to Sister Madeline. She would take me, and keep me, and
+teach me where to live, and how. I was a little confused, and got out at
+the wrong street, and had to walk several blocks before I reached
+the house.
+
+The servant at the door met me with an answer that made me wonder
+whether there were anything else to happen to me on that day.
+
+Sister Madeline had been called away--had gone on a long
+journey--something about the illness of her brother; and I must not come
+inside the door, for a contagious disease was raging, and the orders
+were strict that no one be admitted. I had walked so fast, and in such
+excitement of feeling, that I was weak and faint when I turned to go
+down the steps. Where should I go? I walked on slowly now, and
+undecided, for I had no aim.
+
+The clergyman to whom I had gone for direction in matters spiritual, was
+ill--for two weeks had given up even Lenten duties. Anything--but I
+could not go home, or rather where home had been. I walked and walked
+till I was almost fainting, and found myself in the Park. There the
+lovely indications of spring, and the quiet, and the fresh air, soothed
+me, and I sat down under some trees near the water, and rested myself.
+But the same giddy whirl of thoughts came back, the same incompetency to
+deal with such strange facts, and the same confusion. I do not know how
+long I wandered about; but I was faint and weary and hungry, and
+frightened too, for people were beginning to look at me.
+
+It began to force itself upon me that I must go back to Varick-street
+after all, and take a fresh start. Then I began to think how I should
+get back, on which side must I go to find the cars--where was I,
+literally. Then I sat down to wait, till I should see some policeman, or
+some kind-looking person, near me, to whom I could apply for this very
+necessary information. In the meantime I took out my purse to see if I
+had the proper change. Verily, not that, nor any change at all! My heart
+actually stood still. Yes, it was very true: I had given away, right
+and left, during this Lent: caring nothing for money, and being very
+sure of more when this was gone. I was literally penniless. I had not
+even the money to ride home in the cars.
+
+Till a person has felt this sensation, he has not had one of the most
+remarkable experiences of life. To know where you can get money, to feel
+that there is some _dernier ressort_ however hateful to you, is one
+thing; but to _know_ that you have not a cent--not a prospect of getting
+one--not a hope of earning one--no means of living--this is suffocation.
+This is the stopping of that breath that keeps the world alive.
+
+The bench on which I happened to be sitting was one of those pretty,
+little, covered seats, which jut out into the lake. I looked down into
+the water as I sat with my empty purse in my lap, and remembered vaguely
+the many narratives I had seen in the newspapers about unaccounted-for
+and unknown suicides. I could see how it might be inevitable--a sort of
+pressure, a fatality that might not be resisted. Even cowardice might be
+overcome when that pressure was put on.
+
+It is a very amazing thing to feel that you have no money, nor any means
+of getting even eightpence: it chokes you: you feel as if the wheel had
+made its last revolution, and there was no power to make it turn again.
+It is not any question of pride, or of independence, when it comes
+suddenly; it is a feeling of the inevitable; you do not turn to others.
+You feel your individual failure, and you stand alone.
+
+For myself, this was my reflection: I had not even a shelter for my
+head; Richard had said so. I had not a cent of money, and I had no means
+of earning any. The uncle who was coming to take possession of the house
+and furniture, was one whom I had been taught to distrust and dread. He
+would, perhaps, not even let me go into my room again, and would turn me
+out to-morrow, if he came: my clothes--were _they_ even mine, or would
+they be given to me, if they were? This uncle had reproached Uncle
+Leonard once for what he had done for me. I had even an idea that it was
+about my mother's marriage that the quarrel had occurred. And hard as I
+had regarded Uncle Leonard, he had been the soft-hearted one of the
+brothers, who had sheltered the little girl (after he had thrown off the
+mother, and broken her poor heart).
+
+The house in Varick-street would be broken up. What would become of the
+cook, and Ann Coddle? It would be easier for them to live than for me.
+
+They could get work to do, for they knew how to work, and people would
+employ them. I--I could do nothing, I had been taught to do nothing. I
+had never been directed how to hem a handkerchief. I had tried to dust
+my room one day, and the effort had tired me dreadfully, and did not
+look very well, as a result. I could not teach. I had been educated in a
+slipshod way, no one directing anything about it--just what it occurred
+to the person who had charge of me to put before me.
+
+I had intended to throw myself upon Sister Madeline. But what then? What
+could she have done for me? I had asked her months before if I could not
+be a sister, and had been discouraged both by her and by my director. I
+believe they thought I was too young and too pretty, and, in fact, had
+no vocation. No doubt they thought I might soon look upon things
+differently, when my trouble was a little older.
+
+And Richard--I did not give Richard many thoughts that day, for my heart
+was sore, when I remembered all his words. He had always thought that I
+was to be rich; perhaps that had made him so long patient with me. He
+had said I was not clever; he had seemed to be very sorry for me. He
+might well be. Sophie had asked him if he were still bound to me. I had
+not heard all his answer, but he had spoken in a tone of scorn. I did
+not want to think about him.
+
+There was no whither to turn myself for help. And the clergyman, who had
+been more than kind to me, who had seemed to help me with words and
+counsel out of heaven,--he was cut off from my succor, and I stood
+alone--I, who was so dependent, so naturally timid, and so
+easily mistaken.
+
+It was a dreary hour of my life, that hour that I sat looking over at
+the water of the pretty placid lake. I don't like to recall it. Some one
+passed by me, gave an exclamation of surprise, and came back hastily. It
+was Richard. He seemed so glad, and so relieved to see me--and to me it
+was like Heaven opening; notwithstanding my vindictive thoughts about
+him, I could have sprung into his arms; I felt protected, safe, the
+moment he was by me. I tried to speak, and then began to cry.
+
+"I've been looking for you these last two hours," he said, sitting down
+beside me. "I came up-town to see you, and found you had gone out. I
+thought you would not be likely to go anywhere but to see Sister
+Madeline, and there the servant told me you had come this way. I could
+not find you here, and went back to Varick-street, then was frightened
+at hearing you had not come back, and returned again to look for you.
+What made you stay so long? Something has happened. Tell me what you are
+crying for."
+
+I had no talent for acting, and not much discretion when I was excited;
+and he found out very soon that I knew what had befallen me. (I think he
+believed that Sophie had told me of it.)
+
+"Were you very much surprised?" he said. "Had you supposed that you
+would be his heiress?"
+
+"Why, no. I had not thought anything about it. I am afraid I have not
+thought much about anything this winter. I must have been very
+ungrateful, as well as childish, for I never have felt as if it were
+fortunate that I had a home, and as much money as I wanted. I did not
+care anything about being rich, you know--ever."
+
+"No, I know you did not. I was sure you would have been satisfied with a
+very moderate provision."
+
+"Oh, Richard," I cried, clasping my hands together, "if he had left me a
+little--just a little--just a few hundred dollars, when he had so much,
+to have kept me from having to work, when I don't know how to work, and
+am such a child."
+
+"Work!" he exclaimed, looking down at me as if I were something so
+exquisite and so precious, that the very thought was profanation.
+"Work! no, Pauline, you shall not have to work."
+
+"But what can I do?" I said, "I have nothing--and you know it; not a
+shelter; not the money to pay for my breakfast to-morrow morning. Not a
+person to whom I have a right to go for help; not a human being who is
+bound to care for me. Oh, I don't care what becomes of me; I wish that
+it were time for me to die."
+
+Richard got up, and paced up and down the little platform with an
+absorbed look.
+
+"It was so strange," I went on, "when he seemed this winter to take a
+little notice of me, and to want to have me near him. I really almost
+thought he cared for me. And when I was so ill last Fall, don't you
+remember how often he used to come up to my room?"
+
+"I remember--yes. It is all very strange."
+
+"And some days early in the winter, when I could scarcely speak at
+table, I was so unhappy, he would look at me so long, and seem to think.
+And then would be very kind and gentle afterward, and do something to
+show he liked me--give me money, you know, as he always did."
+
+"Tell me, Pauline: did he ever ask you anything about last summer, or
+did you ever tell him?"
+
+"No, Richard, I could never have spoken to him about it; and he never
+asked me. But I know he saw that I was not happy."
+
+"Pauline," said Richard, after a pause, and as if forcing himself to
+speak, "there is no use in disguising from you what your position is:
+you know it yourself, enough of it, at least, to make you understand why
+I speak now. I don't know of any way out of it, but one; and I feel as
+if it were ungenerous to press that on you now, and, Heaven knows, I
+would not do it if I could think of anything else to offer to you. You
+know, Pauline, that if you will marry me, you will have everything that
+you need, as much as if your uncle had left you everything."
+
+He did not look at me, but paced up and down the platform, and spoke
+with a thick, husky voice.
+
+"You know it's been the object of my life, ever since I knew you, but I
+don't want that to influence you. I know it is too soon, a great deal
+too soon. And I would not have done it, if I could have seen anything
+else to do, or if you could have done without me."
+
+I must have been deadly pale, for when at last he looked at me, he
+started.
+
+"I don't know how it is," he said, with a groan, "I always have to give
+you pain, when, Heaven knows, I'd give my life to spare you every
+suffering. I can't see any other way to take care of you than the way I
+tell you of, and yet, I have no doubt you think me cruel, and selfish,
+to ask you to do it now. It does seem so, and yet it is not. If you knew
+how much it has cost me to speak, you would believe it."
+
+"I do believe it," I said, trying to command my voice. "I think you have
+always been too good and kind to me. But I can't tell you how this makes
+me feel. Oh, Richard, isn't there any, any other way?"
+
+"Perhaps there may be," he said, with a bitter and disappointed look,
+"but I do not know of it."
+
+"Oh, Richard, do not be angry with me. Think how hard it is for me
+always to be disappointing you. I have a great deal of trouble!"
+
+"Yes, Pauline, I know you have," he said, sitting down by me, and taking
+my hand in a repentant way. "You see I'm selfish, and only looked at my
+own disappointment just that minute. I thought I had not any hope that
+you might not mind the idea of marrying me; but you see, after all, I
+had. I believe I must have fancied that you were getting over your
+trouble: you have seemed so much brighter lately. But now I know the
+truth; and now I know that what I do is simply sacrifice and duty. A man
+must be a fool who looks for pleasure in marrying a woman who has no
+love for him. And I say now, in the face of it all, marry me, Pauline,
+if you can bring yourself to do it. I am the only approach to a friend
+that you have in the world. As your husband, I can care for you and
+protect you. You are young, your character is unformed, you are ignorant
+of the world. You have no home, no protection, literally none, and I am
+afraid to trust you. You need not be angry if I say so. I think I've
+earned the right to find some faults in you. I don't expect you to love
+me. I don't expect to be particularly happy; but there are a good many
+ways of serving God and doing one's duty; and if we try to serve him and
+to live for duty, it will all come out right at last. You will be a
+happier woman, Pauline, if you do it, than if you rebel against it, and
+try to find some other way, and put yourself in a subordinate place, or
+a place of dependence, and waste your life, and expose yourself to
+temptation. No, no, Pauline, I cannot see you do it. Heaven knows, I
+wish you had somebody else to direct you. But it has all come upon me,
+and I must do the best I can. I think any one else would advise the
+same, who had the same means of judging."
+
+"I will do just what you think best," I said, almost in a whisper,
+getting up.
+
+"That is right," he answered, in a husky voice, rising too, and putting
+my cloak about my shoulders, which had fallen off. "You will see it
+will be best."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+A GREAT DEAL TOO SOON.
+
+     But her sad eyes, still fastened on the ground,
+     Are governed with a goodly modesty,
+     That suffers not a look to glance away,
+     Which may let in a little thought unsound.
+
+     _Spenser_.
+
+
+     Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule science
+     Qui nous met en repos.
+
+     _Malherbe_.
+
+
+Richard had obtained for me (with difficulty), from the lawyer of the
+new uncle who had arisen, the privilege of remaining in the house for
+another month, undisturbed in any way. At the end of those four weeks I
+was to be married to him, one day, quietly in church, and to go away. It
+was very hard to have to see Sophie, and be treated with ignominy, for
+doing what I did not want to do; it was very hard to make preparations
+to leave the only place I wanted to stay in now; it was very hard to be
+tranquil and even, while my heart was like lead. But I had begun to
+discover that that was the general order of things here below, and it
+did not amaze me as it had done at first. I was doing my duty, to the
+best of my discernment, and was not to be deterred by all the lead in
+the world.
+
+It was very well for Richard to say, he did it for sacrifice and for
+duty. I have no doubt at first he did it greatly for those two things:
+but he grew happier every day, I could see. He was very considerate of
+my sadness, and always acted on the basis on which our engagement was
+begun, never keeping my hand in his, or kissing me, or asking any of the
+trifling favors of a lover.
+
+He was grave and silent: but I could see the change in his face; I could
+see that he was more exacting of every moment that I spent away from
+him; he kept near me, and followed me with his eyes, and seemed never to
+be satisfied with his possession of me.
+
+He bought me the most beautiful jewels, (he had made great strides
+toward fortune in the last six months, and was a rich man now in
+earnest,) and though he never clasped them on my throat or wrist, nor
+even fitted a ring on my finger, I could feel his eyes upon me,
+hungering for a smile, a word of gratitude.
+
+And who would not have been grateful? But it was "too soon, a great deal
+too soon," as he had said himself. I was very grateful, but I would
+have been glad to die.
+
+I have wondered whether he saw it or not, I rather think not. I was very
+submissive and gentle, and tried to be bright, and I think he was so
+absorbed in the satisfaction of my promise, so intent upon his plans for
+making me happy, and for making me love him, that he made himself
+believe there was no heart of lead below the tranquillity he saw.
+
+It was the third week since my uncle's death. The next week was to come
+the marriage, on Wednesday, the 19th of May.
+
+"Marriages in May are not happy," said Ann Coddle.
+
+"I did not need you to tell me that," I thought.
+
+It was on Thursday, the 13th; Richard had come up a little earlier, in
+the evening. It grew to be a little earlier every evening.
+
+"By-and-by he will not go down-town at all, at this rate," I said to
+myself, when I heard his ring that night.
+
+I was sitting by the parlor-lamp, with the evening paper in my lap, of
+which I had not read a word. He came and sat down by the table, and we
+talked a little while. I tried to find things to talk about, and
+wondered if it always would be so. I felt as if some day I should give
+out entirely, and have to go through bankruptcy. (And take a
+fresh start.)
+
+He never seemed to feel the want of talking; I suppose he was quite
+satisfied with his thoughts, and with having me beside him.
+
+By-and-by, he said he should have to go up to the library, and look over
+the last of some books of my uncle's, and finish an inventory that he
+had begun. Could I not bring my work and sit there by him? I felt a
+little selfish, for we were already on the last week, and I said I
+thought I would sit in the parlor. I had to write a letter to Sister
+Madeline. I had not heard a word from her yet, though I had
+written twice.
+
+Why could not I write in the library?
+
+I always liked to be alone when I wrote letters: I could not think, when
+any one was in the room. Besides, trying to smile, he would be sure
+to talk.
+
+He looked disappointed, and lingered a good while before he went away.
+As he rose to go away he threw into my lap a little package, saying,
+
+"There is some white lace for you. Can't you use it on some of your
+clothes? I don't know anything about such things: maybe it isn't pretty
+enough, but I thought perhaps it would do for that lilac silk you
+talked of."
+
+I opened the package: it was exquisite, fit for a princess; and as I
+bent over it, I thought, how dead I must be, that it gave me no pleasure
+to know it was my own, for I had loved such baubles so, a year ago.
+
+"What a mass of it!" I exclaimed, unfolding yard on yard.
+
+"You must always wear lace," he said, throwing one end of it over my
+black dress around the shoulder. "I like you in it. I am tired of those
+stiff little linen collars."
+
+The lace had given me a little compunction about not spending the
+evening with him: but as I had said so, I could not draw back; so I
+compromised the matter by going up to the library with him, to see that
+he was comfortable, before I came down to write my letter.
+
+I brought the little student-lamp from my own room and lit it, and put
+it on the library-table, and brought him some fresh pens, and opened the
+inkstand for him, even pushed up the chair and put a little footstool by
+it. Though he was standing by the bookshelves, and seemed to be
+engrossed by them, I knew that he was watching me, filled with content
+and satisfaction.
+
+"Do you remember where that box of cigars was put?" he said, turning to
+me as I paused. That was to keep me longer; for they were on the shelf,
+half a yard from where he stood.
+
+I got the cigar-box and put it on the table.
+
+"Now you will want some matches, and this stand is almost empty." So I
+took it away with me to my room, and came back with it filled.
+
+"Is there anything else that I can do?" I said, pausing as I put it on
+the table.
+
+"No, Pauline. I believe not. Thank you."
+
+I think that moment Richard was nearer to happiness than he had ever
+been before. Poor fellow!
+
+I went down-stairs, feeling quite easy in mind, and sat down to my
+letter. That threw me back into the past, for to Sister Madeline I
+poured out my heart. An hour went by, and I had forgotten Richard and
+the library. I was recalled to the present by hearing some books fall on
+the floor (the library was over the parlor); and by hearing Richard's
+step heavily crossing the room. I started up, pushed my letter into my
+portfolio, and wiped away my tears, quite frightened that Richard should
+see me crying. To my surprise, he came hurriedly down the stairs, passed
+the parlor-door, opened the hall-door, and shutting it heavily after
+him, was gone, without a word to me. This startled me for a moment, it
+was so unusual. But my heart was not enough engaged to be wounded by the
+slight, and I very soon returned to my letter and my other thoughts.
+
+When I went up to bed, I stopped in the library, and found the lamp
+still burning, the pens unused, a cigar, which had been lighted, but
+unsmoked, lying on the table. A book was lying on the floor at the foot
+of the bookshelf, where I had left Richard standing. I picked it up.
+"This was the last book that Uncle Leonard ever read," I said to myself,
+turning its pages over. I remembered that he had it in his hand the last
+night of his life, when I bade him goodnight. I was not in the room the
+next day, till he was brought home in a dying state.
+
+Ann had put the books in order, and arranged them, after he went
+down-town in the morning.
+
+I wondered whether Richard knew that that was the last book he had been
+reading, and I put it by, to tell him of it in the morning when he came.
+But in the morning Richard did not come. Unusual again; and I was for an
+hour or two surprised. He always found some excuse for coming on his way
+down-town: and it was very odd that he should not want to explain his
+sudden going away last night. But, as before, my lack of love made the
+wound very slight, and in a little time I had forgotten all about it,
+and was only thinking that this was Friday--and that Wednesday was
+coming very near.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+A REVERSAL
+
+     All this is to be sanctified,
+       This rupture with the past;
+     For thus we die before our deaths,
+       And so die well at last.
+
+     _Faber_.
+
+
+Dinner-time came, and passed, and still Richard did not come. At eight
+o'clock Ann brought the tea, as usual, and it stood nearly an hour upon
+the table; and then I told her to take it away.
+
+By this time I had begun to feel uneasy. Something must have happened.
+It would necessarily be something uncomfortable, perhaps something that
+would frighten me, and give me another shock. And I dreaded that so; I
+had had so many. But perhaps, dreadful though it might be, it would
+bring me a release. Perhaps Richard was only angry with me, and _that_
+might bring me a release.
+
+At nine o'clock I heard a ring at the bell, and then his step in the
+hall. He was slower than usual in coming in; everything made me feel
+confused and apprehensive. When he opened the door and entered, I was
+trying to command myself, but I forgot all about myself when I saw
+_him_. His face was white, and he looked haggard and harassed, as if he
+had gone through a year of suffering since last night, when I left him
+with the lamp and cigar in the library.
+
+I started up and put out my hand. "What is it, Richard? You are in some
+trouble."
+
+He said no, and tried to speak in an ordinary tone, sitting down on the
+sofa by my chair.
+
+I was confused and thrown back by this, and tried to talk as if nothing
+had been said.
+
+"Will you have a cup of tea?" I asked; "Ann has just taken it away."
+
+He said absently, yes, and I rang for Ann to bring the tea, and then
+went to the table to pour it out.
+
+He sat with his face leaning on his hand on the arm of the sofa, and did
+not seem to notice me till I carried the cup to him, and offered it.
+Then he started, and looked up and took it, asking my pardon, and
+thanking me.
+
+"Are you not going to have one yourself?" he said, half rising.
+
+"No, I don't want any to-night. Tell me if yours is right."
+
+"Yes, it is very nice," he said absently, drinking some. Then rising
+suddenly, he put the cup on the mantleshelf, and said to me, "Send Ann
+away, I want to talk to you."
+
+I told Ann I would ring for her when I wanted her, and sat down by the
+lamp again, with many apprehensions.
+
+"You asked me if anything had happened, Pauline, didn't you?" he said.
+
+"No," I answered. "But I was sure that something had, from the way you
+looked when you came in."
+
+"It is something that--that changes things very much for you, Pauline,"
+he resumed, with an effort, "and makes all our arrangements
+unnecessary--that is, unless you choose."
+
+I looked amazed and frightened, and he went on.
+
+"I made a discovery last night in the library. The will is found,
+Pauline."
+
+I started to my feet, with my hands pressed against my heart, waiting
+breathlessly for his next word.
+
+"Everything is left to you--and I have come to tell you, you are
+free--if you desire to be."
+
+"Oh, thank God! Thank God!" I cried; then covering my face with my
+hands, sank back into my seat, and burst into tears.
+
+He turned from me and walked to the other end of the room; each of us
+lived much in that little time.
+
+For myself, I had accepted my bondage so meekly, so dutifully, that I
+did not know the weight it had been upon me till it was suddenly taken
+off. I did not think of him--I could only think, there was no next
+Wednesday, and I could stay where I was. It was like the sudden
+cessation of dreadful and long-continued pain: it was Heaven. I was
+crying for joy. But at last the reaction came, and I had to think
+of him.
+
+"Oh, Richard," I cried, going toward him, (he was sitting by the window,
+and his hand concealed his eyes.) "I don't know what you think of me, I
+hope you can forgive me."
+
+He did not speak, and I felt a dreadful pang of self-reproach.
+
+"Richard," I said, crying, and taking hold of his hand, "I am ashamed of
+myself for being glad. I will marry you yet, if you want me to. I know
+how good you have been to me. I know I am ungrateful and abominable."
+
+Still he did not speak. His very lips were white, and his hand, when I
+touched it, did not meet mine or move.
+
+"You are angry with me," I cried, bursting into a flood of tears. "Oh,
+how you ought to hate me. Oh, I wish we had never seen each other. I
+wish I had been dead before I brought you all this trouble. Richard, do
+look at me--do speak to me. Don't you believe that I am sorry? Don't you
+know I will do anything you want me to?"
+
+He seemed to try to speak--moved a little, as a person in pain might do,
+but, bending his head a little lower on his hand, was silent still.
+
+"Richard," I said, after several moments' silence, speaking
+thoughtfully--"it has all come to me at last. I begin to see what you
+have been to me always, and how badly I have treated you. But it must
+have been because I was very young, and did not think. I am sure my
+heart was not so bad, and I mean to be different now. You know I have
+not had any one to teach me. Will you let me try and make you happy?"
+
+"No, Pauline," he said at last, speaking with effort. "It is all over
+now, and we will never talk of it again."
+
+I was silent for many minutes--standing before him with irresolution.
+"If it was right for me to marry you before," I said at last, "Why is it
+not right now, if I mean to do my duty?"
+
+"No, it is no longer right, if it ever was," he answered. "I will not
+take advantage of your sense of duty now, as I was going to take
+advantage of your necessity before. No, you are free, and it is all
+at an end."
+
+"You are unjust to yourself. You were not taking advantage of my
+necessity. You were saving me, and I am ashamed of myself when I think
+of everything. Oh, Richard, where did you learn to be so good!"
+
+A spasm of pain crossed his face, and he turned away from me.
+
+"If you give me up," I said timidly, "who will take care of me?"
+
+"There will be plenty now," he answered bitterly.
+
+"There wasn't anybody yesterday."
+
+"But there will be to-morrow. No, Pauline," he said, lifting his head
+and speaking in a firmer voice, "What I thought I was doing, till this
+showed me my heart, and how I had deceived myself, I will do now, even
+if it kills me. I thought I was acting for your good, and from a sense
+of duty: now that I know what is for your good, and what is my duty, I
+will go on in that, and nothing shall turn me from it, so help
+me Heaven."
+
+"At least you will forgive me," I said, with tears, "for all the things
+that I have made you suffer."
+
+"Yes," he said, with some emotion, "I shall forgive you sooner than I
+shall forgive myself. I cannot see that you have been to blame."
+
+"Ah," I cried, hiding my face with shame, when I thought of all my
+selfishness and indifference, and the return I had made him for his
+devoted love. "I know how I have been to blame; and I am going to pay
+you for your goodness and care by breaking your heart for you--by
+upsetting all your plans. Oh, Richard! You had better let it all go on!
+Think how everybody knows about it!"
+
+He shook his head. "I don't care a straw for that," he said. And I am
+sure he did not.
+
+"No," he said firmly, getting up, and walking up and down the room; "it
+is all over, and we must make the best of it. I shall still have
+everything to do for you under the will; and while you mustn't expect me
+to see you often, just for the present time, at least, you know I shall
+do everything as faithfully as if nothing had occurred. You must write
+to me whenever you think my judgment or advice would do you any good.
+And I shall be always looking after things that you don't understand,
+and taking care of your interests, whether you hear from me or not.
+You'll always be sure of that, whatever may occur."
+
+"Oh," I faltered, with a sudden frightened feeling of loneliness and
+loss, in the midst of my new freedom, "I can't feel as if it were
+all over."
+
+"I don't know how this terrible mistake about the will occurred," he
+went on, without noticing what I said: "it was only a--mercy that I
+found it when I did. It was between the leaves of a book, an old volume
+of Tacitus; I took it down to look at the title for the inventory, and
+it fell out."
+
+"That was the book he had in his hand when I saw him last, that night
+before he died."
+
+"Yes? Then after you went up-stairs I suppose he was thinking of you,
+and he took out the will to read it over, and maybe left it out, meaning
+to lock it up again in the morning."
+
+"And in the morning he was not well," I said, "and perhaps went away
+leaving it lying on the book; I remember, Ann said there were several
+papers lying on the table, when she arranged the room."
+
+"No doubt," said Richard, "she shut it up in the book it laid on, and
+put it on the shelf. But it is all one how it came about. The will is
+all correct and duly executed. One of the witnesses was a clerk, who
+returned yesterday from South America, where he had been gone for
+several months. The other is lying ill at his home in Westchester, but I
+have sent to-day and had his deposition taken. It is all in order, and
+there can be no dispute."
+
+I think at that moment I should have been glad if it had been found
+invalid. There was something so inevitable and final in Richard's plain
+and practical words.
+
+Evidently a great change had come in my life, and I could not help it if
+I would. I could not but feel the separation from the person upon whom I
+had leaned so long, and who had done everything for me, and I knew this
+separation was to be a final one; Richard's words left no doubt of that.
+
+"What you'd better do," he said, leaning by the mantelpiece, "is to tell
+the servants about this--this--change in your plans, to-morrow; unpack,
+and settle the house to stay here for the present. In the course of a
+couple of months it will be time enough to make up your mind about where
+you will live. I think, till the will is admitted and all that, you had
+better keep things as they are, and make no change."
+
+He had been so used to thinking for me, that he could not give it up at
+once. "I will tell Sophie to-morrow," he went on. "It will not be
+necessary for you to see her if she should come before she hears of it
+from me." (Sophie had an engagement with me to go out on the following
+morning. He seemed to to have forgotten nothing.)
+
+"What will Sophie think of me?" I said, with my eyes on the floor.
+"Richard, it looks very bad for me; when I was poor, I was going to
+marry you, and now that I have money left me, I am going to break
+it off."
+
+"What difference does it make how it looks," he said, "when you know you
+have done right? I will tell Sophie the truth, that it was my doing both
+times, and that you only yielded to my judgment in the matter. Besides,
+if she judges you harshly, it need not make much matter to you. You will
+never again be thrown intimately with her, I suppose."
+
+"No, I suppose not," I said faintly. I was being turned out of my world
+very fast, and it was not very clear what I was going to get in exchange
+for it (except freedom).
+
+"I will send you up money to-morrow morning," he went on, "to pay the
+servants, and all that. The clerk I shall send it by, is the one that I
+shall put in charge of your matters. You can always draw on him for
+money, or ask him any questions, or call on him for any service, in case
+I should be away, or ill, or anything."
+
+"You are going away?" I said interrogatively.
+
+"It is possible, for a while--I don't know. I haven't made up my mind
+definitely about what I am going to do. But in case I _should_ be away,
+I mean, you are to call on him."
+
+"I understand."
+
+"Anything he tells you, about signing papers, and such things, you may
+be sure is all right."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But don't do anything, without consulting me, for anybody else,
+remember."
+
+"I'll remember," I said absently and humbly. It was no wonder Richard
+felt I needed somebody to take care of me!
+
+"I believe there's nothing else I wanted to say to you," he said at
+last, moving from the mantelpiece where he had been standing; "at least,
+nothing that I can't write about, when it occurs to me."
+
+"Oh, Richard!" I said, beginning to cry again, as I knew that the moment
+of parting had come, "I don't understand you at all. I think you take it
+very calm."
+
+"Isn't that the way to take it?" he said, in a voice that was,
+certainly, very calm indeed.
+
+I looked up in his face: he was ten years older. I really was frightened
+at the change in him.
+
+"Oh!" I exclaimed, putting my face down in my hands, "I wasn't worth
+all I've made you suffer."
+
+"Maybe you weren't," he said simply, "But it wasn't either your fault or
+mine--and you couldn't help it--that I wanted you."
+
+He made a quick movement as he passed the table, and my work-basket fell
+at his feet, and a little jewel-box rolled across the floor. It was a
+ring he had brought me, only three days before.
+
+He stooped to pick it up, and I saw his features contract as if in pain,
+as he laid it back upon the table. And his voice was unsteady, as he
+said, not looking at me while he spoke, "I hope you won't send any of
+these things back. If there's anything you're willing to keep, because I
+gave it to you, I'd like it very much. The rest send to your church, or
+somewhere. I don't want to have to look at them again."
+
+By this time I was sobbing, and, sitting down by the table, had buried
+my face on my arms.
+
+"I'm sorry that it makes you feel so," he said, "but it can't be helped.
+Don't cry, I can't bear to see you cry. Good-bye, Pauline; God
+bless you."
+
+And he was gone. I did not realize it, and did not lift my head, till I
+heard the heavy sound of the outer door closing after him.
+
+Then I knew it was all over, and that things were changed for me
+indeed.
+
+"I cannot cry and get over it as you can," he had said.
+
+And if tears would have got me over it, I should have been cured that
+night.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+MY NEW WORLD.
+
+     Few are the fragments left of follies past;
+     For worthless things are transient. Those that last
+     Have in them germs of an eternal spirit,
+     And out of good their permanence inherit.
+
+                                      _Bowring_.
+
+
+         Nor they unblest,
+     Who underneath the world's bright vest
+     With sackcloth tame their aching breast,
+     The sharp-edged cross in jewels hide.
+
+                                    _Keble_.
+
+
+From eighteen to twenty-four--a long step; and it covers the ground that
+is generally the brightest and gayest in a woman's life, and the most
+decisive. With me it was, in a certain sense, bright and gay; but the
+deciding events of my life seemed to have been crowded into the year,
+the story of which has just been told. Of the six years that came after,
+there is not much to tell. My character went on forming itself, no
+doubt, and interiorly I was growing in one direction or the other; but
+in external matters, there is not much of interest.
+
+I had "no end of money," so it seemed to me, and to a good many other
+people, I should think, from the way that they paid me court. I don't
+see why it did not turn my head, except that I was what they call
+religious, and dreadfully afraid of doing wrong. I was not my own
+mistress exactly, either, for I had some one to direct my conscience,
+though that was the only direction that I ever had. I had not the
+smallest restriction as to money from Richard (to whom the estate was
+left in trust); and it had been found much to exceed his expectations,
+or those of anybody else.
+
+I had the whole world before me, where to go and what to choose; not
+very much stability of character, and the greatest ignorance; a
+considerable share of good looks, and the love of pleasure inseparable
+from youth and health; absolutely no authority, and any amount of
+flattery and temptation. I think it must be agreed, it was a happy thing
+for me that I was brought under the influence of Sister Madeline, and
+that through her I was made to feel most afraid of sin, and of myself;
+and that the life within, the growth in grace, and the keeping clear my
+conscience, was made to appear of more consequence than the life
+without, that was so full of pleasures and of snares.
+
+I often think now of the obedience with which I would give up a party,
+stay at home alone, and read a good book, because I had been advised to
+do it, or because it was a certain day; of the simplicity with which I
+would pat away a novel, when its interest was at the height, because it
+was the hour for me to read something different, or because it was
+Friday, or because I was to learn to give up doing what I wanted to.
+
+These things, trivial in themselves, and never bound upon my conscience,
+only offered as advice, had the effect of breaking up the constant
+influence of the world, giving me a little time for thought, and
+opportunity for self-denial. I cannot help thinking such things are very
+useful for young persons, and particularly those who have only ordinary
+force and resolution. At least, I think they were made a means of
+security to me. I was so in earnest to do right, that I often thought,
+in terror for myself, in the midst of alluring pleasures and delights,
+it was a pity they had not let me be a Sister when I wanted to at first.
+(I really think I had more vocation than they thought: I could have
+_given up_, to the end of life, without a murmur, if that is what is
+necessary.) As to the people who wanted to marry me, I did not care for
+any of them, and seemed to have much less coquetry than of old. They
+simply did not interest me, (of course, in a few years, I had outgrown
+the love that I had supposed to be so immortal.) It was very pleasant to
+be always attended to, and to have more constant homage than any other
+young woman whom I saw. But as to liking particularly any of the men
+themselves, it never occurred to me to think of it.
+
+I was placed by my fortunate circumstances rather above the intrigue,
+and detraction, and heart-burning, that attends the social struggle for
+life in ordinary cases. If I were envied, I did not know it, and I had
+small reason to envy anybody else, being quite the queen.
+
+I enjoyed above measure, the bright and pleasant things that I had at my
+command: the sunny rooms of my pretty house: the driving, the sailing,
+the dancing: all that charms a healthy young taste, and is innocent. I
+took journeys, with the ecstasy of youth and of good health. I never
+shall forget the pleasure of certain days and skies, and the enjoyment
+that I had in nature. In society, I had a little more weariness, as I
+grew older, and found a certain want of interest, as was inevitable.
+Society isn't all made up of clever people, and even clever people get
+to be tiresome in the course of time. But at twenty-four I was by no
+means _blasé_, only more addicted to books and journeys, and less
+enthusiastic about parties and croquet, though these I could enjoy a
+little yet.
+
+I had a pretty house (and re-furnished it very often, which always gave
+me pleasure). I had no care, for Richard had arranged that I should have
+a very excellent sort of person for duenna, who had a good deal of tact,
+and didn't bore me, and was shrewd enough to make things very smooth. I
+liked her very much, though I think now she was something of a
+hypocrite. But she had enough principle to make things very respectable,
+and I never took her for a friend. We had very pretty little dinners,
+and little evenings when anybody wanted them, though the house wasn't
+very large. My duenna (by name Throckmorton) liked journeys as well as I
+did, and never objected to going anywhere. Altogether we were very
+comfortable.
+
+The people whom I had known in that first year of my social existence,
+had drifted away from me a good deal in this new life. Sophie I could
+not help meeting sometimes, for she was still a gay woman, but I
+naturally belonged to a younger set, and did not go very long into
+general society. We still disliked each other with the cordiality of our
+first acquaintance, but I was very sorry for it, and had a great many
+repentances about it after every meeting. Kilian I met a good deal, but
+we rather avoided each other, at short range, though exceedingly good
+friends to the general observation.
+
+Mary Leighton I seldom saw; no doubt she was consumed with envy when she
+heard of me, for they were poor, and not able to keep up with gay life
+as would have pleased her. She still maintained her intimacy with
+Kilian, for he had not the resolution to break off a flirtation of
+which, I was sure, he must be very tired.
+
+Henrietta had married very well, two years after I saw her at R----, and
+was the staid, placid matron that she was always meant to be.
+
+Charlotte Benson was the clever woman still: a little stronger-minded,
+and no less good-looking than of old, and no more. People were beginning
+to say that she would not marry, though she was only twenty-six. She did
+not go much to parties, and was not in my set. She affected art and
+lectures, and excursions to mountains, and campings-out, and
+unconventionalities, and no doubt had a good time in her way. But it was
+not my way: and so we seldom met. When we did, she did not show much
+more respect for me than of old, which always had the effect of making
+me feel angry.
+
+And as for Richard, we could not have been much further apart, if he
+had lived "in England and I at Rotterdam." For a year, while he was
+settling up the estate, he was closely in the city. I did not see him
+more than once or twice, all business being transacted through his
+lawyer, and the clerk of whom he had spoken to me. After the business
+matters of the estate were all in order, he went away, intending, I
+believe, to stay a year or two. But he came back before many months were
+over, and settled down into the routine of business life, which now
+seemed to have become necessary to him.
+
+Travel was only a weariness to him in his state of mind; and work, and
+city-life, seemed the panacea. He did not live with Sophie, but took
+apartments, which he furnished plainly; and seemed settling down,
+according to his brother, into much of the sort of life that Uncle
+Leonard had led so many years in Varick-street.
+
+Sophie still went to R----, and I often heard of the pleasant parties
+there in summer. But Richard seldom went, and seemed to have lost his
+interest in the place, though I have no doubt he spent more money on it
+than before. I heard of many improvements every year.
+
+And Richard was now a man of wealth, so much so that people talked about
+him; and the newspapers said, in talking about real-estate, or
+investments, or institutions of charity--"When such men as Richard
+Vandermarck allow their names to appear, we may be sure," etc., etc. He
+was now the head of the firm, and one of the first business men of the
+city. He seemed a great deal older than he was; thirty-seven is young to
+occupy the place he held.
+
+Such a _parti_ could not be let alone entirely. His course was certainly
+discouraging, and it needs tough hopes to live on nothing. But stranger
+things had happened; more obdurate men had yielded; and unappropriated
+loveliness hoped on. The story of an early attachment was afloat in
+connection with his name. I don't know whether I was made to play a part
+in it or not.
+
+I saw him, perhaps, twice a year, not oftener. His manner was always, to
+me, peculiarly grave and kind; to every one, practical and unpretending.
+I had many letters from him, particularly when I was away on journeys.
+He seemed always to want to know exactly where I was, and to feel a care
+of me, though his letters never went beyond business matters, and advice
+about things I did not understand.
+
+As my guardian, he could not have done less, nor was it necessary that
+he should do more; still I often wished it would occur to him to come
+and see me oftener, and give me an opportunity of showing him how much
+I had improved, and how different I had become. I had the greatest
+respect for his opinion; and he had grown, unconsciously to myself, to
+be a sort of oracle with me, and a sort of hero, too.
+
+I was apt to compare other men with him, and they fell very far short of
+his measure in my eyes. That may have been because I saw him much too
+seldom, and the other men much too often.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+BIEN PERDU, BIEN CONNU.
+
+     Keep, therefore, a true woman's eye,
+     And love me still, but know not why;
+       So hast thou the same reason still
+         To doat upon me ever!
+
+
+"It's very nice to be at home again," I said to Mrs. Throckmorton, as I
+broke a great lump of coal in pieces, and watched the flames
+with pleasure.
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Throckmorton, putting another piece of sugar in her
+coffee, for she was still at the table. "That is, if you call this home;
+I must confess it doesn't feel so to me altogether."
+
+"Well, it's our own dear, noisy, raging, racketing, bustling old city,
+if it isn't our own house, and I'm sure we're very comfortable."
+
+"Very," said Mrs. Throckmorton, who was always pleased.
+
+"Every time I hear the tinkle of a car-bell, or the roar of an omnibus,
+I feel a thrill of pleasure," I said; "I never was so glad to get
+anywhere before."
+
+"That's something new, isn't it?" said Mrs. Throckmorton, briefly.
+
+"I don't know; I think I am always glad to get back home."
+
+"And very glad to go away again too, my dear."
+
+"I don't think I shall travel any more," I returned. "The fact is, I am
+getting too old to care about it, I believe."
+
+Mrs. Throckmorton laughed, being considerably over forty, and still as
+fond of going about as ever.
+
+We were only _de retour_ two days. We had started eighteen months ago,
+for at least three years in Europe, and I had found myself unaccountably
+tired of it at the end of a year and a half; and here we were.
+
+Our house was rented, but that I had not allowed to be any obstacle,
+though Mrs. Throckmorton, who was very well satisfied with the easy life
+abroad, had tried to make it so. I had secured apartments which were
+very pretty and complete. We had found them in order, and we had come
+there from the steamer. I was eminently happy at being where I wanted
+to be.
+
+"How odd it seems to be in town and have nobody know it," I said,
+thinking, with a little quiet satisfaction, how pleased several people I
+could name would be, if they only knew we were so near them.
+
+"Nobody but Mr. Vandermarck, I suppose," said Mrs. Throckmorton.
+
+"Not even he," I answered, "for he can't have got my letter yet; it was
+only mailed the day we started. It was only a chance, you know, our
+getting those staterooms, and we were in such a hurry. I was so much
+obliged to that dear, old German gentleman for dying. We shouldn't have
+been here if he hadn't."
+
+"Pauline, my dear!"
+
+"Well, I can't think, as he's probably in heaven, that he can have
+begrudged us his tickets to New York."
+
+"I should think not," said Mrs. Throckmorton, with a little sigh. For
+New York was not heaven to her, and she had spent a good deal of the day
+in looking up the necessary servants for our establishment, which,
+little as it was, required just double the number that had made us
+comfortable abroad.
+
+She had too much discretion to trouble me with her cares, however, so
+she said cheerfully, after a few moments, by way of diverting my mind
+and her own--
+
+"Well, I heard some news to-day."
+
+"Ah!"--(I had been unpacking all day; and Mrs. Throckmorton in the
+interval of servant-hunting had not been able to refrain from a visit or
+two, _en passant_ to dear friends.)
+
+"Yes: Kilian Vandermarck was married yesterday."
+
+"Yesterday! how odd. And pray, who has he married? Not Mary Leighton, I
+should hope."
+
+"Leighton. Yes, that's the name. No money, and a little _passé_.
+Everybody wonders."
+
+"Well, he deserves it. That is even-handed justice, I'm not sorry for
+him. He's been trifling all his days, and now he's got his punishment.
+It serves Sophie right, too. I know she can't endure her. She never
+thought there was the slightest danger. But I'm sorry for Richard, that
+he's got to have such a girl related to him."
+
+"Oh, well," said Mrs. Throckmorton, "I don't know whether that'll affect
+him very much, for they say he's going to be married too."
+
+"Richard!"
+
+"Yes; and to that Benson girl, you know."
+
+"Who told you?"
+
+"Mary Ann. She's heard it half a dozen times, she says. I believe it's
+rather an old affair. His sister made it up, I'm told. The young lady's
+been spending the summer with them, and this autumn it came out."
+
+"I don't believe it."
+
+"I'm sure I don't know; only that's the talk. It would be odd, though,
+if we'd just come home in time for the wedding. You'll have to give her
+something handsome, being your guardian, and all."
+
+I wouldn't give her anything, and she shouldn't marry Richard, I
+thought, as I leaned back in my chair and looked into the fire; a great
+silence having fallen on us since the delivery of that piece of news.
+
+I said I didn't believe it, and yet I'm afraid I did. It was so like a
+man to give in at last; at least, like any man but Richard. He had
+always liked Charlotte Benson, and known how clever she was, and Sophie
+had been so set upon it, (particularly since Richard had had so much
+money that he had given her a handsome settlement that nothing would
+affect.) And now that Kilian was married and would have the place,
+unless Richard wanted it, it was natural that Sophie should approve
+Richard having _his_ wife there instead of Kilian having his; Kilian's
+being one that nobody particularly approved.
+
+Yes, it did sound very much like probability. I wasn't given to
+self-analysis; but I acknowledged to myself, that I was very much
+disappointed, and that if I had known that this was going to happen, I
+should have stayed in Europe.
+
+I had never felt as if there were any chance of Richard marrying any
+one; I had not said to myself, that his love for me still had an
+existence, nor had I any reason to believe it. But the truth had been,
+I had always felt that he belonged to me, and was my right, and I felt a
+bitter resentment toward this woman, who was supposed to have usurped my
+place. How _dared_ Richard love anybody else! I was angry with him, and
+very much hurt, and very, very unhappy.
+
+Long after Mrs. Throckmorton went to her middle-aged repose, I sat up
+and went through imaginary scenes, and reviewed the situation a hundred
+times, and tried to convince myself of what I wanted to believe, and
+ended without any satisfaction.
+
+One thing was certain. If Richard was going to marry Charlotte Benson,
+he was not going to do it because he loved her. He might not be
+prevented from doing it because he loved me; but he did not love her. I
+could not say why exactly. But I knew she was not the kind of woman for
+him to think of loving, and I would not believe it till I heard it from
+himself, and I would hear it from himself at the earliest possible date.
+I did not like to be unhappy, and was very impatient to get rid of this,
+if it were not true, and to know the worst, at once, if it were.
+
+"My dear Throcky," I said to my companion, at the breakfast-table, "I
+think you'd better go and take dinner with your niece to-day. I've sent
+for Mr. Vandermarck to come and dine, and I thought perhaps you'd
+rather not be bored; we shall have business to talk about, and business
+is such a nuisance when you're not interested in it."
+
+"Very well, my dear," said Mrs. Throckmorton, with indestructible
+good-humor.
+
+"Or you might have a headache, if you'd rather, and I'll send your
+dinner up to you. I'll be sure Susan takes you everything that's nice."
+
+"Well, then, I think I'll have a headache; I'm afraid I'd rather have it
+than one of Mary Ann's poor dinners. (I'd be sure of one to-morrow if
+I went.)"
+
+"Paris things have spoiled you, I'm afraid," I said. "Only see that I
+have something nice for Richard, won't you?--How do you think the cook
+is going to do?" This was the first sign of interest I had given in the
+matter of _ménage_; by which it will be seen I was still a little
+selfish, and not very wise. But Throckmorton was a person to cultivate
+my selfishness, and there had not been much to develop the wisdom of
+common life.
+
+She promised me a very pretty dinner, no matter at what trouble, and
+made me feel quite easy about her wounded feelings. One of the best
+features of Throckmorton was, she hadn't any feelings; you might treat
+her like a galley-slave, and she would show the least dejection. It was
+a temptation to have such a person in the house.
+
+I had sent a note to Richard which contained the following:
+
+/#
+     "DEAR RICHARD:
+
+     "I am sure you will be surprised to know we have returned.
+     But the fact is, I got very tired of Italy; and we were
+     disappointed in the apartments we wanted in Berlin, and some
+     of the people we expected to have with us had to give it up,
+     and altogether it seemed dull, and we thought it would be
+     just as pleasant to come home. We were able to get staterooms
+     that just suited us, and it didn't seem worth while to lose
+     them by waiting to send word. We had a very comfortable
+     voyage, and I am glad to find myself at home, though Mrs.
+     Throckmorton doesn't think the rooms are very nice. I want to
+     know if you won't come to dinner. We dine at six. Send a line
+     back by the boy. I want to ask you about some
+     business matters.
+
+     "Affectionately yours,
+
+     "PAULINE."
+#/
+
+And I had received for answer:
+
+/#
+     "MY DEAR PAULINE:
+
+     "Of course I am astonished to think you are at home. I
+     enclosed you several letters by the steamer yesterday, none
+     of them of any very great importance, though, I think. I will
+     come up at six.
+
+     "Always yours,
+
+     "RICHARD VANDERMARCK.
+
+     "P.S. I am very glad you wanted to come home."
+#/
+
+I read this letter over a great many times, but it did not enlighten me
+at all as to his intentions about marrying Charlotte Benson. It was very
+matter-of-fact, but that Richard's letters always were. Evidently he had
+thought the same of it himself, as he read it over, and had added the
+postscript. But that did not seem very enthusiastic. Altogether I was
+not happy, waiting for six o'clock to come.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+A DINNER
+
+     Time and chance are but a tide,
+     Slighted love is sair to bide.
+
+
+The dining-room and parlor of our little suite adjoined; the door was
+standing open between them, as I walked up and down the parlor, waiting
+nervously for Richard to arrive. The fire was bright, and the only light
+in the parlor was a soft, pretty lamp, which we had brought from Italy.
+There were flowers on the table, and in two or three vases, and the
+curtains were pretty, and there were several large mirrors. Outside, it
+was the twilight of a dark autumnal day; almost night already, and the
+lamps were lit. It lacked several minutes of six when Richard came. I
+felt very much agitated when he entered the room. It was a year and a
+half since I had seen him: besides, this piece of news! But he looked
+just the same as ever, and I had not the self-possession to note whether
+he seemed agitated at meeting me. I do not know exactly what we talked
+about for the first few moments, probably I was occupied in trying to
+excuse myself for coming home so suddenly, for I found Richard was not
+altogether pleased at not having been informed, and thought there must
+be something yet to tell. He was not used to feminine caprice, and I
+began to feel a good deal ashamed of myself. I had to remind myself,
+more than once, that I was not responsible to any one.
+
+"I just felt like it," was such a very weak explanation to offer to this
+grave business-man, for disarranging two years of carefully-laid plans.
+
+I found I was getting to be a little afraid of Richard: we had been so
+long apart, and he had grown so much older.
+
+"I hope, at least, you are not going to scold me for it," I said at
+last, with a little laugh, feeling that was my best way out of it. "I
+shall think you are not glad, to see me."
+
+"I am glad to see you," he said, gravely; "and as to scolding, it's so
+long since you've given me an opportunity, I should not know how to
+go to work."
+
+"Do you mean, because I've been away so long, or because I've been so
+good?"
+
+Susan, who had been watching her opportunity, now appeared in the
+dining-room door, and said that dinner was on the table.
+
+Richard asked for Mrs. Throckmorton when we sat down to dinner. I told
+him she was dining with her niece. (She had reconsidered the question of
+the headache, and had gone to hear more news.) The dinner was very nice,
+and very nicely served; but somehow, Richard did not seem to enjoy it
+very much, that is, not as I had been in the habit lately of seeing men
+enjoy their meals.
+
+"I am afraid you are getting like Uncle Leonard, and only care about
+Wall-street," I said. "I shouldn't wonder if you forgot to order your
+dinner half the time, and took the same thing for breakfast every
+morning in the year."
+
+"That's just exactly how it is," he said. "If Sophie did not come down
+to my quarters every week or two, and regulate affairs a little, I don't
+know where I should be, in the matter of my dinners."
+
+"How is Sophie?" I said.
+
+"Very well. I saw her yesterday. I went to put Charley in College for
+her."
+
+"I can't think of Charley as a young man."
+
+"Yes, Charley is a strapping fellow, within two inches of my height."
+
+"Impossible! And where is Benny?"
+
+"At school here in town. His mother will not let him go to
+boarding-school. He is a nice boy: I think there's more in him
+than Charley."
+
+"And I hear Kilian is married!"
+
+"Yes. Kilian is married--the very day you landed, too."
+
+"Well," I said, with a little dash of temper, "I'm very sorry for you
+all. I did not think Kilian was going to be so foolish."
+
+"He thinks he's very wise, though, all the same," said Richard, with a
+smile, which turned into a sigh before he had done speaking.
+
+"I do dislike her so," I exclaimed, warmly. "There isn't an honest or
+straightforward thing about her. She is weak, too; her only strength is
+her suppleness and cunning."
+
+"I know you never liked her," said Richard, gravely; "but I hope you'll
+try to think better of her now."
+
+"I hope I shall never have to see her," I answered, with angry warmth.
+
+Richard was silent, and I was very much ashamed of myself a moment
+after. I had meant him to see how much improved I was, and how well
+disciplined. This was a pretty exhibition! I had not spoken so of any
+one for a year, at least. I colored with mortification and penitence.
+Richard evidently saw it, and felt sorry for me, for he said,
+most kindly,
+
+"I can understand exactly how you feel, Pauline. This marriage is a
+great trial to me. I have done all I could to keep Kilian from throwing
+himself away, but I might as well have argued with the winds."
+
+"I don't care how much Kilian throws himself away," I said, impulsively.
+"He deserves it for keeping around her all these years. But I do mind
+that she is your sister, and that she will be mistress of the house
+at R----."
+
+There was an awful silence then. Heavens! what had I been thinking about
+to have said that! I had precipitated the _dénouement_, and I had not
+meant to. I did not want to hear it that moment, if he were going to
+marry Charlotte Benson, nor did I want to hear it, if he were saving the
+old place for me. I felt as if I had given the blow that would bring the
+whole structure down, and I waited for the crash in frightened silence.
+
+In the meantime the business of the table went on. I ate half a chicken
+croquette, and Susan placed the salad before Richard, and another plate.
+He did not speak till he had put the salad on his plate; then he said,
+without looking at me, in a voice a good deal lower than was usual
+to him,
+
+"She is not to be mistress of that house. They will live in town."
+
+Then I felt cold and chilled to my very heart; it was well that he did
+not expect me to speak, for I could not have commanded my voice enough
+to have concealed my agitation. I knew very well from that moment that
+he was going to marry Charlotte Benson. Something that was said a little
+later was a confirmation.
+
+I had recovered myself enough to talk about ordinary things, and to keep
+strictly to them, too. Richard was talking of the great heat of the past
+summer. I had said it had been unparalleled in France; had he not found
+it very uncomfortable here in town?
+
+"I have been out of town so much, I can hardly say how it has been
+here," he answered. "I was all of August in the country; only coming to
+the city twice."
+
+My heart sank: that was just what they had said; he had been a great
+deal at home this summer, and she had been there all the time.
+
+The dinner was becoming terribly _ennuyant_, and I wished with all my
+heart Throckmorton had been contented with just half the courses.
+Richard did not seem to enjoy them, and I--I was so wretched I could
+scarcely say a word, much less eat a morsel. It had been a great
+mistake to invite him to take dinner; it was being too familiar, when he
+had put me at such a distance all these years: I wished for Mrs.
+Throckmorton with all my heart. Why had I sent her off? Richard was
+evidently so constrained, and it was in such bad taste to have asked him
+here; it could not help putting thoughts in both our minds, sitting
+alone at a table opposite each other, as we should have been sitting
+daily if that horrid will had not been found. He had dined with us just
+twice before, but that was at dinner-parties, when there had been ever
+so many people between us, and when I had not said six words to him
+during the whole evening.
+
+The only excuse I could offer, and that he could understand, would be
+that I wanted to talk business to him; I had said in my note that I
+wanted to consult him about something, and I must keep that in mind. I
+had wanted to ask him about a house I thought of buying, adjoining the
+Sisters' Hospital, to enlarge their work; but I was so wicked and
+worldly, I felt just then as if I did not care whether they had a house
+or not, or whether they did any work. However, I resolved to speak about
+it, when we had got away from the table, if we ever did.
+
+Susan kept bringing dish after dish.
+
+"Oh, we don't want any of that!" I exclaimed, at last, impatiently; "do
+take it away, and tell them to send in the coffee."
+
+I was resolved upon one thing: Richard should tell me of his engagement
+before he went away; it would be dishonorable and unkind if he did not,
+and I should make him do it. I was not quite sure that I had
+self-control enough not to show how it made me feel, when it came to
+hearing it all in so many words. But in very truth, I had not much pride
+as regarded him; I felt so sore-hearted and unhappy, I did not care much
+whether he knew it or suspected it.
+
+I could not help remembering how little concealment he had made of his
+love for me, even when he knew that all the heart I had was given to
+another. I would be very careful not to precipitate the disclosure,
+however, while we sat at table; it is so disagreeable to talk to any one
+on an agitating subject _vis-à-vis_ across a little dinner-table, with a
+bright light overhead, and a servant walking around, able to stop and
+study you from any point she pleases.
+
+Coffee came at last, though even that, Susan was unwilling to look upon
+as the legitimate finale, and had her views about liqueur, instructed by
+Throckmorton. But I cut it short by getting up and saying, "I'm sure
+you'll be glad to go into the parlor; it gets warm so soon in these
+little rooms."
+
+The parlor was very cool and pleasant; a window had been open, and the
+air was fresh, and the flowers were delicious, and the lamp was softer
+and pleasanter than the gas. I went to break up the coal and make the
+fire blaze, and Richard to shut the window down.
+
+When I had pulled a chair up to the fire and seated myself, he stood
+leaning on the mantelpiece, on the other side from me. I felt sure he
+meant to go, the minute that he could get away--a committee meeting, no
+doubt, or some such nauseous fraud. But he should not go away until he
+had told me, that was certain.
+
+"What is it that you wanted to ask me about, Pauline?" he said, rather
+abruptly.
+
+My heart gave a great thump; how could he have known? Oh, it was the
+business that I had spoken of in my stupid note. Yes; and I began to
+explain to him what I wanted to do about the hospital.
+
+He looked infinitely relieved. I believe he had an idea it was something
+very different. My explanation could not have added much to his
+reverence for my business ability. I was very indefinite, and could not
+tell him whether it was hundreds or thousands that I meant.
+
+He said, with a smile, he thought it must be thousands, as city property
+was so very high. He was very kind, however, about the matter, and did
+not discourage me at all. He always seemed to approve of my desire to
+give away in charity, and, within bounds, always furthered such plans of
+doing good. He said he would look into it, and would write me word next
+week what his impression was; and then, I think, he meant to go away.
+
+Then I began talking on every subject I could think of, hoping some of
+the roads would lead to Rome. But none of them led there, and I was
+in despair.
+
+"Oh, don't you want to look at some photographs?" I said, at last,
+thinking I saw an opening for my wedge. I got the package, and he came
+to the table and looked at them, standing up. They were naturally of
+much more interest to me than to him, being of places and people with
+which I had so lately been familiar.
+
+But he looked at them very kindly, and asked a good many questions about
+them.
+
+"Look at this," I said, handing him an Antwerp peasant-woman in her
+hideous bonnet. "Isn't that ridiculously like Charlotte Benson? I bought
+it because it was so singular a resemblance."
+
+"It is like her," he said, thoughtfully, looking at it long. "The mouth
+is a little larger and the eyes further apart. But it is a most striking
+likeness. It might almost have been taken for her."
+
+"How is she, and when have you seen her?" I said, a little choked for
+breath.
+
+"She is very well. I saw her yesterday," he answered, still looking at
+the little picture.
+
+"Was she with Sophie this summer?"
+
+"Yes, for almost two months."
+
+"I hope she doesn't keep everybody in order as sharply as she used to?"
+I said, with a bitter little laugh.
+
+"I don't know," he said. "I think, perhaps, she is rather less decided
+than she used to be."
+
+"Oh, you call it decision, do you? Well, I'm glad I know what it is. I
+used to think it hadn't such a pretty name as that."
+
+Richard looked grave; it certainly was not a graceful way to lead up to
+congratulations.
+
+"But then, you always liked her," I said.
+
+"Yes, I always liked her," he answered, simply.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm not very amiable," I retorted, "for I never liked her:
+no better even than that fraudulent Mary Leighton, clever and sensible
+as she always was. There is such a thing as being too clever, and too
+sensible, and making yourself an offence to all less admirable people."
+
+Richard was entirely silent, and, I was sure, was disapproving of me
+very much.
+
+"Do you know what I heard yesterday?" I said, In a daring way. "And I
+hope you're going to tell me if it's true, to-night?"
+
+"What was it that you heard yesterday?" he asked, without much change of
+tone. He had laid down the photograph, and had gone back, and was
+leaning by the mantelpiece again.
+
+"Why, I heard that you were going to marry Charlotte Benson. Is it
+true?"
+
+I had pushed away the pile of photographs from me, and had looked up at
+him when I began, but my voice and courage rather failed before the end,
+and my eyes fell. There was a silence--a silence that seemed to
+stifle me.
+
+"Why do you ask me that question?" he said, at last, in a low voice. "Do
+you believe I am, yourself?"
+
+"No," I cried, springing up, and going over to his side. "No, I don't
+believe it. Tell me it isn't true, and promise me you won't ever, ever
+marry Charlotte Benson."
+
+The relief was so unspeakable that I didn't care what I said, and the
+joy I felt showed itself in my face and voice. I put out my hand to him
+when I said "promise me," but he did not take it, and turned his head
+away from me.
+
+"I shall not marry Charlotte Benson," he said; "but I cannot understand
+what difference it makes to you."
+
+It was now my turn to be silent, and I shrank back a step or two in
+great confusion.
+
+He raised his head, and looked steadily at me for a moment, and then
+said:
+
+"Pauline, you did a great many things, but I don't think you ever
+willingly deceived me. Did you?"
+
+I shook my head without looking lip.
+
+"Then be careful what you do now, and let the past alone," he said, and
+his voice was almost stern.
+
+I trembled, and turned pale.
+
+"Women sometimes play with dangerous weapons," he said; "I don't accuse
+you of meaning to give pain, but only of forgetting that some
+recollections are not to you what they are to me. I never want to
+interfere with any one's comfort or enjoyment; I only want to be let
+alone. I do very well, and am not unhappy. About marrying, now or ever,
+I should have thought you would have known. But let me tell you once for
+all: I haven't any thought of it, and shall not ever have. It is not
+that I am holding to any foolish hopes. It would be exactly the same if
+you were married, or had died. It simply isn't in my nature to feel the
+same way a second time. People are made differently, that is all. I'm
+very well contented, and you need never let it worry you."
+
+He was very pale now, and his eyes had an expression I had never seen in
+them before.
+
+"Richard," I said, faintly, "I never _have_ deceived you: believe me now
+when I tell you, I am sorry from my heart for all that's past."
+
+"You told me so before, and I did forgive you. I forgave you fully, and
+have never had a thought that wasn't kind."
+
+"I know it," I said. "But you do not trust me--you don't ever come near
+me, or want to see me."
+
+"You do not know what you are talking of," he answered, turning from me.
+"I forgive you anything you may have done at any time to give me pain. I
+will do everything I can to serve you, in every way I can; only do not
+stir up the past, and let me forget the little of it that I can forget."
+
+I burst into tears, and put my hands before my face.
+
+"What is it?" he said, uneasily. "You need not be troubled about me."
+
+Seeing that I did not stop, he said again, "Tell me: is it that that
+troubles you?"
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"What is it, then? Something that I do not know about? Pauline, you are
+unhappy, and yet you've everything in the world to make you happy. I
+often think, there are not many women have as much."
+
+"The poorest of them are better off than I," I said, without raising my
+head.
+
+"Then you are ungrateful," he said, "for you have youth, and health, and
+money, and everybody likes you. You could choose from all the world."
+
+"No, I couldn't," I exclaimed, like a child; "and everybody doesn't like
+me,"--and then I cried again, for I was really in despair, and thought
+he meant to put me away, memory and all.
+
+"Well, if that's your trouble," he said, with a sigh, "I suppose I
+cannot help you; but I'm very sorry."
+
+"Yes, you _can_ help me," I cried imploringly, forgetting all I ought to
+have remembered; "if you only would forgive me, really and in earnest,
+and be friends again--and let me try--" and I covered my face with
+my hands.
+
+"Pauline," he said, standing by my side, and his voice almost frightened
+me, it was so strong with feeling; "is this a piece of sentiment? Do you
+mean anything? Or am I to be trifled with again?"
+
+He took hold of my wrists with both his hands, with such force as to
+give me pain, and drew them from my face.
+
+"Look at me," he said, "and tell me what you mean; and decide
+now--forever and forever. For this is the last time that you will have a
+chance to say."
+
+"It's all very well," I said, trying to turn my face away from him.
+"It's all very well to talk about loving me yet, and being just the
+same; but this isn't the way you used to talk, and I think it's
+very hard--"
+
+"That isn't answering me," he said, holding me closer to him.
+
+"What shall I say," I whispered, hiding my face upon his arm. "Nothing
+will ever satisfy you."
+
+"Nothing ever _has_ satisfied me," he said, "--before."
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RICHARD VANDERMARCK***
+
+
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+<html>
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Richard Vandermarck, by Miriam Coles Harris</title>
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+<body>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Richard Vandermarck, by Miriam Coles Harris</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Richard Vandermarck</p>
+<p>Author: Miriam Coles Harris</p>
+<p>Release Date: May 14, 2004  [eBook #12348]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: iso-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RICHARD VANDERMARCK***</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<center><h3>E-text prepared by Curtis Weyant, Charlie Kirschner,<br>
+            and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</h3></center>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr class="full" noshade>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>RICHARD VANDERMARCK.</h1>
+<h3>A NOVEL.</h3>
+<h2>By MRS. SIDNEY S. HARRIS,</h2>
+<br>
+<h4>AUTHOR OF "RUTLEDGE," "ST. PHILLIPS,"</h4>
+<h4>ETC., ETC.</h4>
+<h5>1871.</h5>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<h2>To S.S.H.</h2>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+<br>
+<center><a href="#CHAPTER_I.">CHAPTER I. VARICK-STREET</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_II.">CHAPTER II. VERY GOOD LUCK</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_III.">CHAPTER III. KILIAN</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IV.">CHAPTER IV. MY COMPANIONS</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_V.">CHAPTER V. THE TUTOR</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VI.">CHAPTER VI. MATINAL</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VII.">CHAPTER VII. THREE WEEKS TOO LATE</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII.">CHAPTER VIII. SUNDAY</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IX.">CHAPTER IX. A DANCE</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_X.">CHAPTER X. EVERY DAY FROM SIX TO
+SEVEN</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XI.">CHAPTER XI. SOPHIE'S WORK</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XII.">CHAPTER XII. PRAEMONITUS,
+PRAEMUNITUS</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII.">CHAPTER XIII. THE WORLD GOES ON THE
+SAME</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV.">CHAPTER XIV. GUARDED</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XV.">CHAPTER XV. I SHALL HAVE SEEN HIM</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI.">CHAPTER XVI. AUGUST THIRTIETH</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII.">CHAPTER XVII. BESIDE HIM ONCE
+AGAIN</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII.">CHAPTER XVIII. A JOURNEY</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX.">CHAPTER XIX. SISTER MADELINE</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XX.">CHAPTER XX. THE HOUR OF DAWN</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI.">CHAPTER XXI. APR&Eacute;S PERDRE, PERD ON
+BIEN</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII.">CHAPTER XXII. A GREAT DEAL TOO
+SOON</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII.">CHAPTER XXIII. A REVERSAL</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV.">CHAPTER XXIV. MY NEW WORLD</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV.">CHAPTER XXV. BIEN PERDU, BIEN CONNU</a><br>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI.">CHAPTER XXVI. A DINNER</a></center>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>RICHARD VANDERMARCK.</h2>
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I."></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+<h3>VARICK STREET.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>O for one spot of living green,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;One little spot where leaves can grow,--<br>
+To love unblamed, to walk unseen,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;To dream above, to sleep below!<br>
+<br>
+<i>Holmes</i>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+There are in this loud stunning tide,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Of human care and crime,<br>
+With whom the melodies abide<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Of th' everlasting chime;<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+And to wise hearts this certain hope is given;<br>
+"No mist that man may raise, shall hide the eye of Heaven."<br>
+<br>
+<i>Keble.</i></blockquote>
+<br>
+<p>I never knew exactly how the invitation came; I felt very much
+honored by it, though I think now, very likely the honor was felt
+to be upon the other side. I was exceedingly young, and exceedingly
+ignorant, not seventeen, and an orphan, living in the house of an
+uncle, an unmarried man of nearly seventy, wholly absorbed in
+business, and not much more interested in me than in his clerks and
+servants.</p>
+<p>I had come under his protection, a little girl of two years old,
+and had been in his house ever since. I had had as good care as a
+very ordinary class of servants could give me, and was supplied
+with some one to teach me, and had as much money to spend as was
+good for me--perhaps more; and I do not feel inclined to say my
+uncle did not do his duty, for I do not think he knew of anything
+further to do; and strictly speaking, I had no claim on him, for I
+was only a great-niece, and there were those living who were more
+nearly related to me, and who were abundantly able to provide for
+me, if they had been willing to do it.</p>
+<p>When I came in to the household, its wants were attended to by a
+cook and a man-servant, who had lived many years with my uncle. A
+third person was employed as my nurse, and a great deal of
+quarrelling was the result of her coming. I quite wonder my uncle
+did not put me away at board somewhere, rather than be disturbed.
+But in truth, I do not believe that the quarrelling disturbed him
+much, or that he paid much attention to the matter, and so the
+matter settled itself. My nurses were changed very often, by will
+of the cook and old Peter, and I never was happy enough to have one
+who had very high principle, or was more than ordinarily
+good-tempered.</p>
+<p>I don't know who selected my teachers; probably they applied for
+employment and were received. They were very business-like and
+unsuggestive people. I was of no more interest to them than a bale
+of goods, I believe. Indeed, I seemed likely to go a bale of goods
+through life; everything that was done for me was done for money,
+and with a view to the benefit of the person serving me. I was not
+sent to school, which was a very great pity; it was owing to the
+fact, no doubt, that somebody applied to my uncle to teach me at
+home, and so the system was inaugurated, and never received a
+second thought, and I went on being taught at home till I was
+seventeen.</p>
+<p>The "home" was as follows; a large dark house on the unsunny
+side of a dull street; furniture that had not been changed for
+forty years, walls that were seldom repainted, windows that were
+rarely opened. The neighborhood had been for many years
+unfashionable and undesirable, and, by the time I was grown up,
+nobody would have lived in it, who had cared to have a cheerful
+home, I might almost have said, a respectable one, I fancy ours was
+nearly the only house in the block occupied by its owner; the
+others, equally large, were rented for tenement houses, or
+boarding-houses, and perhaps for many things worse. It was probably
+owing to this fact, that my uncle gave orders, once for all, I was
+never to go into the street alone; and I believe, in my whole life,
+I had never taken a walk unaccompanied by a servant, or one of my
+teachers.</p>
+<p>A very dull life indeed. I wonder how I endured it. The rooms
+were so dismal, the windows so uneventful. If it had not been for a
+room in the garret where I had my playthings, and where the sun
+came all day long, I am sure I should have been a much worse and
+more unhappy child. As I grew older, I tried to adorn my room (my
+own respectable sleeping room, I mean), with engravings, and the
+little ornaments that I could buy. But it was a hopeless attempt.
+The walls were so high and so dingy, the little pictures were lost
+upon them; and the vases on the great black mantel-shelf looked so
+insignificant, I felt ashamed of them, and owned the unfitness of
+decorating such a room. No flowers would grow in those cold north
+windows--no bird would sing in sight of such a street. I gave it up
+with a sigh; and there was one good instinct lost.</p>
+<p>When I was about eleven, I fell foul of some good books. If it
+had not been for them, I truly do not see how I could have known
+that I was not to lie or steal, and that God was to be worshipped.
+Certainly, I had had hands slapped many times for taking things I
+had been forbidden to touch, and had had many a battle in
+consequence of "telling stories," with the servants of the house,
+but I had always recognized the personal spite of the punishments,
+and they had not carried with them any moral lesson.</p>
+<p>I had sometimes gone to church; but the sermons in large city
+churches are not generally elementary, and I did not understand
+those that I heard at all. Occasionally I went with the nurse to
+Vespers, and that I thought delightful. I was enraptured with the
+pictures, the music, the rich clothes of the priests; if it had not
+been for the bad odor of the neighboring worshippers, I think I
+might have rushed into the bosom of the Church of Rome. But that
+offended sense restrained me. And so, as I said, if I had not
+obtained access to some books of holy and pure influence, and been
+starved by the dullness of the life around me into taking hold of
+them with eagerness, I should have led the life of a little heathen
+in the midst of light. Of course the books were not written for my
+especial case, nor were they books for children,--and so, much was
+supposed, and not expressed, and consequently the truth they
+imparted to me was but fragmentary. But it was truth, and the
+influence was holy.</p>
+<p>I was driven to books; I do not believe I had any more desire
+than most vivid, palpitating, fluttering young things of my sex, to
+pore over a dull black and white page; but this black and white
+gate opened to me golden fields of happiness, while I was perishing
+of hunger in a life of dreary fact.</p>
+<p>When I was about sixteen, however, an outside human influence,
+not written in black and white, came into the current of my
+existence. About that time, my uncle took into his firm, as junior
+partner, a young man who had long been a clerk in the house. After
+his promotion he often came home with my uncle to dinner. I think
+this was done, perhaps, with a view of civil treatment, on the
+first occasion; but afterward, it was continued because my uncle
+could not bear to leave business when he left the office, and
+because he could talk on the matters which were dearer to him than
+his dinner, with this junior, in whom he took unqualified delight.
+He often wrote letters in the evening, which my uncle dictated, and
+he sometimes did not go away till eleven o'clock at night. The
+first time he came, I did not notice him very much. It was not
+unusual for Uncle Leonard to be accompanied by some gentleman who
+talked business with him during dinner; and being naturally shy,
+and moreover, on this occasion, in the middle of a very interesting
+book, at once timid and indifferent, I slipped away from the table
+the moment that I could. But upon the third or fourth occasion of
+his being there, I became interested, finding often a pair of
+handsome eyes fixed on me, and being occasionally addressed and
+made a partner in the conversation. Uncle Leonard very rarely
+talked to me, and I think found me in the way when Richard
+Vandermarck made the talk extend to me.</p>
+<p>But this was the beginning of a very much improved era for me. I
+lost my shyness, and my fear of Uncle Leonard, and indeed, I think,
+my frantic thirst for books, and became quite a young lady. We were
+great friends; he brought me books, he told me about other people,
+he opened a thousand doors of interest and pleasure to me. I never
+can enumerate all I owed to him. My dull life was changed, and the
+house owed him gratitude.</p>
+<p>We began to have the gas lighted in the parlor, and even Uncle
+Leonard came in there sometimes and sat after dinner, before he
+went up into that dreary library above. I think he rather enjoyed
+hearing us talk gayly across his sombre board; he certainly became
+softer and more human toward me after Richard came to be so
+constantly a guest. He gave me more money to spend, (that was
+always the expression of his feelings, his language, so to speak;)
+he made various inquiries and improvements about the house. The
+dinners themselves were improved, for a horrible monotony had crept
+into the soups and sauces of forty years; and Uncle Leonard was no
+epicure; he seemed to have no more stomach than he had heart; brain
+and pocket made the man.</p>
+<p>I think unconsciously he was much influenced by Richard, whose
+business talent had charmed him, and to whom he looked for much
+that he knew he must soon lose. He was glad to make the house seem
+pleasant to him, and he was much gratified by his frequent coming.
+And Richard was peculiarly a man to like and to lean upon. Not in
+any way brilliant, and with no literary tastes, he was well
+educated enough, and very well informed; a thorough business man. I
+think he was ordinarily reserved, but our intercourse had been so
+unconventional, that I did not think him so at all. He was rather
+good-looking, tall and square-shouldered, with light-brown hair and
+fine dark-blue eyes; he had a great many points of advantage.</p>
+<p>One day, long after he had become almost a member of the
+household, he told me he wanted me to know his sister, and that she
+would come the next day to see me, if I would like it. I did like
+it, and waited for her with impatience. He had told me a great deal
+about her, and I was full of curiosity to see her. She was a little
+older than Richard, and the only sister; very pretty, and quite a
+person of consequence in society. She had made an unfortunate
+marriage, though of that Richard said very little to me; but with
+better luck than attends most unfortunately-married, women, she was
+released by her husband's early death, and was free to be happy
+again, with some pretty boys, a moderate fortune, and two brothers
+to look after her investments, and do her little errands for her.
+She considered herself fortunate; and was a widow of rare
+discretion, in that she was wedded to her unexpected independence,
+and never intended to be wedded to anything or anybody else. She
+was naturally cool and calculating, and was in no danger of being
+betrayed by her feelings into any other course of life than the one
+she had marked out as most expedient. If she was worldly, she was
+also useful, intelligent, and popular, and a paragon in her
+brother's partial eyes.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II."></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+<h3>VERY GOOD LUCK.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>Mieux vaut une once de fortune qu'une livre de
+sagesse.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<p>At last (on the day on which Richard had advertised me she was
+coming,) the door was opened, and some one was taken to the parlor.
+Then old Peter rang a bell which stood on the hall table, and
+called out to Ann Coddle (once my nurse, now the seamstress,
+chambermaid, and general lightener of his toils), to tell Miss
+Pauline a lady wanted her.</p>
+<p>This bell was to save his old bones; he never went up-stairs,
+and he resented every visitor as an innovation. They were so few,
+his temper was not much tried. I was leaning over the stairs when
+the bell rang, and did not need a second message. Ann, who
+continued to feel a care for my personal appearance, followed me to
+the landing-place and gave my sash a last pull.</p>
+<p>When I found myself in the parlor I began to experience a little
+embarrassment. Mrs. Hollenbeck was so pretty and her dress was so
+dainty, the dingy, stiff, old parlor filled me with dismay.
+Fortunately, I did not think much of myself or my own dress. But
+after a little, she put me at ease, that is, drew me out and made
+me feel like talking to her.</p>
+<p>I admired her very much, but I did not feel any of the affection
+and quick cordiality with which Richard had inspired me. I could
+tell that she was curious about me, and was watching me
+attentively, and though she was so charming that I felt flattered
+by her interest, I was not pleased when I remembered my interview
+with her.</p>
+<p>"You are not at all like your brother," I said, glancing in her
+face with frankness.</p>
+<p>"No?" she said smilingly, and looking attentively at me with an
+expression which I did not understand.</p>
+<p>And then she drew me on to speak of all his features, which I
+did with the utmost candor, showing great knowledge of the
+subject.</p>
+<p>"And you," she said, "you do not look at all as I supposed. You
+are not nearly so young--Richard told me you were quite a child. I
+was not prepared for this grace; this young ladyhood--'cette taille
+de palmier,'" she added, with a little sweep of the hand.</p>
+<p>Somehow I was not pleased to feel that Richard had talked of me
+to her, though I liked it that he had talked of her to me. No doubt
+she saw it, for I was lamentably transparent. "Do you lead a quiet
+life, or have you many friends?" she said, as if she did not know
+exactly the kind of life I led, and as if she had not come for the
+express purpose of helping me out of it, at the instance of her
+kindly brother. Then, of course, I told her all about my dull days,
+and she pitied me, and said lightly it must not be, and I must see
+more of the world, and she, for her part, must know me better,
+etc., etc. And then she went away.</p>
+<p>In a few days, I went with Ann Coddle, in a carriage, to return
+the visit. The house was small, but in a beautiful, bright street,
+and the one window near the door was full of ferns and ivies. I did
+not get in, which was a disappointment to me, particularly as I had
+no printed card, and realized keenly all the ignominy of leaving
+one in writing. This was in April, and I saw no more of my new
+friend. Richard was away, on some business of the firm, and the
+days were very dull indeed.</p>
+<p>In May he came back, and resumed the dinners, and the evenings
+in the parlor, though not quite with the frequency of the past
+winter,--and I think there was the least shade of constraint in his
+manner. It was on one of these May days that he came and took me to
+the Park. It was a great occasion; I had never been so happy before
+in my life. I was in great doubt about taking Ann Coddle; never
+having been out of the house without a person of that description
+in attendance before. But Ann got a suspicion of my doubt and
+settled it, to go--of course. I think Richard was rather chagrined
+when she followed us out to get into the carriage; she was so
+dried-up and shrewish-looking, and wore such an Irish bonnet. But
+she preserved a discreet silence, and looked steadfastly out of the
+carriage window, so we soon forgot that she was there, though she
+was directly opposite to us. It was Saturday; the day was fresh and
+lovely, and there were crowds of people driving in the Park. Once
+we left the carriage with Ann Coddle in it, and went to hear the
+music. It was while we were sitting for a few moments under the
+vines to listen to it, and watch the gay groups of people around
+us, that a carriage passed within a dozen feet, and a lady leaned
+out and bowed with smiles.</p>
+<p>"Why, see--it is your sister!" I exclaimed, with the vivacity of
+a person of a very limited acquaintance.</p>
+<p>"Ah," he said, and raised his hat carelessly. But I saw he was
+not pleased; he pushed the end of his moustache into his mouth, and
+bit it, as he always did when out of humor, and very soon proposed
+we should go back and find the carriage. It was not long, however,
+before he recovered from this annoyance, as he had from the
+unexpected pleasure of Ann's company; and, I am sure, was as sorry
+as I when it was time to go home to dinner.</p>
+<p>He stayed and dined with us; another gentleman had come home
+with my uncle, who talked well and amused us very much. I was
+excited and in high spirits; altogether, it was a very happy
+day.</p>
+<p>It was more than a week after this, that the invitation came
+which turned the world upside down at once, and made me most
+extravagantly happy. It was from Mrs. Hollenbeck, and I was asked
+to spend part of June and all of July and August, with them at
+R----.</p>
+<p>At R---- was their old family home, a place of very little
+pretension, but to which they were much attached. When the father
+died, five years before, the two sons had bought the place, or
+rather had taken it as their share, turning over the more
+productive property to their sister.</p>
+<p>They had been very reluctant to close the house, and it was
+decided that Sophie should go there every summer, and take her
+servants from the city; the expenses of the place being borne by
+the two young men. They were very well able to do it, as both were
+successful in business, and keeping open the old home, with no
+diminution of the hospitality of their father's time, was perhaps
+the greatest pleasure that they had. It was an arrangement which
+suited Sophie admirably. It gave her the opportunity to entertain
+pleasantly and informally; it was a capital summer-home for her two
+boys; it was in the centre of an agreeable neighborhood; and above
+all, it gave her yearly-exhausted purse time to recuperate and
+swell again before the winter's drain. Of course she loved the
+place, too, but not with the simple affection that her two brothers
+did. The young men invited their friends there without restriction,
+as was to be supposed; and Sophie was a gay and agreeable hostess.
+No one could have made the house pleasanter than she did; and she
+left nothing undone to gratify her brothers' tastes and wishes,
+like a wise and prudent woman as she was.</p>
+<p>I did not know all this then, or my invitation might not have
+overwhelmed me with such gratitude to her. I reproached myself for
+not having loved her the first time I saw her.</p>
+<p>Three months! Three happy months in the country! I could hardly
+believe it possible such a thing had happened to me. I took the
+note to my uncle without much fear of his opposition, for he rarely
+opposed anything that I had the courage to ask him, except going in
+the street alone. (I believe my mother had made a runaway match,
+and I think he had faith in inherited traits; his one resolution
+regarding me must have been, not to give me a chance.) He read the
+note carefully, and then looked me over with more interest than
+usual, and told me I might go. Afterward he gave me a roll of
+bills, and told me to come to him for more money, if I needed
+it.</p>
+<p>I was much excited about my clothes. I could not think that
+anything was good enough to go to R----; and I am afraid I spent a
+good deal of my uncle's money. Ann Coddle and the cook thought that
+my dresses were magnificent, and old Peter groaned over the coming
+of the packages. I had indeed a wardrobe fit for a young princess,
+and in very good taste besides, because I was born with that. An
+inheritance, no doubt. And my uncle never complained at all about
+the bills. I seemed to have become, in some way, a person of
+considerable importance in the house. Ann Coddle no more fretted at
+me, but waited on me with alacrity. The cook ceased to bully me,
+and on the contrary, flattered me outrageously. I remembered the
+long years of bullying, and put no faith in her assurances. I did
+not know exactly why this change had happened, but supposed it
+might be the result of having become a young lady, and being
+invited to pay visits.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III."></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+<h3>KILIAN.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>You are well made--have common sense,<br>
+And do not want for impudence.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<i>Faust</i>.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>Tanto buen die val niente.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui
+l'admire</i>.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<p>The packages finally ceased coming and the stiff old bell from
+being pulled; but only half an hour before the carriage drove to
+the door that was to take me to the boat. Ann Coddle was flying up
+and down the stairs, and calling messages over to Peter in a shrill
+voice. She was not designed by nature for a lady's maid, and was a
+very disagreeable person to have about one's room. She made me even
+more nervous than I should otherwise have been. I had never packed
+a trunk before, or had one packed, and might have thought it a very
+simple piece of business if Ann had not made such a mountain of it;
+packing every tray half a dozen times over, and going down-stairs
+three times about every article that was to come up from the
+laundry.</p>
+<p>Happily she was not to go with me any farther than the boat.
+Richard was away again on business--had been gone, indeed, since
+the day after we had driven in the Park: so I was to be put on
+board the boat, and left in charge of Kilian, his younger brother,
+who had called at my uncle's office, and made the arrangement with
+him. I had never seen Kilian, and the meeting filled me with
+apprehension; my uncle, however, sent up one of his clerks in the
+carriage to take me to the boat, and put me in charge of this young
+gentleman. This considerate action on the part of my uncle seemed
+to fill up the measure of my surprises.</p>
+<p>When we reached the boat, the clerk, a respectful youth,
+conducted me to the upper deck, and then left me with Ann, while he
+went down about the baggage.</p>
+<p>With all our precautions, we were rather late, for the last bell
+was ringing; Ann was in a fever of impatience, and I was quite
+uncertain what to do, the clerk not having returned, and Mr. Kilian
+Vandermarck not having yet appeared. Ann was so disagreeable, and
+so disturbing to all thinking, that I had more than once to tell
+her to be quiet. Matters seemed to have reached a crisis. The man
+at the gangway was shouting "all aboard;" the whistle was blowing;
+the bell was ringing; Ann was whimpering; when a belated-looking
+young man with a book and paper under his arm came up the stairs
+hurriedly and looked around with anxiety. As soon as his eye fell
+on us, he looked relieved, and walked directly up to me, and called
+me by name, interrogatively.</p>
+<p>"O yes," I said eagerly, "but do get this woman off the boat or
+we'll have to take her with us." "Oh, no danger," he said, "plenty
+of time," and he took her toward the stairs, at the head of which
+she was met by the clerk, who touched his hat to me, handed the
+checks to Mr. Vandermarck, then hurried off with Ann. Mr.
+Vandermarck returned to me, but I was so engrossed looking over the
+side of the boat and watching for Ann and the clerk, that I took no
+notice of him.</p>
+<p>At last I saw Ann scramble on the wharf, just before the plank
+was drawn in; with a sigh of relief I turned away.</p>
+<p>"I want to apologize for being so late," he said.</p>
+<p>"Why, it is not any matter," I answered, "only I had not the
+least idea what to do."</p>
+<p>"You are not used to travelling alone, then, I suppose?"</p>
+<p>"Oh no," nor to travelling any way, for the matter of that, I
+added to myself; but not aloud, for I had a great fear that it
+should be known how very limited my experience was.</p>
+<p>"You must let me take your shawl and bag, and we will go and get
+a comfortable seat," he said in a few moments. We went forward and
+found comfortable chairs under an awning, and where there was a
+fine breeze. It was a warm afternoon, and the change from the
+heated and glaring wharf was delightful. Mr. Vandermarck threw
+himself back in his chair with an expression of relief, and took
+off his straw hat.</p>
+<p>"If you had been in Wall-street since ten o'clock this morning
+you would be prepared to enjoy this sail," he said.</p>
+<p>"Is Wall-street so very much more disagreeable than other
+places? I think my uncle regrets every moment that he spends away
+from it."</p>
+<p>"Ah, yes. Mr. Greer may; he has a good deal to make him like it;
+if I made as much money as he does every day there, I think it's
+possible I might like it too. But it is a different matter with a
+poor devil like me: if I get off without being cheated out of all
+I've got, it is as much as I can ask."</p>
+<p>"Well, perhaps when he was your age, Uncle Leonard did not ask
+more than that."</p>
+<p>"Not he; he began, long before he was as old as I am, to do what
+I can never learn to do, Miss d'Esir&eacute;e--make money with one
+hand and save it with the other. Now, I'm ashamed to say, a great
+deal of money comes into my pockets, but it never stays there long
+enough to give me the feeling that I'm a rich man. One gets into a
+way of living that's destruction to all chances of a fortune."</p>
+<p>"But what's the good of a fortune if you don't enjoy it?" I
+said, thinking of the dreary house in Varick-street.</p>
+<p>"No good," he said. "It isn't in my nature to be satisfied with
+the knowledge that I've got enough to make me happy locked up
+somewhere in a safe: I must get it out, and strew it around in
+sight in the shape of horses, pictures, nice rooms, and good things
+to eat, before I can make up my mind that the money is good for
+anything. Now as to Richard, he is just the other way: old head on
+young shoulders, old pockets in young breeches (only there ar'nt
+any holes in them). He's a model of prudence, is my brother
+Richard. <i>Qui garde son diner, il a mieux &agrave; souper</i>.
+He'll be a rich man one of these fine days. I look to him to keep
+me out of jail. You know Richard very well, I believe?" he said,
+turning a sudden look on me, which would have been very
+disconcerting to an older person, or one more acquainted with the
+world.</p>
+<p>"O, very well indeed," I said with great simplicity. "You know
+he is such a favorite with my uncle, and he is a great deal at the
+house."</p>
+<p>"Well he may be a favorite, for he is built exactly on his
+model; at seventy, if I am not hung for debt before I reach it, I
+shall look to see him just a second Mr. Leonard Greer."</p>
+<p>I made a gesture of dissent. "I don't think he is in the least
+like Uncle Leonard, and I don't think he cares at all for
+money."</p>
+<p>"O, Miss Pauline, don't you believe him if he says he doesn't.
+I'm his younger brother, whom he has lectured and been hard on for
+these twenty-seven years, and I know more about it than anybody
+else."</p>
+<p>"Why, is Mr. Richard Vandermarck twenty-seven years old?" I said
+with much surprise.</p>
+<p>"Twenty-nine his next birthday, and I am twenty-seven. Why, did
+he pass himself off for younger? That's an excellent thing against
+him."</p>
+<p>"No; he did not pass himself off for anything in the matter of
+age. It was only my idea about him. I thought he was not more than
+twenty-five, perhaps even younger than that. But then I had nobody
+but Uncle Leonard to compare him with, and it isn't strange that I
+didn't get quite right."</p>
+<p>"It <i>is</i> something of a step from Mr. Greer to Richard, I
+must say. Mr. Greer seems so much the oldest man in the world, and
+Richard--well, Richard isn't that, but he is a good deal older than
+he ought to be. But do you tell me, Miss Pauline, you havn't any
+younger fellows than Richard on your cards? Do they keep you as
+quiet as all that in Varick-street?"</p>
+<p>I knew by intuition this was impertinence, and no doubt I looked
+annoyed, and Mr. Vandermarck hastened to obliterate the impression
+by a very rapid movement upon the scenery, the beauties of the
+river, and many things as novel.</p>
+<p>The three hours of our sail passed away pleasantly. Mr.
+Vandermarck did not move from his seat; did not even read his
+paper, though I gave him an opportunity by turning over the leaves
+of my "Littel" on the occurrence of every pause.</p>
+<p>I felt that I knew him quite well before the journey was over,
+and I liked him exceedingly, almost as well as Richard. He was
+rather handsomer than Richard, not so tall, but more vivacious and
+more amusing, much more so. I began to think Richard rather dull
+when I contrasted him with his brother.</p>
+<p>When we reached the wharf, Mr. Vandermarck, after disposing of
+the baggage, gave his arm to me, and took me to an open wagon which
+was waiting for us. He put me in the seat beside him, and took the
+reins with a look of pleasure.</p>
+<p>"These are Tom and Jerry, Miss Pauline," he said, "about the
+pleasantest members of the family; at least they contribute more to
+my pleasure than any other members of it. I squandered about half
+my income on them a year or two ago, and have not repented yet;
+though, indeed, repentance isn't in my way. I shall hope for the
+happiness of giving you many drives with them, if I am
+permitted."</p>
+<p>"Nothing could make me happier, I am sure."</p>
+<p>"Richard hasn't any horses, though he can afford it much better
+than I can. He does his driving, when he is here, with the
+carriage-horses that we keep for Sophie--a dull old pair of brutes.
+He disapproves very much of Tom and Jerry; but you see it would
+never do to have two such wise heads in one family."</p>
+<p>"It would destroy the balance of power in the neighborhood."</p>
+<p>"Decidedly; as it is, we are a first-class power, owing to
+Sophie's cleverness and Richard's prudence; my prodigality is just
+needed to keep us from overrunning the county and proclaiming an
+empire at the next town meeting. How do you like Sophie, Miss
+d'Estr&eacute;e? I know you haven't seen much of her--but what you
+have? Isn't she clever, and isn't she a pretty woman to be nearly
+thirty-five?"</p>
+<p>I was feeling very grateful for my invitation, and so I said a
+great deal of my admiration for his sister.</p>
+<p>"Everybody likes her," he said, complacently. "I don't know a
+more popular person anywhere. She is the life of the neighborhood;
+people come to her for everything, if they want to get a new
+door-mat for the school-house, or if they want a new man nominated
+for the legislature. I think she's awfully bored, sometimes, but
+she keeps it to herself. But though the summer is her rest, she
+always does enough to tire out anybody else. Now, for instance, she
+is going to have three young ladies with her for the next two
+months (besides yourself, Miss d'Estr&eacute;e), whom she will have
+to be amusing all the time, and some friends of mine who will turn
+the house inside out. But Sophie never grumbles."</p>
+<p>"Tell me about them all," I said, consuming with a fever of
+curiosity.</p>
+<p>"O, I forgot you did not know them. Shall I begin with the young
+ladies?--(Sam, there's a stone in Jerry's off fore-foot; get down
+and look about it--Steady!--there, I knew it)--Excuse me, Miss
+d'Estr&eacute;e. Well,--the young ladies. There's one of our
+cousins, a grand, handsome, sombre, estimable girl, whom nobody
+ever flirts with, but whom somebody will marry. That's Henrietta
+Palmer. Then there is Charlotte Benson--not pretty, but stylish and
+so clever. She carries too many guns for most men; she is a capital
+girl in her way. Then there is Mary Leighton; she is small, blonde,
+lovely. I do not believe in her particularly, but we are great
+friends, and flirt a little, I am told. I quite wonder how you will
+like each other. I hope you will tell me your impressions. No doubt
+she will be rather your companion, for Henrietta and Charlotte
+Benson are desperately intimate, and have a room together. They are
+quite romantic and very superior. Pretty Miss Leighton isn't in
+their line exactly, and is rather left to her own reflections, I
+should think. But she makes up for it when the gentlemen appear;
+she isn't left with any time upon her hands, you may be sure. I
+don't know what it is about her; she never said a bright thing in
+her life, and a great, great many silly ones; but everybody wants
+to talk to her, and her silly words are precious to the man to whom
+she says them. Did you ever meet anybody like her?"</p>
+<p>"I? oh no. I never met anybody," I said, half-bitterly,
+beginning to be afraid of the people whom I so soon should meet;
+and then I began to talk about the road, and to inquire how far we
+had yet to drive, and to ask to have a shawl about my shoulders. It
+was not yet seven o'clock, but the country air was fresh and cool,
+and the rapid driving made it cooler.</p>
+<p>"We are almost there; and I hope, Miss d'Estr&eacute;e, that you
+won't feel as if you were going among strangers. You will not feel
+so long, at any rate. It is too bad Richard isn't here; you know
+him so much better than the rest of us. But before he comes back, I
+am sure you will feel as much at home as he. But here's the
+gate."</p>
+<p>There was a drive of perhaps an eighth of a mile from the gate
+to the house: the trees and hedge were thick, so that one saw
+little of the house from the road. The grounds were well kept;
+there was a nice lawn, in front of the house, and some very fine
+old trees. The house was low and irregular, but quite picturesque.
+It fronted the road; the rear looked toward the river, about
+quarter of a mile distant, and of which the view was lovely.</p>
+<p>There was a piazza in front, on which four ladies stood; one of
+them came forward, and came down the steps, and met me as I got out
+of the carriage. That, of course, was Mrs. Hollenbeck, She welcomed
+me very cordially, and led me up the steps of the piazza, where the
+young ladies stood. Terrible young ladies! I shook with fear of
+them. I felt as if I did not know anything, as if I did not look
+well, as if my clothes were hideous. I should not have been afraid
+of young or old men, nor of old women; but they were just my age,
+just my class, just my equals, or ought to have been, if I had had
+any other fate than Uncle Leonard and Varick-street. How they would
+criticize me! How soon they would find out I had never been
+anywhere before! I wished for Richard then with all my heart.
+Kilian had already deserted me, and was talking to Miss Leighton,
+who had come half-way down the steps to meet him, and who only gave
+me a glance and a very pretty smile and nod, when Mrs. Hollenbeck
+presented me to them. Miss Benson and Miss Palmer each gave me a
+hand, and looked me over horribly; and the tones of their voices,
+when they spoke to me, were so constrained and cold, and so
+different from the tones in which they addressed each other. I
+hated them.</p>
+<p>After a few moments of wretchedness, Sophie proposed to take me
+to my room. We went up the stairs, which were steep and
+old-fashioned, with a landing-place almost like a little room. My
+room was in a wing of the house, over the dining-room, and the
+windows looked out on the river. It was not large, but was very
+pretty. The windows were curtained, and the bed was dainty, and the
+little mantel was draped, and the ornaments and pictures were
+quaint and delightful to my taste.</p>
+<p>Sophie laid the shawls she had been carrying up for me upon the
+bed, and said she hoped I would find everything I needed, and would
+try to feel entirely at home, and not hesitate to ask for anything
+that would make me comfortable.</p>
+<p>Nothing could be kinder, but my affection and gratitude were
+fast dying out, and I was quite sure of one thing, namely, that I
+never should love Sophie if she spent her life in inviting me to
+pay her visits. She told me that tea would be ready in half an
+hour, and then left me. I sat down on the bed when she was gone,
+and wished myself back in Varick-street; and then cried, to think
+that I should be homesick for such a dreary home. But the appetites
+and affections common to humanity had not been left out of my
+heart, though I had been beggared all my life in regard to most of
+them. I could have loved a mother so--a sister--I could have had
+such happy feelings for a place that I could have felt was home.
+What matter, if I could not even remember the smile on my mother's
+lips; what matter, if no brother or sister had ever been born to
+me; if no house had ever been my rightful home? I was hungry for
+them all the same. And these first glimpses of the happy lives of
+others seemed to disaffect me more than ever with my own.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV."></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+<h3>MY COMPANIONS.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>"Vous &ecirc;tes belle: ainsi donc la moiti&eacute;<br>
+&nbsp;Du genre humain sera votre ennemie."<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+<i>Voltaire</i>.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Oh,
+I think the cause<br>
+&nbsp;Of much was, they forgot no crowd<br>
+&nbsp;Makes up for parents in their shroud."<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>
+R. Browning</i>.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>The servant came to call me down to tea while I was still
+sitting with my face in my hands upon the bed. I started up, lit
+the candles on the dressing-table, arranged my hair, washed the
+tears off my face, and hurried down the stairs. They were waiting
+for me in the parlor, and no doubt were quite impatient, as they
+had already waited for the arrival of the evening train, and it was
+nearly eight o'clock. The evening train had brought Mr. Eugene
+Whitney, of whom I can only say, that he was a very insignificant
+young man indeed. We all moved into the dining-room; the others
+took the seats they were accustomed to. Mr. Whitney and I, being
+the only new-comers, were advised which seats belonged to us by a
+trim young maid-servant, and I, for one, was very glad to get into
+mine. Mr. Whitney was my neighbor on one hand, the youngest of the
+Hollenbeck boys on the other. These were our seats:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td>Kilian,</td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Miss Leighton,</td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td>Miss Henrietta Palmer,</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Miss Benson,</td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td>Mr. Eugene Whitney,</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Tutor,</td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td>Myself,</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Boy,</td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td>Boy,</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td>Mrs. Hollenbeck.</td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The seat opposite me was not filled when we sat down.</p>
+<p>"Where is Mr. Langenau, Charley?" said his mother.</p>
+<p>"I'm sure I don't know, mamma," said Charley, applying himself
+to marmalade.</p>
+<p>"Charley doesn't see much of his tutor out of hours, I think,"
+said Miss Benson.</p>
+<p>"A good deal too much of him in 'em," murmured Charley, between
+a spoonful of marmalade and a drink of milk.</p>
+<p>"Benny's the boy that loves his book," said Kilian; "he's the
+joy of his tutor's heart, I know," at which there was a general
+laugh, and Benny, the younger, looked up with a merry smile.</p>
+<p>The Hollenbeck boys were not fond of study. They were healthy
+and pretty; quite the reverse of intellectual; very fair and rosy,
+without much resemblance to their mother or her brothers. It was
+evident the acquisition of knowledge was far from being the
+principal pursuit of their lives, and the tutor was looked upon as
+the natural enemy of Charley, at the least.</p>
+<p>"I don't see what you ever got him for, mamma," said Charley.
+"I'd study just as much without him."</p>
+<p>"And that wouldn't be pledging yourself to very much, would it,
+Charley dear?"</p>
+<p>"Wish he was back in Germany with his ugly books," cried
+Charley.</p>
+<p>But--hush!--there was a sudden lull, as the tutor entered and
+took his place by Charley. He was a well-made man, evidently about
+thirty. He was so decidedly a gentleman, in manners and appearance,
+that even these spoiled boys treated him respectfully, and the
+young ladies and gentlemen at the table were more stiff than
+offensive in their manner. But he was so evidently not one of
+them!</p>
+<p>It is very disagreeable to be among people who know each other
+very well, even if they try to know you very well and admit you to
+their friendship. But I had no assurance that any one was trying to
+do this for <i>me</i>, and I am afraid I showed very little
+inclination to be admitted to their friendship. I could not talk,
+and I did not want to be talked to. I was even afraid of the little
+boys, and thought all the time that Charley was watching me and
+making signs about me to his brother, when in reality he was only
+telegraphing about the marmalade.</p>
+<p>In the meantime, without any attention to my feelings, the
+business of the tea-table proceeded. Mrs. Hollenbeck poured out
+tea, and kept the little boys under a moderate control. Kilian cut
+up some birds before him, and tried to persuade the young ladies to
+eat some, but nobody had appetite enough but Mr. Whitney and
+himself. Charlotte Benson, who was clever and efficient and
+exceedingly at home, cut up a cake that was before her, and gave
+the boys some strawberries, and offered some to me. Miss Palmer
+simply looked very handsome, and eat a biscuit or two, and tried to
+talk to Mr. Whitney, who seemed to have a good appetite and very
+little conversation. Miss Leighton gave herself up to attentions to
+Kilian; she was saying silly little things to him in a little low
+tone all the time, and offering him different articles before her,
+and advising him what he ought to eat; all of which seemed most
+interesting and important in dumb-show till you heard what it was
+all about, and then you felt ashamed of them. At times, I think,
+Kilian felt somewhat ashamed too, and tried to talk a little to the
+others; but most of the time he seemed to like it very well, and
+did not ask anything better than the excellent woodcock on his
+plate, and the pretty young woman by his side.</p>
+<p>"By the way," said Sophie, when the meal was nearly over, "I had
+a letter from Richard to-day."</p>
+<p>"Ah!" said Kilian, with a momentary release from his admirer.
+"And when is he coming home?"</p>
+<p>I looked up with quick interest, and met Mrs. Hollenbeck's eyes,
+which seemed to be always on me. Then I turned mine down the table
+uncomfortably, and found Charlotte Benson looking at me too. I did
+not know what I had done to be looked at, but wished they would
+look at themselves and let me take my tea (or leave it alone) in
+peace.</p>
+<p>"Not for two weeks yet," said his sister; "not for two whole
+weeks."</p>
+<p>"How sorry I am," said Charlotte Benson.</p>
+<p>"I think we are all sorry," said Henrietta the tranquil.</p>
+<p>"Miss d'Estr&eacute;e confided to me that she'd be glad to see
+him," said Kilian, cutting up another woodcock and looking at his
+plate.</p>
+<p>"Indeed I shall," I said, with, a little sigh, not thinking so
+much about them as feeling most earnestly what a difference his
+coming would make, and how sure I should be of having at least one
+friend when he got here.</p>
+<p>"He seems to be having a delightful time," said his sister.</p>
+<p>"I am glad to hear that," I said, interested. "Generally he
+finds it such a bore. He doesn't seem to like to travel." I was
+rather startled at the sound of my own voice and the attention of
+my audience; but I had been betrayed into speaking, by my interest
+in the subject, and my surprise at hearing he was having such a
+pleasant time.</p>
+<p>"Ah!" she said, "don't you think he does? At any rate, he seems
+to be enjoying this journey, and to be in no hurry to come back. I
+looked for him last week."</p>
+<p>Warned by my last experience, I said nothing in answer; and
+after a moment Kilian said:</p>
+<p>"Well, if Richard's having a good time, you may be sure he's
+made some favorable negotiation, and comes home with good news for
+the firm. That's his idea of a good time, you know."</p>
+<p>"Ah!" said Sophie, gently, "that's his brother's idea of his
+idea. It isn't mine."</p>
+<p>Charlotte Benson seemed a little nettled at this, and
+exclaimed,</p>
+<p>"Mrs. Hollenbeck! you are making us all unhappy. You are leading
+us to suspect that the stern man of business is unbending. What's
+the influence at work? What makes this journey different from other
+journeys? Where does he tarry, oh, where?"</p>
+<p>"Nonsense!" said Sophie, with a little laugh. "You cannot say I
+have implied anything of the sort. Cannot Richard enjoy a journey
+without your censure or suspicion? You must be careful; he does not
+fancy teasing."</p>
+<p>"O, I shall not accuse him, you may be sure; that is, if he ever
+comes. Do you believe he really ever will?"</p>
+<p>"Not if he thinks you want him," said Kilian, amiably. "He has a
+great aversion to being made much of."</p>
+<p>"Yes, a family trait," interrupted Charlotte, at which everybody
+laughed, no one more cordially than Miss Leighton.</p>
+<p>"Leave off laughing at my Uncle Richard," said Benny, stoutly,
+with his cheeks quite flushed.</p>
+<p>"We have, dear, and are laughing at your Uncle Kilian. You don't
+object to that, I'm sure," and Charlotte Benson leaned forward and
+threw him a little kiss past the tutor, who wore a silent,
+abstracted look, in odd contrast with the animated expressions of
+the faces all around him.</p>
+<p>Benny did not like the joke at all, and got down from his chair
+and walked away without permission. We all followed him, going into
+the hall, and from thence to the piazza, as the night was fine. The
+tutor walked silently through the group in the hall to a seat where
+lay his book and hat, then passed through the doorway and
+disappeared from sight.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V."></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+<h3>THE TUTOR.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>And now above them pours a wondrous voice,<br>
+(Such as Greek reapers heard in Sicily),<br>
+With wounding rapture in it, like love's arrows.<br>
+<br>
+<i>George Eliot</i>.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>The next day, the first of my visit, was a very sultry one, and
+the rest of the party thought it was, no doubt, a very dull
+one.</p>
+<p>Kilian and Mr. Eugene Whitney went away in the early train, not
+to return, alas, till the evening of the following day. Miss
+Leighton was languid, and yawned incessantly, though she tried to
+appear interested in things, and was very attentive to me.
+Charlotte Benson and Henrietta laid strong-minded plans for the
+day, and carried them out faithfully. First, they played a game of
+croquet, under umbrellas, for the sun was blazing on the ground:
+that was for exercise; then, for mental discipline, they read
+history for an hour in the library; and then, for relaxation, under
+veils and sunhats, read Ruskin for two hours by the river.</p>
+<p>I cannot think Henrietta understood Ruskin, but I have no doubt
+she thought she did, and tried to share in her friend's enthusiasm.
+Sophie had a little headache, and spent much of the morning in her
+room. The boys were away with their tutor in the farm-house where
+they had their school-room, and the house seemed deserted and
+delightful. I wandered about at ease, chose my book, and sat for
+hours in the boat-house by the river, not reading Ruskin, nor even
+my poor little novel, but gazing and dreaming and wondering. It can
+be imagined what the country seemed to me, in beautiful summer
+weather, after the dreary years I had spent in a city-street.</p>
+<p>It is quite impossible to describe all that seemed starting into
+life within me, all at once--- so many new forces, so much new
+life.</p>
+<p>My home-sickness had passed away, and I was inclined to be very
+happy, particularly in the liberty that seemed to promise. Dinner
+was very quiet, and every one seemed dull, even Charlotte Benson,
+who ordinarily had life enough for all. The boys were there, but
+their tutor had gone away on a long walk and would not be back till
+evening. "<i>A la bonne heure</i>," cried Madame, with a little
+yawn; "freedom of the halls, and deshabille, for one
+afternoon."</p>
+<p>So we spent the afternoon with our doors open, and with books,
+or without books, on the bed.</p>
+<p>Nobody came into my room, except Mrs. Hollenbeck for a few
+moments, looking very pretty in a white peignoir, and rather sleepy
+at the same time; hoping I was comfortable and had found something
+to amuse me in the library.</p>
+<p>It seemed to be thought a great bore to dress, to judge from the
+exclamations of ennui which I heard in the hall, as six o'clock
+approached, and the young ladies wandered into each other's room
+and bewailed the necessity. I think Miss Leighton would have been
+very glad to have stayed on the bed, and tried to sleep away the
+hours that presented no amusement; but Charlotte Benson laughed at
+her so cruelly, that she began to dress at once, and said, she had
+not intended what she said, of course.</p>
+<p>I was the first to be ready, and went down to the piazza. The
+heat of the day was over and there was a soft, pleasant breeze. We
+were to have tea at seven o'clock, and while I sat there, the bell
+rang. The tutor came in from under the trees where he had been
+reading, looking rather pale after his long walk.</p>
+<p>He bowed slightly as he passed me, and waited at the other end
+of the piazza, reading as he stood, till the others came down to
+the dining-room. As we were seating ourselves he came in and took
+his place, with a bow to me and the others. Mrs. Hollenbeck asked
+him a little about his expedition, and paid him a little more
+attention than usual, being the only man.</p>
+<p>He had a most fortunate way of saying just the right thing and
+then being silent; never speaking unless addressed, and then
+conveying exactly the impression he desired. I think he must have
+appeared in a more interesting light that usual at this meal, for
+as we went out from the dining room Mary Leighton put her arm
+through mine and whispered "Poor fellow! How lonely he must be!
+Let's ask him to go and walk with us this evening."</p>
+<p>Before I could remonstrate or detach myself from her, she had
+twisted herself about, in a peculiarly supple and child-like manner
+that she had, and had made the suggestion to him.</p>
+<p>He was immeasurably surprised, no doubt, but he gave no sign of
+it. After a silence of two or three instants, during which, I
+think, he was occupied in trying to find a way to decline, he
+assented very sedately.</p>
+<p>Charlotte Benson and her friend, who were behind us, were
+enraged at this proceeding. During the week they had all been in
+the house together, they had never gone beyond speaking terms with
+the tutor, and this they had agreed was the best way to keep
+things, and it seemed to be his wish no less than theirs. Here was
+this saucy girl, in want of amusement, upsetting all their plans.
+They shortly declined to go to walk with us: and so Mary Leighton,
+Mr. Langenau, and I started alone toward the river.</p>
+<p>It must be confessed, Miss Leighton was not rewarded for her
+effort, for a stiffer and more uncomfortable companion could not be
+imagined. He entirely declined to respond to her coquetry, and she
+very soon found she must abandon this role; but she was nothing if
+not coquettish, and the conversation flagged uncomfortably. Before
+we reached home she was quite impatient, and ran up the steps, when
+we got there, as if it were a great relief. The tutor raised his
+hat when he left us at the door, turned back, and disappeared for
+the rest of the evening.</p>
+<p>The next morning, coming down-stairs half an hour before
+breakfast, I went into the library (a little room at the right of
+the front door), for a book I had left there. I threw myself into
+an easy-chair, and opened it, when I caught sight of the tutor,
+reading at the window. I half started to my feet, and then sank
+back again in confusion; for what was there to go away for?</p>
+<p>He rose and bowed, and resumed his seat and his book.</p>
+<p>The room was quite small, and we were very near each other. How
+I could possibly have missed seeing him as I entered, now surprised
+me. I longed to go away, but did not dare do anything that would
+seem rude. He appeared very much engrossed with his book, but I,
+for my part, could not read a word, and was only thinking how I
+could get away. Possibly he guessed at my embarrassment, for after
+about ten minutes he arose, and coming up to the table by which I
+sat, he took up a card, and placed it in his book for a mark, and
+shut it up, then made some remark to me about the day.</p>
+<p>The color was coming and going in my face.</p>
+<p>He must have felt sorry or curious, for he did not go directly
+away, and continued to talk of things that did not require me to
+answer him.</p>
+<p>I do not know what it was about his voice that was so different
+from the ordinary voices of people. There was a quality in it that
+I had never heard in any other. But perhaps it was in the ear that
+listened, as well as the voice that spoke. And apart from the
+tones, the words I never could forget. The most trivial things that
+he ever said to me, I can remember to this day.</p>
+<p>I believe that this was not of my imagination, but that others
+felt it in some degree as I did. It was this that made him such an
+invaluable teacher; he impressed upon those flesh-and-blood boys,
+in that one summer, more than they would have learned in whole
+years from ordinary persons. It was not very strange, then, that I
+was smitten with the strangest interest in all he said and did, and
+that his words made the deepest impression on me.</p>
+<p>No doubt it is pleasant to be listened to by one whose face
+tells you you are understood; and the tutor was not in a hurry to
+go away. He had got up from the window, I know, with the intention
+of going out of the room, but he continued standing, looking down
+at me and talking, for half an hour at least.</p>
+<p>The soft morning wind came in at the open door and window, with
+a scent of rose and honeysuckle: the pretty little room was full of
+the early sunshine in which there is no glare: I can see it all
+now, and I can hear, as ever, his low voice.</p>
+<p>He talked of the book I held in my hand, of the views on the
+river, of the pleasantness of country life. I fancy I did not say
+much, though I never am able to remember what I said when talking
+to him. Whatever I said was a mere involuntary accord with him. I
+never recollect to have felt that I did not agree with and admire
+every word he uttered.</p>
+<p>How different his manner from last night when he had talked with
+Mary Leighton; all the stiffness, the half-concealed repelling tone
+was gone. I had not heard him speak to any one, except perhaps once
+to Benny, as he spoke now. I was quite sure that he liked me, and
+that he did not class me with the others in the house. But when the
+breakfast-bell rang, he gave a slight start, and his voice changed;
+and such a frown came over his face! He looked at his watch, said
+something about the hour, and quickly left the room. I bent my head
+over my book and sat still, till I heard them all come down and go
+into the breakfast-room. I trusted they would not know he had been
+talking to me, and there was little danger, unless they guessed it
+from my cheeks being so aflame.</p>
+<p>At breakfast he was more silent than ever, and his brow had not
+quite got over that sudden frown. At dinner he was away again, as
+the day before.</p>
+<p>The day passed much as yesterday had done. About four o'clock
+there came a telegram from Kilian to his sister. He had been
+delayed, and Mr. Whitney would wait for him, and they would come
+the next evening by the boat. I think Mary Leighton could have
+cried if she had not been ashamed. Her pretty blue organdie was on
+the bed ready to put on. It went back into the wardrobe very
+quickly, and she came down to tea in a gray bar&eacute;ge that was
+a little shabby.</p>
+<p>A rain had come on about six o'clock. At tea the candles were
+lit, and the windows closed. Every one looked moped and dull; the
+evening promised to be insufferable. Mrs. Hollenbeck saw the
+necessity of rousing herself and providing us some amusement. When
+Mr. Langenau entered, she met his bow with one of her best smiles:
+how the change must have struck him; for she had been very
+mechanical and polite to him before. Now she spoke to him with the
+charming manner that brought every one to her feet.</p>
+<p>And what was the cause of this sudden kindness? It is very easy
+for me to see now, though then I had not a suspicion. Alas! I am
+afraid that the cheeks aflame at breakfast-time were the immediate
+cause of the change. Mrs. Hollenbeck would not have made so marked
+a movement for an evening's entertainment: it seemed to suit her
+very well that I should talk to the tutor in the library before
+breakfast, and she meant to give me opportunities for talking to
+him in the parlor too.</p>
+<p>"A dreary evening, is it not?" she began. "What shall we all do?
+Charlotte, can't you think of something?"</p>
+<p>Charlotte, who had her own plans for a quiet evening by the lamp
+with a new book, of course could not think of anything.</p>
+<p>"Henrietta, at least you shall give us some music, and Mr.
+Langenau, I am sure you will be good enough to help us; I will send
+over to the school-room for that flute and those piles of music
+that I've seen upon a shelf, and you will be charitable enough to
+play for us."</p>
+<p>"I must beg you will not take that trouble."</p>
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Langenau, that is selfish now."</p>
+<p>Mrs. Hollenbeck did not press the subject then, but made herself
+thoroughly delightful during tea, and as we rose from the table
+renewed the request in a low tone to Mr. Langenau: and the result
+was, a little after eight o'clock he came into the parlor where we
+sat. A place was made for him at the table around which we were
+sitting, and Mrs. Hollenbeck began the process of putting him at
+his ease. There was no need. The tutor was quite as much at ease as
+any one, and, in a little while, imperceptibly became the person to
+whom we were all listening.</p>
+<p>Charlotte Benson at last gave up her book, and took her work-box
+instead. We were no longer moping and dull around the table. And
+bye and bye Henrietta, much alarmed, was sent to the piano, and her
+poor little music certainly sounded very meagre when Mr. Langenau
+touched the keys.</p>
+<p>I think he consented to play not to appear rude, but with the
+firm intention of not being the instrument of our entertainment,
+and not being made use of out of his own accepted calling. But
+happily for us, he soon forgot all about us, and played on,
+absorbed in himself and in his music. We listened breathlessly, the
+others quite as much engrossed as I, because they all knew much
+more of music than I did. Suddenly, after playing for a long while,
+he started from the piano, and came back to the table. He was
+evidently agitated. Before the others could say a word of thanks or
+wonder, I cried, in a fear of the cessation of what gave me such
+intense pleasure,</p>
+<p>"Oh, sing something; can't you sing?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, I can sing," he said, looking down at me with those
+dangerous eyes. "Will it give you pleasure if I sing for you?"</p>
+<p>He did not wait for an answer, but turned back to the piano.</p>
+<p>He had said "if I sing for you," and I knew that for me he was
+singing. I do not know what it was for others, but for me, it was
+the only true music that I had ever heard, the only music that I
+could have begged might never cease, but flood over all the present
+and the future, satisfying every sense. Other voices had roused and
+thrilled, this filled me. I asked no more, and could have died with
+that sound in my ears.</p>
+<p>"Why, Pauline! child! what is it?" cried Mrs. Hollenbeck, as the
+music ceased and Mr. Langenau. again came back to the circle round
+the table. Every one looked: I was choking with sobs.</p>
+<p>"Oh, don't, I don't want you to speak to me," I cried, putting
+away her hand and darting from the room. I was not ashamed of
+myself, even when I was alone in my room. The powerful magic lasted
+still, through the silence and darkness, till I was aroused by the
+voices of the others coming up to bed.</p>
+<p>Mrs. Hollenbeck knocked at my door with her bedroom candle in
+her hand, and, as she stood talking to me, the others strayed in to
+join her and to satisfy their curiosity.</p>
+<p>"You are very sensitive to music, are you not?" said Charlotte
+Benson, contemplatively. She had tried me on Mompssen, and the
+"Seven Lamps," and found me wanting, and now perhaps hoped to find
+some other point less faulty.</p>
+<p>"I do not know," I said, honestly. "I seem to have been very
+sensitive to-night."</p>
+<p>"But you are not always?" asked Henrietta Palmer. "You do not
+always cry when people sing?"</p>
+<p>"Why, no," I said with great contempt. "But I never heard any
+one sing like that before."</p>
+<p>"He does sing well," said Mrs. Hollenbeck, thoughtfully.</p>
+<p>"Immense expression and a fine voice," added Charlotte
+Benson.</p>
+<p>"He has been educated for the stage, you may be sure," said Mary
+Leighton, with a little spite. "As Miss d'Estr&eacute;e says, I
+never heard anyone sing like that, out of the chorus of an
+opera."</p>
+<p>"Well, I think," returned Charlotte Benson, "if there were many
+voices like that in ordinary choruses, one would be glad to
+dispense with the solos and duets."</p>
+<p>"Oh, you would not find his voice so wonderful, if you heard it
+out of a parlor. It is very well, but it would not fill a concert
+hall, much less an opera house. No; you may be sure he has been
+educated for some of those German choruses; you know they are very
+fine musicians."</p>
+<p>"Well, I don't know that it is anything to us what he was
+educated for," said Charlotte Benson, sharply. "He has given us a
+very delightful evening, and I, for one, am much obliged to
+him."</p>
+<p>"<i>Et moi aussi"</i> murmured Henrietta, wreathing her large
+beautiful arms about her friend, and the two sauntered away.</p>
+<p>Mary Leighton, in general ill-humor, and still remembering the
+walk of the last evening, desired to fire a parting-shot, and
+exclaimed, as she went out, "Well, I think it is something to us; I
+like to have gentlemen about me."</p>
+<p>"You need not be uneasy," said Mrs. Hollenbeck, a little
+stiffly. "I think Mr. Langenau is a gentleman."</p>
+<p>But at this moment his step was heard in the hall below, and
+there was an end put to the conversation.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI."></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+<h3>MATINAL.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>Last night, when some one spoke his name,<br>
+From my swift blood that went and came<br>
+A thousand little shafts of flame<br>
+Were shivered in my narrow frame.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>
+Tennyson</i>.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<p>The next morning was brilliant and cool, the earth and heavens
+shining after the rain of the past night. I was dressed long, long
+before breakfast: it would be so tiresome to wait in my room till
+the bell rang; yet if I went down-stairs, would it not look as if I
+wanted to see Mr. Langenau again? I need not go to the library, of
+course, but I could scarcely avoid being seen from the library if I
+went out. But why suppose that he would be down again so early? It
+was very improbable, and so, affectionately deceived, I put on a
+hat and walking-jacket and stole down the stairs. I saw by the
+clock in the lower hall that it was half an hour earlier than I had
+come down the morning before; at which I was secretly chagrined,
+for now there was no danger, <i>alias</i> hope, of seeing Mr.
+Langenau.</p>
+<p>But probably he had forgotten all about the foolish half-hour
+that had given me so much to think about. I glanced into the
+library, which was empty, and hurried out of the hall-door,
+secretly disappointed.</p>
+<p>I took the path that led over the hill to the river. It passed
+through the garden, under the long arbors of grapevines, over the
+hill, and through a grove of maples, ending at the river where the
+boat-house stood. The brightness of the morning was not lost on me,
+and before I reached the maple-grove I was buoyant and happy. At
+the entrance of the grove (which was traversed by several paths,
+the principal coming up directly from the river) I came suddenly
+upon the tutor, walking rapidly, with a pair of oars over his
+shoulder. He started, and for a moment we both stood still and did
+not speak. I could only think with confusion of my emotion when he
+sang.</p>
+<p>"You are always early," he said, with his slight, very slight,
+foreign accent, "earlier than yesterday by half an hour," he added,
+looking at his watch. My heart gave a great bound of pleasure. Then
+he had not forgotten! How he must have seen all this.</p>
+<p>He stood and talked with me for some moments, and then
+desperately I made a movement to go on. I do not believe, at least
+I am not sure, that at first he had any intention of going with me.
+But it was not in human nature to withstand the flattery of such
+emotion as his presence seemed always to inspire in me; and then, I
+have no doubt, he had a certain pleasure in talking to me outside
+of that; and then the morning was so lovely and he had so much of
+books.</p>
+<p>He proposed to show me a walk I had not taken. There was a
+little hesitation in his manner, but he was reassured by my look of
+pleasure, and throwing down the oars under a tree, he turned and
+walked beside me. No doubt he said to himself, "America! This
+paradise of girlhood;--there can be no objection." It was heavenly
+sweet, that walk--the birds, the sky, the dewiness and freshness of
+all nature and all life. It seemed the unstained beginning of all
+things to me.</p>
+<p>The woods were wet; we could not go through them, and so we went
+a longer way, along the river and back by the road.</p>
+<p>This time he did not do all the talking, but made me talk, and
+listened carefully to all I said; and I was so happy, talking was
+not any effort.</p>
+<p>At last he made some allusion to the music of last night; that
+he was so glad to see that I loved music as I did. "But I don't
+particularly," I said in confusion, with a great fear of being
+dishonest, "at least I never thought I did before, and I am so
+ignorant. I don't want you to think I know anything about it, for
+you would be disappointed." He was silent, and, I felt sure,
+because he was already disappointed; in fear of which I went on to
+say--</p>
+<p>"I never heard any one sing like that before; I am very sorry
+that it gave any one an impression that I had a knowledge of music,
+when I hadn't. I don't care about it generally, except in church,
+and I can't understand what made me feel so yesterday."</p>
+<p>"Perhaps it is because you were in the mood for it," he said.
+"It is often so, one time music gives us pleasure, another time it
+does not."</p>
+<p>"That may be so; but your voice, in speaking, even, seems to me
+different from any other. It is almost as good as music when you
+speak; only the music fills me with such feelings."</p>
+<p>"You must let me sing for you again," he said, rather low, as we
+walked slowly on.</p>
+<p>"Ah; if you only will," I answered, with a deep sigh of
+satisfaction.</p>
+<p>We walked on in silence till we reached the gate: he opened it
+for me and then said, "Now I must leave you, and go back for the
+oars."</p>
+<p>I was secretly glad of this; since the walk had reached its
+natural limit and its end must be accepted, it was a relief to
+approach the house alone and not be the subject of any
+observation.</p>
+<p>Breakfast had began: no one seemed to feel much interest in my
+entrance, though flaming with red roses and red cheeks.</p>
+<p>They were of the sex that do not notice such things naturally,
+with much interest or admiration. They had hardly "shaken off
+drowsy-hed," and had no pleasure in anything but their breakfast,
+and not much in that.</p>
+<p>"How do you manage to get yourself up and dressed at such
+inhuman hours?" said Mary Leighton, querulously.</p>
+<p>"You are a reproach to the household, and we will not suffer
+it," said Charlotte Benson.</p>
+<p>"I never could understand this thing of getting up before you
+are obliged to," added Henrietta plaintively.</p>
+<p>But Sophie seemed well satisfied, particularly when Mr. Langenau
+came in and I looked down into my cup of tea, instead of saying
+good-morning to him. He did not say very much, though there was a
+good deal of babble among the others, principally about his
+music.</p>
+<p>It was becoming the fashion to be very attentive to him. He was
+made to promise to play in the evening; to bring down his books of
+music for the benefit of Miss Henrietta, who wanted to practice,
+Heaven knows what of his. His advice was asked about styles of
+playing and modes of instruction; he was deferred to as an
+authority. But very little he seemed to care about it all, I
+thought.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII."></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+<h3>THREE WEEKS TOO LATE.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote><i>Qui va &agrave; la chasse perd sa place</i>.<br>
+<br>
+<i>De la main &agrave; la bouche se perd souvent la soupe</i>.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Distance all value enhances!<br>
+When a man's busy, why, leisure<br>
+Strikes him as wonderful pleasure.<br>
+Faith! and at leisure once is he,<br>
+Straightway he wants to be busy.<br>
+<br>
+<i>R. Browning</i>.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<p>Two weeks more passed: two weeks that seem to me so many years
+when I look back upon them. Many more walks, early and late, many
+evenings of music, many accidents of meeting. It is all like a
+dream. At seventeen it is so easy to dream! It does not take two
+weeks for a girl to fall in love and make her whole life
+different.</p>
+<p>It was Saturday evening, and Richard was expected; Richard and
+Kilian and Mr. Eugene Whitney. Ah, Richard was coming just three
+weeks too late.</p>
+<p>We were all waiting on the piazza for them, in pretty toilettes
+and excellent tempers. It was a lovely evening; the sunset was
+filling the sky with splendor, and Charlotte and Henrietta had gone
+to the corner of the piazza whence the river could be seen, and
+were murmuring fragments of verses to each other. They were not so
+much absorbed, however, but that they heard the first sound of the
+wheels inside the gate, and hurried back to join us by the
+steps.</p>
+<p>Mary Leighton looked absolutely lovely. The blue organdie had
+seen the day at last, and she was in such a flutter of delight at
+the coming of the gentlemen that she could scarcely be recognized
+as the pale, flimsy young person who had moped so unblushingly all
+the week.</p>
+<p>"They are all three there," she exclaimed with suppressed
+rapture, as the carriage turned the angle of the road that brought
+them into sight. Mrs. Hollenbeck, quite beaming with pleasure, ran
+down the steps (for Richard had been away almost two months), and
+Mary Leighton was at her side, of course. Charlotte Benson and
+Henrietta went half-way down the steps, and I stood on the piazza
+by the pillar near the door.</p>
+<p>I was a little excited by their coming, too, but not nearly as
+much so as I might have been three weeks ago. A subject of much
+greater interest occupied my mind that very moment, and related to
+the chances of the tutor's getting home in time for tea, from one
+of those long walks that were so tiresome. I felt as if I hardly
+needed Richard now. Still, dear old Richard! It was very nice to
+see him once again.</p>
+<p>The gentlemen all sprang out of the carriage, and a Babel of
+welcomes and questions and exclamations arose. Richard kissed his
+sister, and answered some of her many questions, then shook hands
+with the young ladies, but I could see that his eye was searching
+for me. I can't tell why, certainly not because I felt at all shy,
+I had stepped back, a little behind the pillar and the vines. In an
+instant he saw me, and came quickly up the steps, and stood by me
+and grasped my hand, and looked exactly as if he meant to kiss me.
+I hoped that nobody saw his look, and I drew back, a little
+frightened. Of course, I know that he had not the least intention
+of kissing me, but his look was so eager and so unusual,</p>
+<p>"It is two months, Pauline," he said; "and are you well?" And
+though I only said that I was well and was very glad to see him, I
+am sure his sister Sophie thought that it was something more, for
+she had followed him up the steps and stood in the doorway looking
+at us.</p>
+<p>The others came up there, and Kilian, as soon as he could get
+out of the meshes of the blue organdie, came to me, and tried to
+out-devotion Richard.</p>
+<p>That is the way with men. He had not taken any trouble to get
+away from Mary Leighton till Richard came.</p>
+<p>A young woman only needs one lover very much in earnest, to
+bring about her several others, not so much, perhaps, in earnest,
+but very amusing and instructive. Richard went away very quickly,
+for I am sure he did not like that sort of thing.</p>
+<p>It was soon necessary for Mr. Kilian to suspend his devotion and
+go to his room to get ready for tea.</p>
+<p>When we all assembled again, at the table, I found that he had
+placed himself beside me, next his sister, little Benny having gone
+to bed.</p>
+<p>"Of course, the head of the table belongs to Richard; I never
+interfere there, and as everybody else is placed, this is the only
+seat that I can take, following the rose and thorn principle."</p>
+<p>"But that principle is not followed strictly," cried Charlotte
+Benson, who sat by Mary Leighton. "Here are two roses and no
+thorn."</p>
+<p>"Ah! What a strange oversight," he exclaimed, seating himself
+nevertheless. "The only way to remedy it will be to put the tutor
+in your place, Miss Benson, and you come opposite Miss Pauline.
+Quick; before he comes and refuses to move his Teutonic bones an
+inch." Charlotte Benson changed her seat and the vacant one was
+left between her and Mary Leighton.</p>
+<p>This is the order of our seats, for that and many following
+happy nights and days:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td>Richard,</td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Mary Leighton,</td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td>Henrietta,</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>The Tutor,</td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td>Mr. Eugene Whitney,</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Charlotte Benson,</td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td>Myself,</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Charley,</td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td>Kilian,</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td>Sophie.</td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Mary Leighton looked furious and could hardly speak a word all
+through the meal. It was particularly hard upon her, as the tutor
+did not come, and the chair was empty, and a glaring insult to her
+all the time.</p>
+<p>Kilian had done his part so innocently and so simply that it was
+hard to suspect him of any intention to pique her and annoy
+Richard, but I am sure he did it with just those two intentions. He
+was as thorough a flirt as any woman, and withal very fond of
+change, and I think my pink grenadine quite dazzled him as I stood
+on the piazza. Then came the brotherly and quite natural desire to
+outshine Richard and put things out a little. I liked it all very
+much, and was charmed to be of so much consequence, for I saw all
+this quite plainly. I laughed and talked a good deal with Kilian;
+he was delightful to laugh and talk with. Even Eugene Whitney found
+me more worth his weak attention than the beautiful and placid
+Henrietta.</p>
+<p>The amusement was chiefly at our end of the table. But amidst
+it, I did not fail to glance often at the door and wonder,
+uncomfortably, why the tutor did not come.</p>
+<p>As we left the table and lingered for a few moments in the hall,
+Richard came up to me and said, as he prepared to light his cigar,
+"Will you not come out and walk up and down the path here with me
+while I smoke?"</p>
+<p>I began to make some excuse, for I wanted to do nothing just
+then but watch the stairway to see if Mr. Langenau did not come
+down even then and go into the dining-room.</p>
+<p>But I reflected how ungracious it would seem to refuse this,
+when he had just come home, and I followed him out into the
+path.</p>
+<p>There was no moon, but the stars were very bright, and the air
+was sweet with the flower-beds in the grass along the path we
+walked.</p>
+<p>The house looked gay and pleasant as we walked up and down
+before it, with its many lighted windows, and people with bright
+dresses moving about on the piazza. Richard lit his cigar, and
+said, after a silence of a few moments, with a sigh, "It is good to
+be at home again."</p>
+<p>"But you've had a pleasant journey?"</p>
+<p>"No; the most tiresome that I ever made, and this last detention
+wore my patience out. It seemed the longest fortnight. I could not
+bear to think of you all here, and I away in such a dismal
+hole."</p>
+<p>"I suppose Uncle Leonard had no pity on you, as long as there
+was a penny to be made by staying there."</p>
+<p>"No; I spent a great deal of money in telegraphing to him for
+orders to come home, but he would not give up."</p>
+<p>"And how is Uncle Leonard; did you go to Varick-street?"</p>
+<p>"No, indeed; I did not waste any time in town. I only reached
+there yesterday."</p>
+<p>"I wonder Uncle Leonard let you off so soon."</p>
+<p>"He growled a good deal, but I did not stay to listen."</p>
+<p>"That's always the best way."</p>
+<p>"And now, Pauline, tell me how you like the place."</p>
+<p>"Like it! Oh, Richard, I think it is a Paradise," and I clasped
+my hands in a young sort of ecstacy.</p>
+<p>He was silent, which was a sign that he was satisfied. I went on
+after a moment, "I don't wonder that you all love it. I never saw
+anything half so beautiful. The dear old house is prettier than any
+new one that could be built, and the trees are so grand! And oh,
+Richard, I think the garden lying on the hillside there in the
+beautiful warm sun, with such royal flowers and fruit, is worth all
+the grape-houses and conservatories in the neighborhood. Your
+sister took us to three or four of the neighboring places a week or
+two ago. But I like this a hundred times the best. I should think
+you would be sorry every moment that you have to spend away from
+it."</p>
+<p>"I hope one of these days to live here altogether," he said in a
+low tone.</p>
+<p>It was so difficult for Richard to be unreserved that it is very
+likely this was the first time in his life that he had ever
+expressed this, the brightest hope he had.</p>
+<p>I could fancy all these few words implied--a wife, children, a
+happy home in manhood where he had been a happy child.</p>
+<p>"It belongs to Kilian and me, but it is understood I have the
+right to it when I am ready for it."</p>
+<p>"And your sister--it does not belong at all to her?"</p>
+<p>"No, she only keeps house for us. It would make a great change
+for Sophie if either of us married. But then I know that it would
+give her pleasure, for I am sure that she would not be
+selfish."</p>
+<p>I was not so sure, but, of course, I did not say so. At this
+moment, while Richard smoked and I walked silently beside him, a
+dark figure struck directly across the path before us. The
+apparition was so sudden that I sprang and screamed, and caught
+Richard by the arm.</p>
+<p>"I beg your pardon," said the tutor, with a quick look of
+surprise at me and then at Richard, and bowing, strode on into the
+house.</p>
+<p>"That's the German Sophie has taken for the boys, is it?" said
+Richard, knitting his brows, and looking after him, with no great
+approbation. "I don't half like the idea of his being here: I told
+Sophie so at starting. A governess would do as well for two years
+yet. What kind of a person does he seem to be?"</p>
+<p>"I don't know--that is--I can't tell exactly. I don't know him
+well enough," I answered in confusion, which Richard did not
+see.</p>
+<p>"No, of course not. You would not be likely to see him except at
+the table. But it is awkward having him here,--so much of the week,
+no man about; and one never knows anything about these
+Germans."</p>
+<p>"I thought--your sister said--you knew all about him," I said,
+in rather a low voice.</p>
+<p>"As much as one needs to know about a mere teacher. But the
+person you have in your house all the time is different."</p>
+<p>"But he is a gentleman," I put in more firmly.</p>
+<p>"I hope he is. He had letters to some friends of ours. But what
+are letters? People give them when they're asked for them, and half
+the time know nothing of the person for whom they do the favor,
+besides his name and general standing. Hardly that, sometimes."
+Then, as if to put away a tiresome and unwelcome subject, he began
+again to talk about the place.</p>
+<p>But I had lost my interest in the subject, and thought only of
+returning to the house.</p>
+<p>"Don't," I said, playfully putting out my hand as he took out
+another cigar to light. "You have smoked enough to-night. Do you
+know, you smoke a great deal more than is good for you."</p>
+<p>"Well, I will not smoke any more to-night if you say so. Only
+don't go in the house."</p>
+<p>"Oh, yes, you know we only came out to smoke."</p>
+<p>He stood in front of the path that led to the piazza and said,
+in an affectionate, gentle way, "Stay and walk a little longer. I
+have not told you half how glad I am that you are here at
+last."</p>
+<p>"Oh, as for that, you've got a good many weeks to tell me in.
+Besides, it's getting chilly," and I gave a little shiver.</p>
+<p>"If you're cold, of course," he said, letting me pass and
+following me, and added, with a shade of anxiety, "Why didn't you
+tell me before? I never thought of it, and you have no shawl."</p>
+<p>I felt ashamed of myself as I led the way up the piazza
+steps.</p>
+<p>In the hall, which was quite light, they were all standing, and
+Mr. Langenau was in the group. They were petitioning him for
+music.</p>
+<p>"Oh, he has promised that he will sing," said Sophie; "but
+remember he has not had his tea. I have ordered it for you, Mr.
+Langenau; it will be ready in a moment."</p>
+<p>Mr. Langenau bowed and turned to go up the stairs. His eye met
+mine, as I came into the light, dazzled a little by it.</p>
+<p>He went up the stairs; the others after a few moments, went into
+the parlor. I sat down on a sofa beside Mrs. Hollenbeck. Richard
+was called away by a person on business. There was a shaded lamp on
+a bracket above the sofa where we sat; Mrs. Hollenbeck was reading
+some letters she had just received, and I took up the evening
+paper, reading over and over an advertisement of books. Presently
+the servant came to Mrs. Hollenbeck and said that Mr. Langenau's
+tea was ready. She was sent up to tell him so, and in a few moments
+he came down. When he reached the hall, Sophie looked up with her
+most lovely smile.</p>
+<p>"You must be famished, Mr. Langenau; pray go immediately to the
+dining-room. I am sorry not to make your tea myself, but I hear
+Benny waking and must go to him. Will you mind taking my place,
+Pauline, and pouring out tea for Mr. Langenau?"</p>
+<p>I was bending over the paper; my face turned suddenly from red
+to pale. I said something inaudible in reply, and got up and went
+into the dining-room, followed by the tutor.</p>
+<p>It was several minutes before I looked at him. The servants had
+not favored us with much light: there was a branch of wax candles
+in the middle of the table. Mr. Langenau's plate was placed just at
+one side of the tray, at which I had seated myself. He looked pale,
+even to his lips. I began to think of the terrible walks in which
+he seemed to hunt himself down, and to wonder what was the motive,
+though I had often wondered that before. He took the cup of tea I
+offered him without speaking. Neither of us spoke for several
+minutes, then I said, rather irresolutely, "I am sure you tire
+yourself by these long walks."</p>
+<p>"Do you think so? No: they rest me."</p>
+<p>No doubt I felt more coquettish, and had more confidence than
+usual, from the successes of that evening, and from the knowledge
+that Richard and Kilian and Eugene Whitney, even, were so delighted
+to talk to me; otherwise I could never have said what I said then,
+by a sudden impulse, and with a half-laughing voice, "Do not go
+away again so long; it makes it so dull and tiresome."</p>
+<p>He looked at me and said, "It does not seem to me you miss me
+very much." But such a gleam of those dark, dangerous eyes! I
+looked down, but my breath came quickly and my face must have shown
+the agitation that I felt.</p>
+<p>At this moment Richard, released from his engagement in the
+library, came through the hall and stopped at the dining-room door.
+He paused for a moment at the door, walked away again, then came
+back and into the room, with rather a quicker step than usual.</p>
+<p>"Pauline," he said, and I started visibly, "They seem to be
+waiting for you in the parlor for a game of cards."</p>
+<p>His voice indicated anything but satisfaction. I half rose, then
+sank back, and said, hesitatingly, "Can I pour you some more tea,
+Mr. Langenau?"</p>
+<p>"If it is not troubling you too much," he said in a voice that a
+moment's time had hardened into sharpness.</p>
+<p>Oh, the misery of that cup of tea, with Richard looking at me on
+one side flushed and angry, and Mr. Langenau on the other, pale and
+cynical. My hands shook so that I could not lift the teakettle, and
+Richard angrily leaned down and moved it for me. The alcohol in the
+lamp flamed up and scorched my arm.</p>
+<p>"Oh Richard, you have burned me," I cried, dropping the cup and
+wrapping my handkerchief around my arm. In an instant he was all
+softness and kindness, and, I have no doubt, repentance.</p>
+<p>"I am very sorry," he said; "Does it hurt you very much? Come
+with me, and I will get Sophie to put something on it."</p>
+<p>But Mr. Langenau did not move or show any interest in my
+sufferings. I was half-crying, but I sat still and tried with the
+other hand to replace the cup and fill it. Seeing that I did not
+make much headway, and that Richard had stepped back, Mr. Langenau
+said, "Allow me," and held the cup while I managed to pour the tea
+into it. He thanked me stiffly, and without looking at either of
+them I got up and went out of the room, Richard following me.</p>
+<p>"Will you wait here while I call Sophie to get something for
+you?" he said a little coldly.</p>
+<p>"No, I do not want anything; I wish you would not say anything
+more about it; it only hurt me for a moment."</p>
+<p>"Will you go into the parlor, then?"</p>
+<p>"No--yes, that is," I said, and capriciously went, alone, for he
+did not follow me.</p>
+<p>I was wanted for cards, but I would not play, and sat down by
+one of the windows, a little out of the light. This window opened
+upon the piazza. After a little while Richard, walking up and down
+the piazza, stopped by it, and said to me: "I hope you won't think
+it unreasonable in me to ask, Pauline; but how in the world did you
+happen to be making tea for that--that man in there?"</p>
+<p>"I happened to make tea for Mr. Langenau because your sister
+asked me to," I said angrily; "you had better speak to her about
+it."</p>
+<p>"You may be sure I shall," he said, walking away from the
+window.</p>
+<p>Presently the tutor came in from the hall by the door near the
+piano, and sat down by it without being asked, and began to play
+softly, as if not to interrupt the game of cards. I could not help
+thinking in what good taste this was, since he had promised not to
+wait for any more importunities. The game at cards soon languished,
+for Charlotte Benson really had an enthusiasm for music, and was
+not happy till she was at liberty to give her whole attention to
+it. As soon as the players were released, Kilian came over and sat
+beside me. He rather wearied me, for I wanted to listen to the
+music, but he was determined not to see that, and chattered so that
+more than once Charlotte Benson turned impatiently and begged us
+not to talk. Once Mr. Langenau himself turned and looked at us, but
+Kilian only paused, and then went on again.</p>
+<p>Mary Leighton had fled to the piano and was gazing at the keys
+in a rapt manner, hoping, no doubt, to rouse Kilian to jealousy of
+the tutor.</p>
+<p>"Please go away," I said at last, "this is making me seem
+rude."</p>
+<p>"Do not tell me," he exclaimed, "that you are helping Mary
+Leighton and Sophie to spoil this German fellow. I really did not
+look for it in you. I--"</p>
+<p>"I can't stay here and be talked to," I said, getting up in
+despair.</p>
+<p>"Then come on the piazza," he exclaimed, and we were there
+almost before I knew what I was doing.</p>
+<p>I suppose every one in the room saw us go out: I was in terror
+when I thought what an insult it would seem to Mr. Langenau. We
+walked about the piazza for some time; I am afraid Mr. Kilian found
+me rather dull, for I could only listen to what was going on
+inside. At last he was called away by a man from the stable, who
+brought some alarming account of his beloved Tom or Jerry. If I had
+been his bride at the altar, I am sure he would have left me; being
+only a new and very faintly-lighted flame, he hurried off with
+scarcely an apology.</p>
+<p>I sat down in a piazza-chair, just outside the window at which
+we had been sitting. I looked in at the window, but no one could
+see me, from the position of my chair.</p>
+<p>Presently Mr. Langenau left the piano, and Mary Leighton,
+talking to him with effusion, walked across the room beside him,
+and took her seat at this very window. He did not sit down, but
+stood before her with his hat in his hand, as if he only awaited a
+favorable pause to go away.</p>
+<p>"Ah, where did Pauline go?" she said, glancing around. "But I
+suppose we must excuse her, for to-night at least, as he has just
+come home. I imagine the engagement was no surprise to you?"</p>
+<p>"Of what engagement do you speak?" he said.</p>
+<p>"Why! Pauline and Richard Vandermarck; you know it is quite a
+settled thing. And very good for her, I think. He seems to me just
+the sort of man to keep her steady and--well, improve her
+character, you know. She seems such a heedless sort of girl. They
+say her mother ran away and made some horrid marriage, and, I
+believe, her uncle has had to keep her very strict. He is very much
+pleased, I am told, with marrying her to Richard, and she herself
+seems very much in love with him."</p>
+<p>All this time he had stood very still and looked at her, but his
+face had changed slowly as she spoke. I knew then that what she had
+said had not pleased him. She went on in her babbling, soft
+voice:</p>
+<p>"His sister Sophie isn't pleased, of course, so there is nothing
+said about it here. It <i>is</i> rather hard for her, for the place
+belongs to Richard, and besides, Richard has been very generous to
+her always. And then to see him marry just such a sort of
+person--you know--so young--"</p>
+<p>"Yes--so young," said Mr. Langenau, between his teeth, "and of
+such charming innocence."</p>
+<p>"Oh, as to that," said Mary Leighton, piqued beyond prudence,
+"we all have our own views as to that."</p>
+<p>The largess due the bearer of good news was not by right the
+meed of Mary Leighton. He looked at her as if he hated her.</p>
+<p>"Mr. Richard Yandermarck is a fortunate man," he said. "She has
+rare beauty, if he has a taste for beauty."</p>
+<p>"Men sometimes tire of that; if indeed she has it. Her coloring
+is her strong point, and that may not last forever;" and Mary's
+voice was no longer silvery.</p>
+<p>"You think so?" he said. "I think her grace is her strong point,
+'<i>la gr&acirc;ce encore plus belle que la beaut&eacute;</i>,' and
+longer-lived beside. Few women move as she does, making it a
+pleasure to follow her with the eyes. And her height and
+suppleness: at twenty-five she will be regal."</p>
+<p>"Then, Mr. Langenau," she cried, with sudden spitefulness, "you
+<i>do</i> admire her very much yourself! Do you know, I thought
+perhaps you did. How you must envy Mr. Vandermarck!"</p>
+<p>A slight shrug of the shoulders and a slight low laugh; after
+which, he said, "No, I think not. I have not the courage that is
+necessary."</p>
+<p>"The courage! why, what do you mean by that?"</p>
+<p>"I mean that a man who ventures to love a woman in whom he
+cannot trust, has need for courage and for patience; perhaps Mr.
+Richard Vandermarck has them both abundantly. For me, I think the
+pretty Miss Pauline would be safer as an hour's amusement than as a
+life's companion."</p>
+<p>The words stabbed, killed me. With an ejaculation that could
+scarcely have escaped their ears, I sprang up and ran through the
+hall and up the stairs. Before I reached the landing-place, I knew
+that some one was behind me. I did not look or pause, but flew on
+through the hall till I reached my own door. My own door was just
+at the foot of the third-floor stairway. I glanced back, and saw
+that it was Mr. Langenau who was behind me. I pushed open my door
+and went half-way in the room; then with a vehement and sudden
+impulse came back into the hall and pulled it shut again and stood
+with my hand upon the latch, and waited for him to pass. In an
+instant more he was near me, but not as if he saw me; he could not
+reach the stairway without passing so near me that he must touch my
+dress. I waited till he was so near, and said, "Mr. Langenau."</p>
+<p>He raised his eyes steadily to mine and bowed low. I almost
+choked for one instant, and then I found voice and rushed on
+vehemently. "What she has told you is false; every word of it is
+false. I am not engaged to Richard Vandermarck; I never thought of
+such a thing till I came here, and found they talked about it. They
+ought to be ashamed, and I will go away to-morrow. And what she
+said about my mother is a wicked lie as well, at least in the way
+she meant it; and I shall hate her all my life. I have been
+motherless and lonely always, but God has cared for me, and I never
+knew before what evil thoughts and ways there were. I am not
+ashamed that I listened, though I didn't mean to stay at first. I'm
+glad I heard it all and know what kind of friends I have. And those
+last cruel words you said--I never will forgive you,
+never--never--never till I die."</p>
+<p>He had put his hand out toward me as if in conciliation, at
+least I understood it so. I pushed it passionately away, rushed
+into my room, bolted the door, and flung myself upon the bed with a
+frightful burst of sobs. I heard his hand upon the latch of the
+door, and he said my name several times in a low voice. Then he
+went slowly up the stairs. And I think his room must have been
+directly over mine, for, for hours I heard some one walking there;
+indeed, it was the last sound I heard, when, having cried all my
+tears and vowed all my vows, I fell asleep and forgot that I was
+wretched.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII."></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+<h3>SUNDAY.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote><i>La notte &eacute; madre di pensieri</i>.<br>
+<br>
+Now tell me how you are as to religion?<br>
+You are a clear good man--but I rather fear<br>
+You have not much of it.<br>
+<i>Faust</i>.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<p>It was all very well to talk about going away; but the matter
+looked very differently by daylight. It was Sunday; and I knew I
+could not go away for a day or two, and not even then without
+making a horrid sort of stir, for which I had not the courage in
+cold blood. Besides, I did not even know that I wanted to go if I
+could. Varick-street! Hateful, hateful thought. No, I could not go
+there. And though (by daylight) I still detested Mary Leighton, and
+felt ashamed about Richard, and remembered all Mr. Langenau's words
+(sweet as well as bitter), everything was let down a great many
+degrees; from the heights of passion into the plains of
+commonplace.</p>
+<p>My great excitement had worked its own cure, and I was so dull
+and weary that I did not even want to think of what had passed the
+night before. If I had a sentiment that retained any strength, it
+was that of shame and self-contempt. I could not think of myself in
+any way that did not make me blush. When, however, it came to the
+moment of facing every one, and going down to breakfast, I began to
+know I still had some other feelings.</p>
+<p>I was the last to go down. The bell had rung a very long while
+before I left my room. I took my seat at the table without looking
+at any one, though, of course, every one looked at me. My confused
+and rather general good-morning was returned with much precision by
+all. Somebody remarked that I did not look well. Somebody else
+remarked that was surely because I went to bed so early; that it
+never had been known to agree with any one. Some one else wanted to
+know why I had gone so early, and that I had been hunted for in all
+directions for a dance which had been a sudden inspiration.</p>
+<p>"But as you had gone away, and the musician could not be found,
+we had to give it up," said Charlotte Benson, "and we owe you both
+a grudge."</p>
+<p>"For my part, I am very sorry," said Mr. Langenau. "I had no
+thought that you meant to dance last night, or I should have stayed
+at the piano; I hope you will tell me the next time."</p>
+<p>"The next time will be to-morrow evening," said Mary Leighton.
+"Now, Mr. Langenau, you will not forget--or--or get excited about
+anything and go away?"</p>
+<p>I dared not look at Mr. Langenau's face, but I am sure I should
+not have seen anything pleasant if I had. I don't know what he
+answered, for I was so confused, I dropped a plate of berries which
+I was just taking from Kilian's hand, and made quite an
+uncomfortable commotion. The berries were very ripe, and they
+rolled in many directions on the table-cloth, and fell on my white
+dress.</p>
+<p>"Your pretty dress is ruined, I'm afraid," said Kilian, stooping
+down to save it.</p>
+<p>"I don't care about that, but I'm very sorry that I've stained
+the table-cloth," and I looked at Mrs. Hollenbeck as if I thought
+that she would scold me for it. But she quite reassured me. Indeed,
+I think she was so pleased with me, that she would not have minded
+seeing me ruin all the table-cloths that she had.</p>
+<p>"But it will make you late for church, for you'll have to change
+your dress," said Charlotte Benson, practically, glancing at the
+clock. I was very thankful for the suggestion, for I thought it
+would save me from the misery of trying to eat breakfast, but
+Kilian made such an outcry that I found I could not go without more
+comments than I liked.</p>
+<p>"You have no appetite either," said Mary Leighton. "I am ashamed
+to eat as much as I want, for here is Mr. Langenau beside me, who
+has only broken a roll in two and drank a cup of coffee."</p>
+<p>"I am not perhaps quite used to your American way of
+breakfasting," he returned quickly.</p>
+<p>"But you ate breakfasts when we first came," said the sweet girl
+gently.</p>
+<p>"Was not the weather cooler then?" he answered, "and I have
+missed my walk this morning."</p>
+<p>"Let me give you some more coffee, at any rate," said Sophie,
+with affectionate interest. Indeed, I think at that moment she
+absolutely loved him.</p>
+<p>In a few minutes I escaped from the table; when I came down from
+my room ready for church, I found that they were all just starting.
+(Richard, I suppose, would have waited for me.) The church was in
+the village, and not ten minutes' walk from the house. Kilian was
+carrying Mary Leighton's prayer-book, and was evidently intending
+to walk with her.</p>
+<p>Richard came up to me and said, "Sophie is waiting to know if
+you will let her drive you, or if you will walk."</p>
+<p>I had not yet been obliged to speak to Richard since I had heard
+what people said about us, and I felt uncomfortable.</p>
+<p>"Oh, let me drive if there is room," I said, without looking up.
+Sophie sat in her little carriage waiting for me. Richard put me in
+beside her, and then joined the others, while we drove away. Benny,
+in his white Sunday clothes, sat at our feet.</p>
+<p>"I think it is so much better for you to drive," said Mrs.
+Hollenbeck, "for the day is warm, and I did not think you looked at
+all well this morning."</p>
+<p>"No," I said faintly. And she was so kind, I longed to tell her
+everything. It is frightful at seventeen to have no one to tell
+your troubles to.</p>
+<p>At the gate Benny was just grumbling about getting out to open
+it, when Mr. Langenau appeared, and held it open for us. He was
+dressed in a flannel suit which he wore for walking. After he
+closed the gate, he came up beside the carriage, as Mrs. Hollenbeck
+very kindly invited him to do, by driving slowly.</p>
+<p>"Are you coming with us to church, Mr. Langenau?" asked
+Benny.</p>
+<p>"To church? No, Benny. I am afraid they would not let me
+in."</p>
+<p>"Why, yes, they would, if you had your good clothes on," said
+Benny.</p>
+<p>Mr. Langenau laughed, a little bitterly, and said he doubted,
+even then. "I am afraid I haven't got my good conscience on either,
+Benny."</p>
+<p>"But the minister would never know," said Benny.</p>
+<p>"That's very true; the ministers here don't know much about
+peoples' consciences, I should think."</p>
+<p>"Do ministers in any other places know any more?" asked Benny
+with interest.</p>
+<p>"Why, yes, Benny, in a good many countries where I've been, they
+do."</p>
+<p>"You are a Catholic, Mr. Langenau?" asked Mrs. Hollenbeck.</p>
+<p>"I once was; I have no longer any right to say it is my faith,"
+he answered slowly.</p>
+<p>"What is it to be a Catholic?" inquired Benny, gazing at his
+tutor's face with wonder.</p>
+<p>"To be a Catholic, is to be in a safe prison; to have been a
+Catholic, is to be alone on a sea big and black with billows,
+Benny."</p>
+<p>"I think I'd like the prison best," said Benny, who was very
+much afraid of the water.</p>
+<p>"Ah, but if you couldn't get back to it, my boy."</p>
+<p>"Well, I think I'd try to get to land somewhere," Benny
+answered, stoutly.</p>
+<p>Mr. Langenau laughed, but rather gloomily, and we went on for a
+few moments in silence. The road was bordered with trees, and there
+was a beautiful shade. The horse was very glad to be permitted to
+go slow, not being of an ambitious nature.</p>
+<p>All this time I had been leaning back, holding my parasol very
+close over my face. Mr. Langenau happened to be on the side by me:
+once when the carriage had leaned suddenly, he had put his hand
+upon it, and had touched, without intending it, my arm.</p>
+<p>"I beg your pardon," he had said, and that was all he had said
+to me; and I had felt very grateful that Benny had been so inclined
+to talk. I trusted that nobody would speak to me, for my voice
+would never be steady and even again, I was sure, when he was by to
+listen to it.</p>
+<p>Now, however, he spoke to me: commonplace words, the same almost
+that every one in the house had addressed to me that morning, but
+how differently they sounded.</p>
+<p>"I am sorry that you are not well to-day, Miss
+d'Estr&eacute;e."</p>
+<p>Mrs. Hollenbeck at this moment began to find some fault with
+Benny's gloves, and leaning down, talked very obligingly and
+earnestly with him, while she fastened the gloves upon his
+hands.</p>
+<p>Mr. Langenau took the occasion, as it was intended he should
+take it, and said rather low, "You will not refuse to see me a few
+moments this evening, that I may explain something to you?"</p>
+<p>I think he was disappointed that I did not answer him, only
+turned away my head. But I don't know in truth what other answer he
+had any right to ask. He did not attempt to speak again, but as we
+turned into the village, said, "Good-morning, I must leave you.
+Good-bye, Benny, since I have neither clothes nor conscience fit
+for church."</p>
+<p>Sophie laughed, and said, at least she hoped he would be home
+for dinner. He did not promise, but raising his hat struck off into
+a little path by the roadside, that led up into the woods.</p>
+<p>"What a pity," said Mrs. Hollenbeck musingly, "that a man of
+such fine intellect should have such vague religious faith."</p>
+<p>Mr. Langenau was at home for dinner, but he did not see me at
+that meal, for my head ached so, and I felt so weary that when I
+came up-stairs after church, it seemed impossible to go down again.
+I should have been very glad to make the same excuse serve for the
+remainder of the day, but really the rest and a cup of tea had so
+restored me, that no excuse remained at six o'clock.</p>
+<p>All families have their little Sunday habits, I have found; the
+Sunday rule in this house was, to have tea at half-past six, and to
+walk by the river till after the sun had set; then to come home and
+have sacred music in the parlor. After tea, accordingly, we took
+our shawls on our arms (it still being very warm) and walked down
+toward the river.</p>
+<p>I kept beside Mrs. Hollenbeck and Benny, where only I felt
+safe.</p>
+<p>The criticism I had heard had given me such a shock, I did not
+feel that I ever could be careful enough of what I said and did.
+And I vaguely felt my mother's honor would be vindicated, if I
+showed myself always a modest and prudent woman.</p>
+<p>"It was so well that I heard them," I kept saying to myself, but
+I felt so much older and so much graver. My silence and constraint
+were no doubt differently interpreted. Richard did not come up to
+me, except to tell me I had better put my shawl on, as I sat on the
+steps of the boat-house, with Benny beside me. The others had
+walked further on and were sitting, some of them on the rocks, and
+some on the boat that had been drawn up, watching the sun go
+down.</p>
+<p>"Tell me a story," said Benny, resting his arms on my lap, "a
+story about when you were a little girl."</p>
+<p>"Oh, Benny, that wouldn't make a pretty story."</p>
+<p>"Oh, yes, it would: all about your mamma and the house you used
+to live in, and the children you used to go to see."</p>
+<p>"Dear Benny! I never lived in but one old, dismal house. I never
+went to play with any children. I could not make a story out of
+that."</p>
+<p>"But your mamma. O yes, I'm sure you could if you tried very
+hard."</p>
+<p>"Ah, Benny! that's the worst of all. For my mamma has been with
+God and the good angels in the sky, ever since I was a little baby,
+and I have had a dreary time without her here alone."</p>
+<p>"Then I think you might tell me about God and the good angels,"
+whispered Benny, getting closer to me.</p>
+<p>I wrapped my arms around him, and leaning my face down upon his
+yellow curls, told him a story of God and the good angels in the
+sky.</p>
+<p>Dear little Benny! I always loved him from that night. He cried
+over my story: that I suppose wins everybody's heart: and we went
+together, looking at the placid river and the pale blue firmament,
+very far into the paradise of faith. My tears dropped upon his
+upturned face; and when the stars came out, and we were told it was
+time to go back to the house, we went back hand in hand, firm
+friends for all life from that Sunday night.</p>
+<p>"There is Mr. Langenau," said Benny; "waiting for you, I should
+think."</p>
+<p>Mr. Langenau was waiting for me at the piazza steps. He fixed
+his eyes on mine as if waiting for my permission to speak again.
+But I fastened my eyes upon the ground, and holding Benny tightly
+by the hand, went on into the house.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX."></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+<h3>A DANCE.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote><b>It</b> is impossible to love and to be wise.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Bacon</i>.<br>
+<br>
+Niente piu tosto se secca che lagrime.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<p>"This is what we must do about it," said Kilian, as we sat
+around the breakfast-table. "If you are still in a humor for the
+dance to-night, I will order Tom and Jerry to be brought up at
+once, and Miss Pauline and I will go out and deliver all the
+invitations."</p>
+<p>"Of which there are about five," said Charlotte Benson. "You can
+spare Tom and Jerry and send a small boy."</p>
+<p>"But what if I had rather go myself?" he said, "and Miss Pauline
+needs the air. Now there are--let me see," and he began to count up
+the dancing inhabitants of the neighborhood.</p>
+<p>"Will you write notes or shall we leave a verbal message at each
+door?"</p>
+<p>"Oh leave a verbal message by all means," said Charlotte Benson,
+a little sharply. "It won't be quite <i>en r&egrave;gle</i>, as
+Miss d'Estr&eacute;e doesn't know the people, but so unconventional
+and fresh."</p>
+<p>"I do know them," I retorted, much annoyed, "conventionally at
+least: for they have all called upon me, though I didn't see them
+all. But I shall be very glad if you will take my place."</p>
+<p>"Oh, thank you; I wasn't moving an amendment for that end. We
+have made our arrangements for the morning, irrespective of the
+delivery of cards."</p>
+<p>"I shall have time to write the notes first, if Sophie would
+rather have notes sent," said Henrietta, who wrote a good hand and
+was very fond of writing people's notes for them.</p>
+<p>"Oh, thank you, dear; yes, perhaps it would be best, and save
+Pauline and Kilian trouble."</p>
+<p>So Henrietta went grandly away to write her little notes: a very
+large ship on a very small voyage.</p>
+<p>"And how about your music, Sophie," said Kilian, who was anxious
+to have all business matters settled relating to the evening.</p>
+<p>"Well, I suppose you had better go for the music-teacher from
+the village; he plays very well for dancing, and it is a mercy to
+me and to poor Henrietta, who would have to be pinned to the piano
+for the evening, if we didn't have him."</p>
+<p>"As to that, I thought we had a music-teacher of our own: can't
+your German be made of any practical account? Or is he only to be
+looked at and revered for his great powers?"</p>
+<p>"I didn't engage Mr. Langenau to play for us to dance," said
+Sophie.</p>
+<p>"Nor to lounge about the parlor every evening either," muttered
+Kilian, pushing away his cup of coffee.</p>
+<p>"Now, Mr. Kilian, pray don't let our admiration of the tutor
+drive you into any bitterness of feeling," cried Charlotte Benson,
+who had been treasuring up a store of little slights from Kilian.
+"You know he can't be blamed for it, poor man."</p>
+<p>Kilian was so much annoyed that he did not trust himself to
+answer, but rose from the table, and asked me if I would drive with
+him in half an hour.</p>
+<p>During the drive, he exclaimed angrily that Charlotte Benson had
+a tongue that would drive a man to suicide if he came in hearing of
+it daily. "Why, if she were as beautiful as a goddess, I could
+never love her. Depend upon it, she'll never get a husband, Miss
+Pauline."</p>
+<p>"Some men like to be scolded, I have heard," I said.</p>
+<p>"Well then, if you ever stumble upon one that does, just call me
+and I'll run and fetch him Charlotte Benson."</p>
+<p>The morning was lovely, and I had much pleasure in the drive,
+though I had not gone with any idea of enjoying it. It was very
+exhilarating to drive so fast as Kilian always drove; and Kilian
+himself always amused me and made me feel at ease. We were very
+companionable; and though I could not understand how young ladies
+could make a hero of him, and fancy that they loved him, I could
+quite understand how they should find him delightful and
+amusing.</p>
+<p>We delivered our notes, at more than one place, into the hands
+of those to whom they were addressed, and had many pleasant talks
+at the piazza steps with young ladies whom I had not known before.
+Then we went to the village and engaged the music-teacher, stopped
+at the "store" and left some orders, and drove to the Post-Office
+to see if there were letters.</p>
+<p>"Haven't we had a nice morning!" I exclaimed simply, as we drove
+up to the gate.</p>
+<p>"Capital," said Kilian. "I'm afraid it's been the best part of
+the day. I wish I had any assurance that the German would be half
+as pleasant. I beg your pardon, I don't mean your surly Teuton, but
+the dance that we propose to-night; I wish it had another name.
+Confound it! there he is ahead of us. (I don't mean the dance this
+time, you see.) I wish he'd turn back and open the gate for us.
+Holloa there!"</p>
+<p>Kilian would not have dared call out, if the boys had not been
+with their tutor. It was one o'clock, and they were coming from the
+farm-house back to dinner. At the call they all turned; Mr.
+Langenau stood still, and told Charles to go back and open the
+gate.</p>
+<p>Kilian frowned; he didn't like to see his nephew ordered to do
+anything by this unpleasant German. While we were waiting for the
+opening of the gate, the tutor walked on toward the house with
+Benny. As we passed them, Benny called out, "Stop, Uncle Kilian,
+stop, and take me in." Benny never was denied anything, so we
+stopped and Mr. Langenau lifted him up in front of us. He bowed
+without speaking, and Benny was the orator of the occasion.</p>
+<p>"You looked as if you were having such a nice time, I thought
+I'd like to come."</p>
+<p>"Well, we were," said Kilian, with a laugh, and then we drove on
+rapidly.</p>
+<p>At the tea-table Mr. Langenau said to Sophie as he rose to go
+away: "Mrs. Hollenbeck, if there is any service I can render you
+this evening at the piano, I shall be very glad if you will let me
+know."</p>
+<p>Mrs. Hollenbeck thanked him with cordiality, but told him of the
+provision that had been made.</p>
+<p>"But you will dance, Mr. Langenau," cried Mary Leighton, "we
+need dancing-men terribly, you know. Promise me you'll dance."</p>
+<p>"Oh," said Charlotte Benson, "he has promised me." Mr. Langenau
+bowed low; he got wonderfully through these awkward situations. As
+he left the room Kilian said in a tone loud enough for us, but not
+for him, to hear, "The Lowders have a nice young gardener; hadn't
+we better send to see if he can't come this evening?"</p>
+<p>"Kilian, that's going a little too far," said Richard in a
+displeased manner; "as long as the boys' tutor conducts himself
+like a gentleman, he deserves to be treated like a gentleman."</p>
+<p>"Ah, Paterfamilias, thank you. Yes, I'll think of it," and
+Kilian proposed that we should leave the table, as we all seemed to
+have appeased our appetites and nothing but civil war could come of
+staying any longer.</p>
+<p>It was understood we had not much time to dress: but when I came
+down-stairs, none of the others had appeared. Richard met me in the
+hall: he had been rather stern to me all day, but his manner quite
+softened as he stood beside me under the hall-lamp. That was the
+result of my lovely white mull, with its mint of Valenciennes.</p>
+<p>"You haven't any flowers," he said. Heavens! who'd have thought
+he'd ever have spoken in such a tone again, after the cup of tea I
+poured out for the tutor. "Let's go and see if we can't find some
+in these vases that are fit, for I suppose the garden's
+robbed."</p>
+<p>"Yes," I said, following him, quite pleased. For I could not
+bear to have him angry with me. I was really fond of him, dear, old
+Richard; and I looked so happy that I have no doubt he thought more
+of it than he ought. He pulled all the pretty vases in the parlor
+to pieces: (Charlotte and Henrietta and his sister had arranged
+them with such care!) and made me a bouquet of ferns, and
+tea-roses, and lovely, lovely heliotrope. I begged him to stop, but
+he went on till the flowers were all arranged and tied together,
+and no one came down-stairs till the spoilage was complete.</p>
+<p>All this time Mr. Langenau was in the library--restless,
+pretending to read a book. I saw him as we passed the door, but did
+not look again. Presently we heard the sound of wheels.</p>
+<p>"There," said Richard, feeling the weight of hospitality upon
+him, "Sophie isn't down. How like her!"</p>
+<p>But at the last moment, to save appearances, Sophie came down
+the stairs and went into the parlor: indolent, favored Sophie, who
+always came out right when things looked most against it.</p>
+<p>In a little while the empty rooms were peopled. Dress improved
+the young ladies of the house very much, and the young ladies who
+came were some of them quite pretty: The gentlemen seemed to me
+very tiresome and not at all good-looking. Richard was quite a king
+among them, with his square shoulders, and his tawny moustache, and
+his blue eyes.</p>
+<p>There were not quite gentlemen enough, and Mrs. Hollenbeck
+fluttered into the library to hunt up Mr. Langenau, and he
+presently came out with her. He was dressed with more care than
+usual, and suitably for evening: he had the <i>vive</i> attentive
+manner that is such a contrast to most young men in this country:
+everybody looked at him and wondered who he was. The music-teacher
+was playing vigorously, and so, before the German was arranged,
+several impetuous souls flew away in waltzes up and down the room.
+The parlor was a very large room. It had originally been two rooms,
+but had been thrown into one, as some pillars and a slight arch
+testified. The ceiling was rather low, but the many windows which
+opened on the piazza, and the unusual size of the room, made it
+very pretty for a dance. Mary Leighton and the tutor were dancing;
+somebody was talking to me, but I only saw that.</p>
+<p>"How well he dances," I heard some one exclaim.</p>
+<p>I'm afraid it must have been Richard whom I forgot to answer
+just before: for I saw him twist his yellow moustache into his
+mouth and bite it; a bad sign with him.</p>
+<p>Kilian was to lead with Mary Leighton, and he came up to where
+we stood, and said to Richard, "I suppose you have Miss Pauline for
+your partner?"</p>
+<p>Now I had been very unhappy for some time, dreading the moment,
+but there was nothing for it but to tell the truth. So I said, "I
+hope you are not counting upon me for dancing? You know I cannot
+dance!"</p>
+<p>"Not dance!" cried Kilian, in amazement; "why, I never dreamed
+of that."</p>
+<p>"You don't like it, Pauline?" said Richard, looking at me.</p>
+<p>"Like it!" I said, impatiently. "Why, I don't know how; who did
+I ever have to dance with in Varick-street? Ann Coddle or old
+Peter? And Uncle Leonard never thought of such a thing as sending
+me to school."</p>
+<p>"Why didn't you tell me before, and we wouldn't have bothered
+about this stupid dance," said Kilian; but I think he didn't mean
+it, for he enjoyed dancing very much.</p>
+<p>Richard had to go away, for though he hated it, he was needed,
+as they had not gentlemen enough.</p>
+<p>The one or two persons who had been introduced to me, on going
+to join the dance, also expressed regret. Even Mrs. Hollenbeck came
+up, and said how sorry she was: she had supposed I danced.</p>
+<p>But they all went away, and I was left by one of the furthest
+windows with a tiresome old man, who didn't dance either, because
+his legs weren't strong enough, and who talked and talked till I
+asked him not to; which he didn't seem to like. But to have to
+talk, with the noise of the music, and the stir, of the dancing,
+and the whirl that is always going on in such a room, is penance. I
+told him it made my head ache, and besides I couldn't hear, and so
+at last he went away, and I was left alone.</p>
+<p>Sometimes in pauses of the dance Richard came up to me, and
+sometimes Kilian; but it had the effect of making me more
+uncomfortable, for it made everybody turn and look at me. Bye and
+bye I stole away and went on the piazza, and looked in where no one
+could see me. I could not go away entirely, for I was fascinated by
+the dance. I longed so to be dancing, and had such bitter feelings
+because I never had been taught. After I left the room, I could see
+Richard was uncomfortable; he looked often at the door, and was not
+very attentive to his partner. No one else seemed to miss me. Mr.
+Langenau talked constantly to Miss Lowder, with whom he had been
+dancing, and never looked once toward where I had been sitting. A
+long time after, when they had been dancing--hours it seemed to
+me--Miss Lowder seemed to feel faint or tired, and Mr. Langenau
+came out with her, and took her up-stairs to the dressing-room.</p>
+<p>Ashamed to be seen looking in at the window, I ran into the
+library and sat down. There was a student's lamp upon the table,
+but the room had no other light. I sat leaning back in a large
+chair by the table, with my bouquet in my lap, buttoning and
+unbuttoning absently my long white gloves. In a moment I heard Mr.
+Langenau come down-stairs alone: he had left Miss Lowder in the
+dressing-room to rest there: he came directly toward the
+library.</p>
+<p>He came half-way in the door, then paused. "May I speak to you?"
+he said slowly, fixing his eyes on mine. "I seem to be the only one
+who is forbidden, of those who have offended you and of those who
+have not."</p>
+<p>"No one has said what you have," I said very faintly.</p>
+<p>In an instant he was standing beside me, with one hand resting
+on the table.</p>
+<p>"Will you listen to me," he said, bending a little toward me and
+speaking in a quick, low voice, "I did say what you have a right to
+resent; but I said it in a moment when I was not master of my
+words. I had just heard something that made me doubt my senses: and
+my only thought was how to save myself, and not to show how I was
+staggered by it. I am a proud man, and it is hard to tell you
+this--but I cannot bear this coldness from you--and <i>I ask you to
+forgive me</i>"</p>
+<p>His eyes, his voice, had all their unconquerable influence upon
+me. I bent over Richard's poor flowers, and pulled them to pieces
+while I tried to speak. There was a silence, during which he must
+have heard the loud beating of my heart, I think: at last he spoke
+again in a lower voice, "Will you not be kind, and say that we are
+friends once more?"</p>
+<p>I said something that was inaudible to him, and he stooped a
+little nearer me to catch it. I made a great effort and commanded
+my voice and said, very low? but with an attempt to speak lightly,
+"You have not made it any better, but I will forget it."</p>
+<p>He caught my hand for one instant, then let it go as suddenly.
+And neither of us could speak.</p>
+<p>There is no position more false and trying than a woman's, when
+she is told in this way that a man loves her, and yet has not been
+told it; when she must seem not to see what she would be an idiot
+not to see; when he can say what he pleases and she must seem to
+hear only so much. I did no better and no worse than most women of
+my years would have done. At last the silence (which did not seem a
+silence to me, it was so full of new and conflicting thoughts,) was
+broken by the recommencement of the music in the other room. He had
+taken a book in his hands and was turning over its pages
+restlessly.</p>
+<p>"Why have you not danced?" he said at last, in a voice that
+still showed agitation.</p>
+<p>"I have not danced because I can't, because I never have been
+taught."</p>
+<p>"You? not taught? it seems incredible. But let me teach you.
+Will you? Teach you! you would dance by intention. And would love
+it--madly--as I did years ago. Come with me, will you?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, no," I said, half frightened, shrinking back, "I am not
+going to dance--ever."</p>
+<p>"Perhaps that is as well," he said in a low tone, meeting my eye
+for an instant, and telling me by that sudden brilliant gleam from
+his, that then he would be spared the pain of ever seeing me
+dancing with another.</p>
+<p>"But let me teach you something," he said after a moment. "Let
+me teach you German--will you?" He sank down in a chair by the
+table, and leaning forward, repeated his question eagerly.</p>
+<p>"Oh, yes, I should like it so much--if--."</p>
+<p>"If--if what? If it could be arranged without frightening and
+embarrassing you, you mean?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"I wonder if you are not more afraid of being frightened and
+embarrassed than of any other earthly trial. There are worse things
+that come to us, Miss d'Estr&eacute;e. But I will arrange about the
+German, and you need have no terror. How will I arrange? No
+matter--when Mrs. Hollenbeck asks you to join a class in German,
+you will join it, will you not?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, yes."</p>
+<p>"You promise?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, anything."</p>
+<p>"Anything? take care. I may fill up a check for thousands, if
+you give a blank."</p>
+<p>"I didn't give a blank; anything about German's what I
+meant."</p>
+<p>"Ah, that's safer, but not half so generous. And yet you're one
+who might be generous, I think."</p>
+<p>"But tell me about the German class."</p>
+<p>"I've nothing to tell you about it," he answered, "only that
+you've promised to learn."</p>
+<p>"But where are we to say our lessons, and what books are we to
+Study?"</p>
+<p>"Would you like to say a lesson now and get one step in advance
+of all the others?"</p>
+<p>"O yes! I shall need at least as much grace as that."</p>
+<p>"Then say this after me: '<b>Ich will Alles lernen, was Sie mich
+lehren</b>.' Begin. '<b>Ich will Alles lernen</b>'--"</p>
+<p>"'<b>Ich will Alles lernen</b>'--but what does it mean?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, that is not important. Learn it first. Can you not trust
+me? '<b>Ich will Alles lernen, was Sie mich lehren.</b>'"</p>
+<p>"'<b>Ich will Alles lernen</b>'--ah, you look as if my
+pronunciation were not good."</p>
+<p>"I was not thinking of that; you pronounce very well. '<b>Ich
+will Alles lernen</b>--'"</p>
+<p>"<b>Ich will Alles lernen, was Sie mich lehren</b>:--there
+<i>now</i>, tell me what it means."</p>
+<p>"Not until you learn it; <i>encore une fois</i>."</p>
+<p>I said it after him again and again, but when I attempted it
+alone, I made invariably some error.</p>
+<p>"Let me write it for you," he said, and pulling a book from his
+pocket, tore out a leaf and wrote the sentence on it. "There--keep
+the paper and study it, and say it to me in the morning."</p>
+<p>I have the paper still; long years have passed: it is only a
+crumpled little yellow fragment; but the world would be poorer and
+emptier to me if it were destroyed.</p>
+<p>I had quite mastered the sentence, saying it after him word for
+word, and held the slip of paper in my hand, when I heard steps in
+the hall. I knew Richard's step very well, and gave a little start.
+Mr. Langenau frowned, and his manner changed, as I half rose from
+my seat, and as quickly sank back in it again.</p>
+<p>"Is it that you lack courage?" he said, looking at me
+keenly.</p>
+<p>"I don't know what I lack," I cried, bending down my head to
+hide my flushed face; "but I hate to be scolded and have
+scenes."</p>
+<p>"But who has a right to scold you and to make a scene?"</p>
+<p>"Nobody: only everybody does it all the same."</p>
+<p>"Everybody, I suppose, means Mr. Richard Vandermarck, who is
+frowning at you this moment from the hall."</p>
+<p>"And it means you--who are frowning at me this moment from your
+seat."</p>
+<p>All this time Richard had been standing in the hall; but now he
+walked slowly away. I felt sure he had given me up. The people
+began to come out of the parlor, and I felt ready to cry with
+vexation, when I thought that they would again be talking about me.
+It was true, I am afraid, that I lacked courage.</p>
+<p>"You want me to go away?" he said, fixing his eyes intently on
+me.</p>
+<p>"O yes, if you only would," I said na&iuml;vely.</p>
+<p>He looked so white and angry when he rose, that I sprang up and
+put out my hand to stop him, and said hurriedly, "I only
+meant--that is--I should think you would understand without my
+telling you. A woman cannot bear to have people talk about her, and
+know who she likes and who she doesn't. It kills me to have people
+talk about me. I'm not used to society--I don't know what is
+right--but I don't think--I am afraid--I ought not to have stayed
+in here and talked to you away from all the others. It's that that
+makes me so uncomfortable. That, and Richard too. For I know he
+doesn't like to have me pleased with any one. Do not go away angry
+with me. I don't see why you do not understand."</p>
+<p>My incoherent little speech had brought him to his senses.</p>
+<p>"I am not going away angry," he said in a low voice, "I will
+promise not to speak to you again to-night. Only remember that I
+have feelings as well as Mr. Richard Vandermarck."</p>
+<p>In a moment more I was alone. Richard did not come near me, nor
+seem to notice me, as he passed through the hall. Presently Mr.
+Eugene Whitney came in, and I was very glad to see him.</p>
+<p>"Won't you take me to walk on the piazza?" I asked, for
+everybody else was walking there. He was only too happy; and so the
+evening ended commonplace enough.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X."></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+<h3>EVERY DAY FROM SIX TO SEVEN.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>She wanted years to understand<br>
+The grief that he did feel.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Surrey</i>.<br>
+<br>
+Love is not love<br>
+That alters where it alteration finds.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>This was how the German class was formed.</p>
+<p>The next day, as we were leaving the dinner-table, Mr. Langenau
+paused a few moments by Sophie, in the hall, and talked with her
+about the boys.</p>
+<p>"Charley gets on very well with his German," he observed, "but
+Benny doesn't make much progress. He is too young to study much,
+and acquires chiefly by the ear. If you only had a German maid, or
+if you could speak with him yourself, he would make much better
+progress."</p>
+<p>"Yes, I wish I had more knowledge of the language," she replied;
+"I read it very easily, but cannot speak with any fluency."</p>
+<p>"Why will you never speak it with me?" he said. "And if you will
+permit me, I shall be very glad to read with you an hour a day. I
+have much leisure, and it would be no task to me."</p>
+<p>"I should like it very much, and you are very kind. But it is so
+hard to find an hour unoccupied, particularly with so many people
+in the house, whom I ought to entertain."</p>
+<p>"That is very true, unless you can make it a source of
+entertainment to them. Miss Benson--is she not a German scholar?
+She might like to join you."</p>
+<p>Then, I think, the clever Sophie's mind was illuminated, and the
+tutor's little scheme was revealed to her clear eye; she embraced
+it with effusion. "An admirable idea," she said, "and the others,
+too, perhaps, would join us if you would not mind. It would be one
+hour a day at least secure from <i>ennui:</i> I shall have great
+cause to thank you, if we can arrange it. For these girls get so
+tired of doing nothing; my mind is always on the strain to think of
+an amusement. Charlotte! Come here, I want to ask you
+something."</p>
+<p>Charlotte Benson came, and with her came Henrietta. I was
+sitting on the sofa between the parlor-doors, and could not help
+hearing the whole conversation, as they were standing immediately
+before me.</p>
+<p>"Mr. Langenau proposes to us to read an hour a day with him in
+German. What do you think about it?"</p>
+<p>"Charming," said Charlotte with enthusiasm. "I cannot think of
+anything that would give me greater pleasure. Henrietta and I have
+read in German together for two winters, and it will be enchanting
+to continue it with such a master as Mr. Langenau."</p>
+<p>Henrietta murmured her satisfaction, and then Charlotte rushed
+into plans for the course, leaving me in despair, supposing I had
+been forgotten. What place I was to find in such advanced society I
+could not well imagine.</p>
+<p>Mr. Langenau never turned his head in my direction, and talked
+with Miss Benson with so much earnestness about the books into
+which they were to plunge, that I could not convince myself that
+all this was undertaken solely that he might teach me German. In a
+little while they seemed to have settled it all to their
+satisfaction, and he had turned to go away. My heart was in my
+throat. Mrs. Hollenbeck had not forgotten me. She said something
+low to Mr. Langenau.</p>
+<p>"Ah, true!" he said. "But does she know anything of German?"
+Then turning to me he said, with one of his dazzling sudden
+glances, "Miss d'Estr&eacute;e, we are talking of making up a
+German class; do you understand the language?"</p>
+<p>"No," I said, meeting his eye for a moment, "I have only taken
+one lesson in my life," and then blushed scarlet at my own
+audacity.</p>
+<p>"Ah," said he, as if quite sorry for the disappointment, "I wish
+you were advanced enough to join us."</p>
+<p>Then Charlotte Benson, quite ignoring the interruption, began to
+ask him about a book that she wanted very much to find. Mr.
+Langenau had it in his room--a most happy accident, and there was a
+great deal said about it. I again was left in doubt of my fate.
+Again Sophie interposed. "We have forgotten Mary Leighton," she
+said, gently.</p>
+<p>"Does Miss Leighton know anything of German?"</p>
+<p>"Not a thing," said Henrietta.</p>
+<p>"What does she know anything of, but flirting?" said Charlotte
+with asperity, glancing out into the grounds where Kilian was
+murmuring softest folly to her under her pongee parasol.</p>
+<p>"Perhaps she'd like to learn," suggested Sophie. "She and
+Pauline might begin together; that is, if Mr. Langenau would not
+think it too much trouble to give them an occasional suggestion.
+And you, Charlotte, I am sure, could help them a great deal."</p>
+<p>Charlotte made no disguise of her disinclination to undertake to
+help them.</p>
+<p>Mr. Langenau expressed his willingness so unenthusiastically,
+that I think Mrs. Hollenbeck was staggered. I saw her glance
+anxiously at him, as if to know what really he might mean. She
+concluded to interpret according to the context, however, and went
+on.</p>
+<p>"But it will be so much better for all to undertake it, if one
+does. Suppose they try and see how it will work, either before or
+after our lesson."</p>
+<p>"<i>De tout mon coeur</i>," said Mr. Langenau, as if, however,
+his <i>coeur</i> had very little interest in the matter.</p>
+<p>"Well, about the hour?" said Charlotte, the woman of business;
+"we haven't settled that after all our talking."</p>
+<p>There was a great deal more, oh, a great deal more, and then it
+was settled that five in the afternoon should be considered the
+German hour--subject to alteration as circumstances should
+arise.</p>
+<p>Mrs. Hollenbeck very discreetly ordered that a beginning should
+not be made till the next day but one. "The gentlemen will all be
+here to-morrow, and there may be something else going on." I knew
+very well she was afraid of Richard, and thought he would not
+approve her zeal for our improvement.</p>
+<p>The first lesson was very dull work for me. It was agreed that
+Mary Leighton and I should take our lesson after the others,
+sitting beside them, however, for the benefit of such crumbs of
+information as might fall to us.</p>
+<p>Mr. Langenau took no special notice of me then, and very little
+that was flattering when Mary Leighton and I began our lesson
+proper. Mrs. Hollenbeck, Charlotte, and Henrietta took up their
+books and left, when the infant class was called. I do not think
+Mr. Langenau took great pains to make the study of the German
+tongue of interest to Miss Leighton. She was unspeakably bored, and
+never even learned the alphabet. She was very much unused to mental
+application, undoubtedly, and was annoyed at appearing dull. There
+was but one door open to her; to vote German a bore, and give up
+the class. She made her exit by that door on the occasion of the
+second lesson, and Mr. Langenau and I were left to pursue our
+studies undisturbed. The rendezvous was the piazza in fine weather,
+and the library when it was damp or cloudy. The fidelity with which
+the senior Germans gathered up their books and left, when their
+hour was over, was mainly due to the kind thoughtfulness of Mrs.
+Hollenbeck, who was always prompt, and always found some excuse for
+carrying away Charlotte and Henrietta with her when she went.</p>
+<p>It can be imagined what those hours were to me, those soft,
+golden afternoons. Sometimes we took our books and went out under
+the trees to some shaded seats, and sat there till the maid came
+out to call us in to tea. Happy, happy hours in dreamland! But what
+peril to me, and perhaps to him. It is vain to go over it all: it
+is enough that of all the happy days, that hour from six o'clock
+till tea-time was the happiest: and that with strange smoothness,
+day after day passed on without bringing interruption to it. At six
+the others went to ride or walk; I was never called, and did not
+even wonder at it.</p>
+<p>All this time Richard had been going every day to town and
+coming back by the evening train. It was pretty tiresome work, and
+he looked rather pale and worn; but I believe he could not stay
+away. I sometimes felt a little sorry when I saw how much he was
+out of spirits, but I was in such a happy realm myself, it did not
+depress me long: in truth, I forgot it when he was not actually
+before me, and sometimes even then. "I do not think you are
+listening to what I say," he said to me one night as he sat by me
+in the parlor. I blushed desperately, and tried to listen better.
+Ah! how often it happened after that. I blush again to think how
+much I pained him, and how silently he bore it all.</p>
+<p>The last days of July were very busy ones in the Wall-street
+office, and Richard did not give himself a holiday, till one
+Saturday, much to be remembered, the very last day of the month. I
+recall with penitence, the impatient feeling that I had when
+Richard told me he was going to take the day at home. I felt
+intuitively that it would spoil it all for me. After breakfast, we
+all played croquet, and then I shut myself into my room with my
+German books, and selfishly saw no one till dinner. At dinner I was
+excited and half frightened, as I always was when Mr. Langenau and
+Richard were both present, and both watching me; it was impossible
+to please either.</p>
+<p>Something was said about the afternoon, and Richard (who all
+this time knew nothing of the German class) said to me, evidently
+afraid of some other engagement being entered on, "I hope you will
+drive with me, Pauline, at five. I ordered the horses when I was
+down at the stables; I think the afternoon is going to be fine." It
+was rather a public way of asking one out of so many to go and take
+a drive; but in truth, Richard was too honest and straightforward
+to care who knew what he was in pursuit of, and too sore at heart
+and too indifferent an actor to conceal it if he had desired. But
+the invitation struck me with such consternation. At five o'clock!
+The flower and consummation of the day! The hour that I had been
+looking forward to, since seven the day before. I could not lose
+it. I would not go to drive. I hated Richard. I hated going to
+drive. I grew very brave, and was on the point of saying that I
+could not go, when I caught Sophie's eye. She made me a quick sign,
+which I dared not disobey. I blushed crimson, and did not lift my
+eyes again, but said in a low voice that I would go. Then my heart
+seemed to turn to lead, and all the glory and pleasure of the day
+was gone. It seemed to me of such vast importance, of such endless
+duration, this penance that I was to undergo. O lovers! Foolish,
+foolish men and women! I was like a child balked of its holiday; I
+wanted to cry--I longed to get away by myself. I did not dare to
+look at any one.</p>
+<p>Mr. Langenau excused himself, and left the table before the
+others went away. As we were leaving the table, Sophie, passing
+close by me, said quite low, "I would not say anything about the
+German class, Pauline. And it was a great deal better that you
+should go; you know Richard has not many holidays."</p>
+<p>"Yes, but you don't give up all your pleasures for him," I
+thought, but did not say.</p>
+<p>I went quickly to my room, and saw no one till I came
+down-stairs at five o'clock. I had on a veil, for my face was
+rather flushed, and my eyes somewhat the worse for crying. Richard
+was waiting for me at the foot of the stairs, and accompanied me
+silently to the wagon, which stood at the door. As we passed the
+parlor I could see, on the east piazza, Mr. Langenau and Charlotte
+already at their books. Both were so engrossed that they did not
+look up as we went through the hall. For that, Richard, poor
+fellow! had to suffer. I was too unreasonable to comprehend that
+Mr. Langenau's absorbed manner was a covering for his pique. It was
+enough torture to have to lose my lesson, without seeing him
+engrossed with some one else, whose fate was happier than mine.
+Perhaps, after all, he was fascinated by Charlotte Benson. She was
+bright, clever, and understood him so well. She admired him so
+much. She was, I was sure, half in love with him. (The day before I
+had concluded she liked Richard very much.) That was a very
+disagreeable drive. I complained of the heat. The sun hurt my
+eyes.</p>
+<p>"We can go back, if you desire it," said Richard, with a shade
+of sternness in his voice, stopping the horses suddenly, after two
+miles of what would have been ill-temper if we had been married,
+but was now perhaps only petulance.</p>
+<p>"I don't desire it," I said, quite frightened, "but I do wish we
+could go a little faster till we get into the shade."</p>
+<p>After that, there was naturally very little pleasure in
+conversation. I felt angry with Richard and ashamed of myself. For
+him, I am afraid his feelings were very bitter, and his silence the
+cover of a sore heart. We had started to take a certain drive; we
+both wished it over, I suppose, but both lacked courage to shorten
+it, or go home before we were expected. There was a brilliant
+sunset, but I am sure we did not see it: then the clouds gathered
+and the twilight came on, and we were nearly home.</p>
+<p>"Pauline," said Richard, hoarsely, not looking at me, and
+insensibly slackening the hold he had upon the reins; "will you let
+me say something to you? I want to give you some advice, if you
+will listen to me."</p>
+<p>"I don't want anybody to advise me," I said in alarm, "and I
+don't know what right you have to expect me to listen to you,
+Richard, unless it is that I am your guest; and I shouldn't think
+that was any reason why I should be made to listen to what isn't
+pleasant to me."</p>
+<p>The horses started forward, from the sudden emphasis of
+Richard's pull upon the reins; and that was all the answer that I
+had to my most unjustifiable words. Not a syllable was spoken after
+that; and in a few moments we were at the house. Richard silently
+handed me out; if I had been thinking about him I should have been
+frightened at the expression of his face, but I was not: I was only
+thinking--that we were at home, and that I was going to have the
+happiness of meeting Mr. Langenau.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI."></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+<h3>SOPHIE'S WORK.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>A nature half transformed, with qualities<br>
+That oft betrayed each other, elements<br>
+Not blent, but struggling, breeding strange effects<br>
+Passing the reckoning of his friends or foes.<br>
+<br>
+<i>George Eliot</i>.<br>
+<br>
+High minds of native pride and force<br>
+Most deeply feel thy pangs, remorse!<br>
+Fear for their scourge, mean villains have,<br>
+Thou art the torturer of the brave.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Scott</i>.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<p>This was what Sophie had done: she had invoked forces that she
+could not control, and she felt, as people are apt to feel when
+they watch their monster growing into strength, a little frightened
+and a little sorry. No doubt it had seemed to her a very small
+thing, to favor the folly of a girl of seventeen, fascinated by the
+voice and manner of a nameless stranger; it was a folly most
+manifest, but she had nothing to do with it, and was not
+responsible; a very small thing to allow, and to encourage what,
+doubtless, she flattered herself, her discouragement could not have
+subdued. It was very natural that she should not wish Richard to
+many any one; she was not more selfish than most sisters are. Most
+sisters do not like to give their brothers up. She would have to
+give up her home (one of her homes, that is,) as well. She did not
+think Richard's choice a wise one: she was not subject to the
+fascination of outline and coloring that had subjugated him, and
+she felt sincerely that she was the best judge. If Richard must
+marry (though in thinking of her own married life, she could not
+help wondering why he must), let him marry a woman who had fortune,
+or position, or talent. Of course there was a chance that this one
+might have money, but that would be according to the caprice of a
+selfish old man, who had never been known to show any affection for
+her.</p>
+<p>But money was not what Richard wanted: his sister knew much
+better what Richard wanted, than he knew himself. He wanted a
+clever woman, a woman who would keep him before the world and rouse
+him into a little ambition about what people thought of him. Sophie
+was disappointed and a little frightened when she found that
+Richard did not give up the outline and coloring pleasantly. She
+had thought he would be disillusionized, when he found he was
+thrown over for a German tutor, who could sing. She had not counted
+upon seeing him look ill and worn, and finding him stern and silent
+to her; to her, of whom he had always been so fond. She found he
+was taking the matter very seriously, and she almost wished that
+she had not meddled with the matter.</p>
+<p>And this German tutor--who could sing--well, it was strange, but
+he was the worst feature of her Frankenstein, and the one at which
+she felt most sorry and most frightened. Richard was very bad, to
+be sure, but he would no doubt get over it: and if it all came out
+well, she would be the gainer. As to "this girl for whom his heart
+was sick," she had no manner of patience with her or pity for
+her.</p>
+<p>"She must suffer: so do all;" she would undoubtedly have a hard
+future, no matter to which of these men who were so absurd about
+her, Fate finally accorded her: hard, if she married Richard
+without loving him (nobody knew better than Sophie how hard that
+sort of marriage was); hard, if she married the German, to suffer a
+lifetime of poverty and ill-temper and jealous fury. But about all
+that, Sophie did not care a straw. She knew how much women could
+live through, and it seemed to be their business to be
+wretched.</p>
+<p>But this man! And she could not gain anything by what he
+suffered, with his dangerous nature, his ungovernable jealousy, his
+possibly involved and unknown antecedents; what was to become of
+him, in case he could not have this girl of whom six weeks ago he
+had not heard? A pretty candidate to present to "mon oncle" of the
+Wall-street office, for the hand of the young lady trusted to their
+hospitality--a very pretty candidate--a German tutor--who could
+sing. If he took her, it was to be feared he would have to take her
+without more dowry than some very heavy imprecations. But could he
+take her, even thus? Sophie had some very strange misgivings. This
+man was desperately unhappy: was suffering frightfully: it made her
+heart ache to see the haggard lines deepening on his face, to see
+his colorless lips and restless eyes. She was sorry for him, as a
+woman is apt to be sorry for a fascinating man. And then she was
+frightened, for he was "no carpet knight so trim," to whom cognac,
+and cigars, and time would be a balm: this man was essentially
+dramatic, a dangerous character, an article with which she was
+unfamiliar. He was frantic about this silly girl: that was plain to
+see. Why then was he so wretched, seeing she was as irrationally in
+love with him?</p>
+<p>"If it only comes out right," she sighed distrustfully many
+times a day. She resolved never to interfere with anything again,
+but it came rather late, seeing she probably had done the greatest
+mischief that she ever would be permitted to have a hand in while
+she lived. She made up her mind not to think anything about it,
+but, unfortunately for that plan, she could not get out of sight of
+her work. If she had been a man, she would probably have gone to
+the Adirondacks. But being a woman she had to stay at home, and sit
+down among the tangled skeins which she had not skill to
+straighten.</p>
+<p>"If it only comes out right," she sighed again, the evening of
+that most uncomfortable drive, "If it only comes out right." But it
+did not look much like it.</p>
+<p>I had gone directly in to tea, and so had Richard. Richard's
+face silenced and depressed everybody at the table; and Mr.
+Langenau did not come.</p>
+<p>"There is going to be a terrible shower," said some one, and
+before the sentence was ended, there was a vivid flash of lightning
+that made the candles pale.</p>
+<p>"How rapidly it has come up," said Sophie. "Was the sky black
+when you came in, Richard?"</p>
+<p>"I do not know," said Richard, and nobody doubted that he told
+the truth.</p>
+<p>"It had begun to darken before we came up from the river." said
+Charlotte Benson. "The clouds were rising rapidly as we came in. It
+will be a fearful tempest."</p>
+<p>"Are the windows all shut?" said Sophie to the servant.</p>
+<p>"I should think so," exclaimed Kilian. "The heat is horrid."</p>
+<p>"Yes, it is suffocating," said Richard, getting up.</p>
+<p>As he went out of the dining-room, some one, I think Henrietta,
+said, "Well, I hope Mr. Langenau will get in safely; he was out on
+the river when we were on the hill."</p>
+<p>The storm was so sudden and so furious that everybody was
+concerned at hearing this; even Kilian made some exclamation of
+alarm.</p>
+<p>"Does he know anything about a boat?" he asked of Richard, who
+had paused in the doorway, hearing what was said.</p>
+<p>"I have no idea," said Richard, shortly, but he did not go
+away.</p>
+<p>"It isn't the sail-boat that he has, of course," said Kilian,
+thoughtfully. "He always goes out to row, I believe."</p>
+<p>"Why, no," said Charlotte Benson, "he's in the sail-boat; don't
+you remember saying, Henrietta, how bright the gleam of the sunset
+was on the sail, and all the water was so dark?"</p>
+<p>Kilian came to his feet very suddenly at these words.</p>
+<p>"That's a bad business," he said quickly to his brother. "I've
+no idea he can manage her in such a squall."</p>
+<p>Sophie gave a little scream, and Charlotte and Henrietta both
+grew very pale, as a frightful shock of thunder followed. The wind
+was furious, and the unfastened shutters in various parts of the
+house sounded like so many reports of pistols, and in an instant
+the whole force of the rain fell suddenly and at once upon the
+windows. Somewhere some glass was shattered, and all these sounds
+added to the sense of danger, and the darkness was so great and so
+sudden, that it was difficult to realize that half an hour before,
+the sunset could have whitened the sails of a boat upon the
+river.</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid it's too late to do much now," said Kilian, stopping
+in front of his brother in the doorway.</p>
+<p>"What's the use of talking in that way," returned Richard in a
+hoarse, low voice. "If you hav'nt more sense than to talk so before
+women, you can stay at home with them," he continued, striding
+across the hall, and picking up a lantern that stood in a corner
+near the door. Charlotte Benson caught up one of the candles from
+the table, and ran to him and lit the lamp within the lantern.
+Sophie threw a cloak over Kilian's shoulders, and Henrietta flew to
+carry a message to the kitchen. Richard pulled a bell that was a
+signal to the stable (the stable was very near the house), and in
+almost a moment's time two men, beside Kilian, were following him
+out into the tempest. We saw their lanterns flicker for an instant,
+and then they were swallowed up in the darkness. The fury of the
+storm increased every moment. The flashes of lightning were but a
+few seconds apart, and the roll of thunder was incessant. Every few
+moments, above this continued roar, would come an appalling crash
+which sounded just above our heads. The children were screaming
+with fear, the servants had come into the hall and seemed in a
+helpless sort of panic. Sophie was very pale and Mary Leighton
+clung hysterically to her. Charlotte Benson was the only one who
+seemed to be self-possessed enough to have done anything, if there
+had been anything to do. But there was not. All we could do was to
+try to behave ourselves with fortitude in view of the personal
+danger, and with composure in view of that of others. Presently
+there came a lull in the tempest, and we began to breathe freer;
+some one went to the door and opened it. A gust of cold wind swept
+through the hall and put out the lamp, at which the children and
+Mary Leighton renewed their cries of fright.</p>
+<p>The respite in the tempest was but temporary; before the lamp
+was relit and order restored, the storm had burst again upon us.
+This was, if anything, fiercer, but shorter lived. After fifteen or
+twenty minutes' rage, it subsided almost utterly, and we could hear
+it taking itself off across the heavens. I suppose the whole storm,
+from its beginning to its end, had not occupied more than three
+quarters of an hour, but it had seemed much longer.</p>
+<p>We were very glad to open the door and let the cool, damp air
+into the hall. The children were taken up-stairs, consoled with the
+promise that word should be sent to them when their uncles should
+return. The servants went feebly off to their domain; one was sent
+to sweep the piazza, for the rain had beaten in such torrents upon
+it that it was impossible to walk there, till it should be brushed
+away. Wrapped in their shawls, Henrietta and Charlotte Benson
+walked up and down the space that the servant swept, and watched
+and listened for a long half-hour. I took a cloak from the rack
+and, leaning against the door-post, stood and listened
+silently.</p>
+<p>From the direction of the river there was nothing to be heard.
+There was still distant thunder, but that was the only sound, that
+and the dripping of the rain off the leaves of the drenched trees.
+The wind was almost silent, and in the spaces of the broken clouds
+there were occasional faint stars. A fine, young tree, uprooted by
+the tempest, lay across the carriage-way before the house, its
+topmost branches resting on the steps of the piazza: the grass was
+strewed with leaves like autumn, and the paths were simply pools of
+water. Sophie, more than once, came to the door, and begged us to
+come in, for fear of the dampness and the cold, but no one heeded
+her suggestion. Even she herself came out very often, and looked
+and listened anxiously. Finally my ear caught a sound: I ran down
+the steps, and bent forward eagerly. There was some one coming
+along the garden-path that led up from the river. I could hear the
+water plashing as he walked, and he was coming rapidly. In a moment
+the others heard it too, and starting to the steps, stood still,
+and waited breathlessly. He had no lantern, for we could have seen
+that; he was almost at the steps before I could recognize him. It
+was Richard. I gave a smothered cry, and springing forward, held
+out my hands to stop him.</p>
+<p>"Tell me what has happened." He put aside my hands, and went
+past me without a second look.</p>
+<p>"There has nothing happened, but what he can tell you when he
+comes," he said, as he strode past me up the steps, and on into the
+house. Then he was alive to tell me: the reaction was a little too
+strong for me, and I sat down on the steps to try and recover
+myself, for I was ill and giddy.</p>
+<p>In a few moments more, more steps sounded in the distance, this
+time slowly, several persons coming together. I started and ran up
+the steps, I don't exactly know why, and stood behind the others,
+who were crowding down, servants and all, to hear what was the
+news. Kilian came first, very drenched, and spattered, and subdued
+looking, then Mr. Langenau, leaning upon one of the men, very pale,
+but making an attempt to smile and speak reassuringly to Sophie,
+who met him with looks of great alarm. It evidently gave him
+dreadful pain to move, and when he reached the house he was quite
+faint. Charlotte Benson placed a chair, into which they supported
+him.</p>
+<p>"Run, Pauline, and get some brandy," said Sophie, putting a
+bunch of keys into my hand without looking at me.</p>
+<p>When I came back with the glass of brandy, he was conscious
+again, and looked at me and took the glass from my hand. The other
+man had been sent for the doctor from the village, who was expected
+every moment, and Mr. Langenau, who was now revived by stimulants,
+was quite reassuring, and attempted to laugh at us for being so
+much frightened. Then the young ladies' curiosity got the better of
+their terror, and they clamored for the history of the past two
+hours. This history was given them principally by Kilian. I cannot
+repeat it satisfactorily, for the reason that I don't know anything
+about jibs, and bowsprits, and masts, and centre-boards, and I did
+not understand it at the time; but I received enough out of the
+mass of evidence presented in that language, to be sure that there
+had been considerable danger, and that everybody had behaved well.
+In fact, Kilian's changed manner toward the tutor of itself was
+quite enough to show that he had behaved unexpectedly well.</p>
+<p>The unvarnished and unbowspritted and unjib-boomed tale was
+pretty much as follows: Mr. Langenau had found himself in the
+middle of the river, when the storm came on. I am afraid he could
+not have been thinking very much about the clouds, not to have
+noticed that a storm was rising; though every one agreed that they
+had never known anything like the rapidity of its coming up. Before
+he knew what he was about, a squall struck him, and he had great
+difficulty to right the boat. (Then followed a good deal about
+luffing and tacking and keeping her taut to windward; that is, I
+think that was where he wanted to keep her.) But whatever it was,
+he didn't succeed in doing it, and Kilian vouchsafed to say nobody
+could have done it. Then something split: I really cannot say
+whether it was the mast, or the bowsprit, or the centre-board, but
+whatever it was, it hurt Mr. Langenau so much that for a moment he
+was stunned. And then Kilian cannot see why he wasn't drowned. When
+he came to himself he was still holding the rudder in his hand.</p>
+<p>The other arm was useless from the falling of--this thing that
+split--upon it. And so the boat was floundering about in the gale
+till it got righted, and it was Mr. Langenau's presence of mind
+that saved him and the boat, for he never let go the rudder, and
+controlled her as far as he could, though he did not know where he
+was going, the blackness was so great, and the flashes did not show
+him the shore; and he was like one placed in the midst of a
+frightful sea wakened out of a dream, owing to the blow and the
+unconsciousness which followed.</p>
+<p>Then Richard came upon the stage as hero; he and one of the men
+had gone out in the only boat at hand, a very small one, toward the
+speck, which, by the flashes of lightning, he saw out upon the
+river. It was almost impossible to overhaul her, and it could not
+have been done at the rate she was going, of course; but then
+occurred that accident which rendered Mr. Langenau unconscious, and
+which brought things to a standstill for a moment. Kalian said we
+did not know anything about the storm up here at the house; that
+more than one tree had been struck within a few feet of him on the
+shore. The river was surging; the wind was furious; no one could
+imagine what it was who had not witnessed it, and he, for his part,
+never expected to see Richard come back to land. But Richard did
+come back, and brought back the disabled sail-boat and the injured
+man. That was the end of the story; which thrilled us all very
+much, as we knew the heroes, and had one of them before us, ghastly
+pale but uncomplaining.</p>
+<p>It seemed as if the doctor never would come! We were women, and
+we naturally looked to the coming of the doctor as the end of all
+the trouble. It was impossible to make the poor fellow comfortable.
+He could not lie down, he could not move without excruciating pain,
+and very frequently he grew quite faint. Charlotte Benson and
+Sophie administered stimulants; endeavored to ease his position
+with pillows and footstools; and did all the nameless soothing acts
+that efficient and good nurses alone understand; while I, paralyzed
+and mute, stood aside, scarcely able to bear the sight of his
+sufferings. I am sorry to say, I don't think he cared at all to
+have me by him. He was in such pain that he cared only for the
+attendance of those who could alleviate it in a measure; and the
+strong firm hand and the skilled touch were more to him than the
+presence of one who had nothing but excited and unavailing sympathy
+to offer. It was rather a stern fact walking into my dreamland,
+this.</p>
+<p>By and bye Kilian went away to take off his wet clothes, and he
+did not come back again, but sent down a message to his sister that
+he was very tired and should go to bed, but if he were wanted for
+anything he could be called. This was not heroic of Kilian, but,
+after the manner of men, he was apt to keep away from the sight of
+disagreeable things.</p>
+<p>After all, he could not do much good, but it was something to
+feel there was a man to call upon, besides Patrick, who was stupid;
+and I saw Charlotte Benson's lip curl when Kilian's message was
+brought down.</p>
+<p>Richard was in his room: we all thought he had done enough for
+one night, and had a right to rest.</p>
+<p>At last, after the most weary waiting, wheels were heard, and
+the doctor drove up to the door. The servants had begun to look
+very sleepy. Mary Leighton had slipped away to her room, and Sophie
+had told Henrietta and me to go, for we were really of no earthly
+use. We did not take her advice as a compliment, and did not go.
+Henrietta opened the door for the doctor, which was doing something
+though not much, as two of the maids stood prepared to do it if she
+did not.</p>
+<p>The doctor was a reassuring, quiet man, and became a pillar of
+strength at once. After talking a few moments with Mr. Langenau,
+and pulling and twisting him rather ruthlessly, he walked a little
+away with Sophie, and told her he wanted him got at once to his
+room, and he should need the assistance of one of the gentlemen.
+Would not Patrick do? Besides Patrick. Mr. Langenau's shoulder was
+dislocated, badly, and it must be set at once. It was a painful
+operation and he needed help. I was within hearing of this, and I
+was in great alarm. Sophie looked so too, and I don't think she
+liked disagreeable things any better than her brother, but she was
+a woman, and could not shirk them as he could.</p>
+<p>"Pauline," she said, finding me at her side as she turned, "run
+up and tell Richard that he must come down, quick. Tell him how it
+is, and that he must make haste."</p>
+<p>I ran up the stairs breathlessly, but feeling all the time that
+it was rather hard that I must be sent to Richard with this
+message. Sophie did not want to ask him to come down herself, and
+she thought me the most likely ambassador to bring him, but it was
+not a congenial embassy. Perhaps, however, she only asked me
+because I happened to be nearest her, and she was rather upset by
+what the doctor said.</p>
+<p>I knocked at Richard's door.</p>
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, they want you to come down-stairs a minute. There's
+something to be done," panting and rather incoherent.</p>
+<p>"What is to be done?"</p>
+<p>"The Doctor's here, and he says he must have help."</p>
+<p>"Where's Kilian?"</p>
+<p>"Gone to bed."</p>
+<p>Some suppressed ejaculation, and he pushed back his chair, and
+rose, and came across the room: at least it sounded so, and I ran
+down the stairs again. He followed me in a moment. The Doctor came
+forward and talked to him a little while, and then Richard called
+Patrick, and told Sophie to see that Mr. Langenau's room was
+ready.</p>
+<p>"How can he get up two pairs of stairs," said Charlotte Benson,
+"when he cannot move an inch without such suffering?"</p>
+<p>"That's very true," the Doctor said. "I doubt if he could bear
+it. You have no room below?"</p>
+<p>"Put a bed in the library," said Charlotte Benson, and in ten
+minutes it was done; the servants no longer sleepy when they had
+any definite order to fulfill.</p>
+<p>"In the meantime," said Richard to his sister, "send those two
+to bed," pointing out Henrietta and me.</p>
+<p>"I've told them to go, but they won't," said Sophie, somewhat
+sharply.</p>
+<p>Henrietta walked off, rather injured, but I would not go.</p>
+<p>Mr. Langenau had another faint attack, and I was quite certain
+he would die. Charlotte was making him breathe <i>sal volatile</i>
+and Sophie ran to rub his hands. The Doctor was busy at the light
+about something.</p>
+<p>"The room is all ready," said the servant.</p>
+<p>"Very well; now Mr. Richard, if you please," the Doctor
+said.</p>
+<p>"Pauline," said Richard, coming to me as I stood at the foot of
+the balusters, "You can't do any good. You'd better go
+up-stairs."</p>
+<p>"Oh, Richard," I cried, "I think you're very cruel; I think you
+might let me stay."</p>
+<p>I suppose my wretchedness, and youthfulness, and folly softened
+him again, and he said, very gently, "I don't mean to be unkind,
+but it is best for you to go. You need not be so frightened: there
+isn't any danger."</p>
+<p>I moved slowly to obey him, but turned back and caught his hand
+and whispered, "You won't let them hurt him, Richard?" and then ran
+up the stairs. No doubt Richard thought I went to my own room; but
+I spent the next hour on the landing-place, looking down into the
+hall.</p>
+<p>It was rather a serious matter, getting Mr. Langenau even into
+the library, and it was well they had not attempted his own room.
+Patrick was called, and with his assistance and Richard's, he began
+to move across the hall. But half-way to the library-door, he
+fainted dead away, and Richard carried him and laid him on the bed,
+Patrick being worse than useless, having lost his head, and the
+Doctor being a small man, and only strong in science.</p>
+<p>Pretty soon the library-door closed, and Sophie and Charlotte
+were excluded. They walked about the hall, talking in low tones,
+and looking anxious. Later, there came groaning from within the
+closed door, and Charlotte Benson wrung her hands and listened. The
+groans continued for a long while: the misery of hearing them!
+After a while they ceased: then Richard opened the door, hastily,
+it seemed, and called "Sophie."</p>
+<p>Sophie ran forward, and the door closed again. There was a long
+silence, time enough for those who were outside to imagine all
+manner of horrid possibilities. Then the Doctor and Richard came
+out.</p>
+<p>"How is he, Doctor?" said Charlotte Benson, bravely, going to
+meet them, while I hung trembling over the landing-place.</p>
+<p>"Oh better, better, very comfortable," said the Doctor, in his
+calm professional tone.</p>
+<p>I could not help thinking those groans had not denoted a very
+high state of comfort; but maybe the Doctor knew best how people
+with dislocated shoulders and broken ribs are apt to express their
+sentiments of satisfaction.</p>
+<p>I listened with more than interest to their plans for the night:
+the Doctor was going away at once; two of the servants and Patrick
+were to relieve each other in sitting by him, while Richard was to
+throw himself on the sofa in the hall, to be at hand if anything
+were needed.</p>
+<p>"Which means, that you are to be awake all night," said
+Charlotte Benson. "You have more need of rest than we. Let Sophie
+and me take your place."</p>
+<p>Richard looked gratefully and kindly at her, but refused. The
+Doctor assured them again that there was no reason for anxiety;
+that Richard would probably be undisturbed all night; that he
+himself would come early in the morning. Then Richard came toward
+the stairs, and I escaped to my own room.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII."></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+<h3>PRAEMONITUS, PRAEMUNITUS.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>The fiend whose lantern lights the mead,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Were better mate than I!<br>
+<br>
+<i>Scott</i>.<br>
+<br>
+Fools, when they cannot see their way,<br>
+At once grow desperate,<br>
+Have no resource--have nothing to propose--<br>
+But fix a dull eye of dismay<br>
+Upon the final close.<br>
+Success to the stout heart, say I,<br>
+That sees its fate, and can defy!<br>
+<br>
+<i>Faust</i>.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<p>Two weeks later, and things had not stood still; they rarely do,
+when there is so much at hand, and ripe for mischief; seventeen
+does not take up the practice of wisdom voluntarily. I do not think
+I was very different from other girls of seventeen, and I cannot
+blame myself very much that I spent all these days in a dream of
+bliss and folly; how could it have been otherwise, situated exactly
+as we were? This is the way our days were passed. Mr. Langenau was
+better, but still not able to leave his room. He was the hero, as a
+matter of course, and little besides his sufferings, his condition,
+and his prospects, was talked of at the table; which had the effect
+of making Kilian stay away two nights out of three, and of
+alienating Richard altogether. Richard went to town on Monday
+morning after the accident occurred, and it was now Friday of the
+following week, and he had not come back.</p>
+<p>It was a little dull for Mary Leighton and for Henrietta,
+perhaps; possibly for Charlotte Benson, but she did not seem to
+mind it much; and I had never found R---- so enchanting as that
+fortnight. Charlotte Benson liked to be Florence Nightingale in
+little, it was very plain; and naturally nothing made me so happy
+as to be permitted to minister to the wants of the (it must be
+confessed) frequently unreasonable sufferer. For the first few
+days, while he was confined to his bed, of course Charlotte and I
+were obliged to content ourselves with the sending of messages, the
+arranging of bouquets, the concocting of soups and jellies, and all
+the other coddling processes at our command. But when Mr. Langenau
+was able to sit up, Sophie (at the instance of Charlotte Benson,
+for she seemed to have renounced diplomacy herself,) arranged that
+the bed should be taken away during the daytime, and brought back
+again at night, and that Mr. Langenau should lie on the sofa
+through the day. This made it possible for us to be in the room,
+even without Sophie, though we began to think her presence
+necessary. That scruple was soon done away with, for it laid too
+great a tax on her, and restricted our attentions very much. The
+result was, we passed nearly the whole day beside him; Mary
+Leighton and Henrietta very often of the party, and Sophie
+occasionally looking in upon us. Sometimes when Charlotte Benson,
+as ranking officer, decreed that the patient needed rest, we took
+our books and work and went to the piazza, outside the window of
+his room.</p>
+<p>He would have been very tired of us, if he had not been very
+much in love with one of us. As it was, it must have been a kind of
+fool's paradise in which he lived, five pretty women fluttering
+about him, offering the prettiest homage, and one of them the woman
+for whom, wisely or foolishly, rightly or wrongly, he had conceived
+so violent a passion.</p>
+<p>As soon as he was out of pain and began to recover the tone of
+his nerves at all, I saw that he wanted me beside him more than
+ever, and that Charlotte Benson, with all her skill and cleverness,
+was as nothing to him in comparison. No doubt he dissembled this
+with care; and was very graceful and very grateful and infinitely
+interesting. His moods were very varying, however; sometimes he
+seemed struggling with the most unconquerable depression, then we
+were all so sorry for him; sometimes he was excited and brilliant;
+then we were all thrilled with admiration. And not unfrequently he
+was irritable and quite morose and sullen. And then we pitied, and
+admired, and feared him <i>&agrave; la fois</i>. I am sure no man
+more fitted to command the love and admiration of women ever
+lived.</p>
+<p>Charlotte Benson with great self-devotion had insisted upon
+teaching the children for two hours every day, so that Mr. Langenau
+might not be annoyed at the thought that they were losing time, and
+that Sophie might not be inconvenienced. It was the least that she
+could do, she reasoned, after the many lessons that Mr. Langenau
+had given us, with so much kindness, and without accepting a
+return. Henrietta volunteered for the service, also, and from
+eleven to one every day the boys were caught and caged, and made to
+drink at the fountain of learning; or rather to approach that
+fountain, of which forty Charlottes and Henriettas could not have
+made them drink.</p>
+<p>At that time Charlotte always decreed that Mr. Langenau should
+lie on the sofa and go to sleep. The windows were darkened, and the
+room was cleared of visitors. On this Friday morning, nearly two
+weeks after the accident, as I was following Sophie from the room
+(Charlotte having gone with Henrietta to capture the children), Mr.
+Langenau called after me rather imperiously, "Miss
+d'Estr&eacute;e--Miss Pauline--"</p>
+<p>It had been a stormy session, and I turned back with misgivings.
+Sophie shrugged her shoulders and went away toward the
+dining-room.</p>
+<p>"What are you going away for, may I ask?" he said, as I appeared
+before him humbly.</p>
+<p>"Why, you know you ought to lie down and to rest," I tried to
+say with discretion, but it was all one what I said: it would have
+irritated him just the same.</p>
+<p>"I am rather tired of this surveillance," he exclaimed. "It is
+almost time I should be permitted to express a wish about the
+disposition of myself. As I do not happen to want to go to sleep, I
+beg I may be allowed the pleasure of your society for a little
+while."</p>
+<p>"I don't think it would give you much pleasure, and you know you
+don't feel as well to-day."</p>
+<p>"Again, may I be permitted to judge how I feel myself?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, yes, of course, but--"</p>
+<p>"But what, Miss d'Estr&eacute;e?--No doubt you want to go
+yourself--I am sorry I thought of detaining you (with a gesture of
+dismissal). I beg you to excuse me, A sick man is apt to be
+unreasonable."</p>
+<p>"Oh, as to that, you know entirely well I do not want to go. You
+are unreasonable, indeed, when you talk as you do now. I only went
+away for your benefit."</p>
+<p>"<i>Qui s'excuse, s'accuse</i>."</p>
+<p>"But I am not excusing myself; and if you put it so I will go
+away at once."</p>
+<p>"<i>Si vous voulez</i>--"</p>
+<p>"But I don't '<i>voulez</i>'--Oh, how disagreeable you can
+be."</p>
+<p>"You will stay?"</p>
+<p>"Pauline!" called Sophie from across the hall.</p>
+<p>"There!" I exclaimed, interpreting it as the voice of
+conscience. I left my work-basket and book upon the table, and went
+out of the room.</p>
+<p>"You called me?" I said, following her into the parlor, where,
+shutting the door, she motioned me to a seat beside her. She had a
+slip of paper and an envelope in her hand, and seemed a little ill
+at ease.</p>
+<p>"I've just had a telegram from Richard," she said. "He's coming
+home to-night by the eleven o'clock train. It's so odd altogether.
+I don't know why he's coming. But you may as well read his message
+yourself," she said with a forced manner, handing me the paper. It
+was as follows:</p>
+<p>Send carriage for me to eleven-thirty train to-night. Remember
+my injunctions, our last conversation, and your promises."</p>
+<p>"Well?" I said, looking up, bewildered and not violently
+interested, for I was secretly listening to the quick shutting of
+the library-door.</p>
+<p>"Why, you see," she returned, with a forced air of confidence
+that made me involuntarily shrink from her; I think she even laid
+her hand upon my sleeve, or made some gesture of familiarity which
+was unusual--</p>
+<p>"You see, that last conversation was--about you. Richard is
+annoyed at--at your intimacy with Mr. Langenau. You know just as
+well as I do how he feels, for no doubt he's spoken to you
+himself."</p>
+<p>"He never has," I said, quite shortly.</p>
+<p>"No?" and she looked rather chagrined. "Well--but at all events
+you know how he feels. Girls ar'nt slow generally to find out about
+those things. And he is really very unhappy about it, very. I wish,
+Pauline, you'd give it up, child. It's gone quite far enough; now
+don't you think so yourself? Mr. Langenau isn't the sort of man to
+be serious about, you know. It's all very well, just for a summer's
+amusement. But, you know, you mustn't go too far. I'm sure, dear,
+you're not angry with me: now you understand just what I mean,
+don't you?"</p>
+<p>No: not angry, certainly not angry. She went on, still with the
+impertinent touch upon my arm: "Richard made me promise that I
+would look after you, and not permit things to go too far. And you
+see--well--I'll tell you in confidence what I think his coming
+to-night means, and his message and all. I think--that is, I am
+afraid--he's found out something against Mr. Langenau since he's
+been away. I know he never has felt confidence in him. But I've
+always thought, perhaps that was because he was--well--a little
+jealous and suspicious. You know men are so apt to be suspicious;
+and I was sure, when he went away that last Monday morning, that he
+would not leave a stone unturned in finding out everything about
+him. It is that that's kept him, I am sure. Don't let that make you
+feel hardly toward Richard," she went on, noticing perhaps my look;
+"you know it's only natural, and besides, it's right. How would he
+answer to your uncle?"</p>
+<p>"It is I who should answer to my uncle," I returned, under my
+breath.</p>
+<p>"Yes, but you are in our house, in our care. You know, my dear
+child, you are very young and very inexperienced; you don't know
+how very careful people have to be."</p>
+<p>"Why don't you talk that way to Charlotte and Henrietta and Mary
+Leighton? Have I done anything so very different from them?" I
+answered, with a blaze of spirit.</p>
+<p>"No, dear," she said, with a little laugh, "only there are one
+or two men very much in love with you, and that makes everything so
+different."</p>
+<p>I blushed scarlet, and was silenced instantly, as she
+intended.</p>
+<p>"Now, maybe I am mistaken about his having discovered
+something," she went on, "but I can't make anything else out of
+Richard's message. He is not one to send off such a despatch
+without a reason. Evidently he is very uneasy; and I thought it was
+best to be perfectly frank with you, dear, and I know you'll do me
+the justice to say I have been, if Richard ever says anything to
+you about it. You mustn't blame me, you know, for the way he feels.
+I wish the whole thing was at an end," she said, with the first
+touch of sincerity. "And now promise me one thing," with another
+caressing movement of the hand, "Promise me, you won't go into the
+library again till Richard comes, and we hear what he has to say.
+Just for my sake, you know, my dear, for you see he would blame me
+if I did not keep a strict surveillance. You won't mind doing that,
+I'm sure, for me?"</p>
+<p>"I shall not promise anything," I returned, getting up, "but I
+am not likely to go near the library after what you've said."</p>
+<p>"That's a good child," she said, evidently much relieved, and
+thinking that the affair was very near its end. I opened the door,
+and she added: "Now go up-stairs, and rest yourself, for you look
+as if you had a headache, and don't think of anything that's
+disagreeable." That was a good prescription, but I did not take
+it.</p>
+<p>Of course, I did not go near the library; that was understood.
+After dinner, the servant brought in Mr. Langenau's tray untouched,
+and Charlotte Benson started up, and ran in to see what was the
+matter. Sophie went too, looking a little troubled. I think they
+were both snubbed: for ten minutes after, when I met Charlotte in
+the hall, she had an unusual flush upon her cheek, and Sophie I
+found standing at one of the parlor-windows, biting her lip, and
+tapping impatiently upon the carpet. Evidently the affair was not
+as near its placid end as she had hoped. She started a little when
+she saw me, and tried to look unruffled.</p>
+<p>"How sultry it is this afternoon!" she said. "Are you going up
+to your room to take a rest? stop in my room on your way, I want to
+show you those embroideries that I was telling Charlotte Benson of
+last night."</p>
+<p>"I did not hear you, and I do not know anything about them," I
+said, feeling not at all affectionate.</p>
+<p>"No? Oh, I forgot: it was while you and Henrietta were sitting
+in the library, and Charlotte and I were walking up and down the
+piazza while it rained. Why, they are some heavenly sets that I got
+this spring from Paris--Marshall picked them up one day at the
+<i>Bon March&eacute;</i>--and verily they are <i>bon
+march&eacute;</i>. I never saw anything so cheap, and I was telling
+Charlotte that some of you might just as well have part of them,
+for I never could use the half. Come up and look them over."</p>
+<p>Now I loved "heavenly sets" as well as most women, but dress was
+not the bait for me at that moment. So I said my head ached and I
+could not look at them then, if she'd excuse me; and I went
+silently away to my room, not caring at all if she were pleased or
+not. I disliked and distrusted her more and more every moment, and
+she seemed to me so mean: for I knew all her worry came from the
+apprehension of what she might have to fear from Richard, not the
+thought of the suffering that he or that any one else endured.</p>
+<p>It was a long afternoon, but it reached its end, after the
+manner of all afternoons on record, even those of Marianna. When I
+came down-stairs they were all at tea and Kilian had arrived. A
+more enlivening atmosphere prevailed, and the invalid was not
+discussed. A drive was being canvassed. There was an early moon,
+and Kilian proposed driving Tom and Jerry before the open wagon,
+which would carry four, through the valley-road, to be back by
+half-past nine or ten o'clock.</p>
+<p>"But what am I to do," cried Kilian, "when there are five
+angels, and I have only room for three?"</p>
+<p>"Why, two will have to stay at home, according to my
+arithmetic," said Charlotte, good-naturedly, "and I've no doubt I
+shall be remainder."</p>
+<p>"If you stay, I shall stay with you," said Henrietta, dropping
+the metaphor, for metaphors, even the mildest, were beyond her
+reach of mind.</p>
+<p>Everybody wanted to stay, and everybody tried to be quite firm;
+but as no one's firmness but mine was based on inclination, the
+result was that Sophie and I were "remainder," and Mary Leighton,
+Charlotte, and Henrietta drove away with Kilian quite jauntily, at
+half-past seven o'clock. But before she went, Charlotte, who was
+really good-natured with all her sharpness and self-will, went into
+the library to speak to Mr. Langenau, and to show she did not
+resent the noonday slight, whatever that had been. But presently
+she came back looking rather anxious, and said to Sophie, ignoring
+me (whom she always did ignore if possible),</p>
+<p>"Do go and see what you can do for Mr. Langenau. He is really
+very far from well. His tea stands there, and he hasn't taken
+anything to eat. He looks feverish and excited, and I truly think
+he ought to see the Doctor. You know he promised the Doctor to stay
+in his room, and keep still all the rest of the week. But I am sure
+he means to come out to-morrow, and he even talks of going down to
+town. It will kill him if he does; I'm sure he's doing badly, and I
+wish you'd go and see to him."</p>
+<p>"Does he know Richard is coming up to-night?" asked Sophie,
+<i>sotto voce</i>, but with affected carelessness.</p>
+<p>"I do not know; oh yes, he does, I mentioned it to him at
+dinner-time, I remember now."</p>
+<p>"Well, I'll see if I can do anything for him; now go, they're
+waiting for you. Have a pleasant time."</p>
+<p>After they were gone, Sophie went into the library, but she did
+not stay very long. She came and sat beside me on the
+river-balcony, and talked a little, desultorily and
+absent-mindedly.</p>
+<p>Presently there was a call for "mamma," a hubbub and a
+hurry--soon explained. Charley, who had been running wild for the
+last two weeks, without tutor or uncle to control him, had just
+fallen from the mow, and hurt himself somewhat, and frightened
+himself much more. The whole house was in a ferment. He was taken
+to mamma's room, for he was a great baby when anything was the
+matter with him, and would not let mamma move an inch away from
+him. After assisting to the best of my ability in making him
+comfortable, and seeing myself only in the way, I went down-stairs
+again, and took my seat upon the balcony that overlooked the
+river.</p>
+<p>The young moon was shining faintly, and the air was soft and
+balmy. The house was very still; the servants, I think, were all in
+a distant part of the house, or out enjoying the moonlight and the
+idleness of evening. Sophie was nailed to Charley's bed up-stairs,
+trying to soothe him; Benny was sinking to sleep in his little
+crib. It seemed like an enchanted palace, and when I heard a step
+crossing the parlor, it made me start with a vague feeling of
+alarm. The parlor-window by me, which opened to the floor, was not
+closed, and in another moment some one came out and stood beside
+me. It was Mr. Langenau. I started up and exclaimed, "Mr. Langenau,
+how imprudent! Oh, go back at once."</p>
+<p>He seemed weak, and his hand shook as he leaned against the
+casement, but his eyes were glittering with a feverish excitement.
+He did not answer. I went on: "The Doctor forbade your coming out
+for several days yet--and the exertion and the night-air--oh, I beg
+you to go back."</p>
+<p>"Alone?" he said in a low voice.</p>
+<p>"No, oh no, I will go with you. Anything, only do not stay here
+a moment longer; come." And taking his hand (and how burning hot it
+was!) and drawing it through my arm, I started toward the hall. He
+had to lean on me, for the unusual exertion seemed to have
+annihilated all his strength. When we reached the library, I led
+him to a chair--a large and low and easy one, and he sank down in
+it.</p>
+<p>"You are not going away?" he asked, as he gasped for breath,
+"For there is something that must be said to-night."</p>
+<p>"No, I will not go," I answered, frightened to see him so, and
+agitated by a thousand feelings. "I will light the lamp, and read
+to you. Let me move your chair back from the window."</p>
+<p>"No, you must not light the lamp; I like the moonlight better.
+Bring your chair and sit here by me--here." He leaned and
+half-pulled toward him the companion to the chair on which he sat,
+a low, soft, easy one.</p>
+<p>I sat down in it, sitting so I nearly faced him. The moon was
+shining in at the one wide window: I can remember exactly the
+pattern that the vine-leaves made as the moonlight fell through
+them on the carpet at our feet. I had a bunch of verbena-leaves
+fastened in my dress, and I never smell verbena-leaves at any time
+or place without seeing before me that moon-traced pattern and that
+wide-open window.</p>
+<p>"Pauline," he said, in that low, thrilling voice, leaning a
+little toward me, "I have a great deal to say to you to-night. I
+have a great wrong to ask pardon for--a great sorrow to tell you
+of. I shall never call you Pauline again as I call you to-night. I
+shall never look into your eyes again, I shall never touch your
+hand. For we must part, Pauline; and this hour, which heaven has
+given me, is the last that we shall spend together on the
+earth."</p>
+<p>I truly thought that his fever had produced delirium, and,
+trying to conceal my alarm, I said, with an attempt to quiet him,
+"Oh, do not say such things; we shall see each other a great, great
+many times, I hope, and have many more hours together."</p>
+<p>"No, Pauline, you do not know so well as I of what I speak. This
+is no delirium; would to heaven, it were, and I might wake up from
+it. No, the parting must be said to-night, and I must be the one to
+speak it. We may spend days, perhaps, under the same roof--we may
+even sit at the same table once again; but, I repeat, from this day
+I may never look into your eyes again, I may never touch your hand.
+Pauline, can you forgive me? I know that you can love. Merciful
+Heaven! who so well as I, who have held your stainless heart in my
+stained hand these many dreamy weeks; and Justice has not struck me
+dead. Yes, Pauline, I know you've loved me; but remember this one
+thing, in all your bitter thoughts of me hereafter: remember this,
+you have not loved me as I have loved you. You have not given up
+earth and heaven both for me as I have done for you. For you? No,
+not for you, but for the shadow of you, for the thought of you, for
+these short weeks of you. And then, an eternity of absence, and of
+remorse, and of oblivion--ah, if it might be oblivion for you! If I
+could blot out of your life this short, blighting summer; if I
+could put you back to where you were that fresh, sweet morning that
+I walked with you beside the river! I loved you from that day,
+Pauline, and I drugged my conscience, and refused to heed that I
+was doing you a wrong in teaching you to love me. Pauline, I have
+to tell you a sad story: you will have to go back with me very far;
+you will have to hear of sins of which you never dreamed in your
+dear innocence. I would spare you if I could, but you must know,
+for you must forgive me. And when you have heard, you may cease to
+love, but I think you will forgive. Listen."</p>
+<p>Why should I repeat that terrible disclosure? why harrow my soul
+with going back over that dark path? Let me try to forget that such
+sins, such wrongs, such revenges, ever stained a human life. I was
+so young, so innocent, so ignorant. It was a strange misfortune
+that I should have had to know that which aged and changed me so.
+But he was right in saying that I had to know it. My life was bound
+involuntarily to his by my love, and what concerned him was my
+fate. Alas! He was in no other way bound to me than by my love: nor
+ever could be.</p>
+<p>I don't know whether I was prepared for it or not: I knew that
+something terrible and final was to come, and I felt the awe that
+attends the thoughts that words are final and time limited. But
+when I heard the fatal truth--that another woman lived to whom he
+was irrevocably bound--I heard it as in a dream, and did not move
+or speak. I think I felt for a moment as if I were dead, as if I
+had passed out of the ranks of the living into the abodes of the
+silent, and benumbed, and pulseless. There was such a horrible awe,
+and chill, and check through all my young and rapid blood. It was
+like death by freezing. It is not so pleasant as they say, believe
+me. But no pain: that came afterward, when I came to life, when I
+felt the touch of his hand on mine, and ceased to hear his cruel
+words.</p>
+<p>I had shrunk back from him in my chair, and sat, I suppose, like
+a person in a trance, with my hands in my lap, and my eyes fixed on
+him with bewilderment. But when he ceased to speak--and, leaning
+forward on one knee, clasped my hands in his, and drew me toward
+him, then indeed I knew I was not dead. Oh, the agony of those few
+moments--I tried to rise, to go away from him. But he held me with
+such strength--all his weakness was gone now. He folded his arms
+around my waist and held me as in a vise. Then suddenly leaning his
+head down upon my arms, he kissed my hands, my arms, my dress, with
+a moan of bitter anguish.</p>
+<p>"Not mine," he murmured. "Never mine but in my dreams. O
+wretched dreams, that drive me mad. Pauline, they will tell us that
+we must not dream--we must not weep, we must be stocks and stones.
+We must wear this weight of living death till that good Lord that
+makes such laws shall send us death in mercy. Twenty, thirty,
+forty, fifty years of suffering: that might almost satisfy Him, one
+would think. Pauline! you and I are to say good-bye to-night.
+Good-bye! People talk of it as a cruel word. Think of it: if it
+were but for a year, a year with hope at the end of it to keep our
+hearts alive, it would be terrible, and we should need be brave.
+The tears that lovers shed over a year apart; the days that have
+got to come and go, how weary. The nights--the nights that sleep
+flies off from, and that memory reigns over. Count them--over three
+hundred come in every year. One, you think while it is passing, is
+enough to kill you: one such night of restless torture, and how
+many shall we multiply our three hundred by? We are young, Pauline.
+You are a child, a very child. I am in the very flush and strength
+of manhood. There is half a century of suffering in me yet: this
+frame, this brain, will stand the wear of the hard years to come
+but too, too well. There is no hope of death. There is no hope in
+life. That star has set. Good God! And that makes hell--why should
+I wait for it--it cannot be worse there than here. Don't listen to
+me--it will not be as hard for you--you are so young--you have no
+sins to torture you--only a little love to conquer and forget. You
+will marry a man who lives for you, and who is patient and will
+wait till this is over. Ah, no: by Heaven! I can't quite stand it
+yet. Pauline, you never loved him, did you--never blushed for
+him--never listened for his coming with your lips apart and your
+heart fluttering, as I have seen you listen when you thought that I
+was coming? No, I know you never loved him: I know you have loved
+me alone--me--who ought to have forbidden you.
+Forgive--forgive--forgive me."</p>
+<p>A passion of tears had come to my relief, and I shook from head
+to foot with sobs. I cannot feel ashamed when I remember that he
+held me for one moment in his arms. He had been to me till that
+shock, strength, truth, justice: <i>the man I loved</i>. How could
+I in one instant know him by his sin alone, and undo all my trust?
+I knew only this, that it was for the last time, and that my heart
+was broken.</p>
+<p>I forgave him--that was an idle form; in my great love I never
+felt that there was anything to be forgiven, except the wrong that
+fate had done me, in making my love so hopeless. He told me to
+forget him; that seemed to me as idle; but all his words were
+precious, and all my soul was in his hand. When, at that moment,
+the sound of wheels upon the gravel came, and the sound of laughter
+and of voices, I sprang up; he caught me in his arms and held me
+closely. Another moment, the parting was over, and I was kneeling
+by my bed up-stairs, weeping, sobbing, hopeless.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII."></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+<h3>THE WORLD GOES ON THE SAME.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>Into my chamber brightly<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Came the early sun's good-morrow;<br>
+On my restless bed, unsightly,<br>
+&nbsp;I sat up in my sorrow.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Faust.</i></blockquote>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>It is an amazing thing, the strength and power of pride. Pride,
+and the law of self-respect and self-preservation in our being, is
+the force that holds us in our course. When we reflect upon it, how
+few of all the myriads fly out from it and are lost. That I ate my
+meals; that I dressed myself with care; that I took walks and
+drives: that I did not avoid my companions, and listened patiently
+to what they chose to say: these were the evidences of that
+centripetal law within that was keeping me from destruction. It
+would be difficult to imagine a person more unhappy. Undisciplined
+and unfortified by the knowledge that disappointment is an integral
+part of all lives, there had suddenly come upon me a disappointment
+the most total. It covered everything; there was not a flicker of
+hope or palliation. And I had no idea where to go to make myself
+another hope, or in what course lay palliation. As we have prepared
+ourselves or have been prepared, so is the issue of our
+temptations. My great temptation came upon me, foolish, ignorant,
+unprepared: the wonder would have been if I had resisted it to my
+own credit.</p>
+<p>The days went on as usual at R----, and I must hold my place
+among the careless daughters and not let them see my trouble.
+Careless daughters, indeed they were, and I shuddered at the
+thought of their cold eyes: no doubt their eyes, bright as well as
+cold, saw that something was amiss with me; with all my bravery, I
+could not keep the signs of wretchedness out of my pale face. But
+they never knew the story, and they could only guess at what made
+me wretched. It is amazing (again) what power there is in silence,
+and how much you can keep in your hands if you do not open them.
+People may surmise--may invent, but they cannot know your secret
+unless you tell it to them, and their imaginings take so many
+forms, the multitude of things that they create blot out all
+definite design. Thus every one at R---- had a different theory
+about my loss of spirits and the relapse of Mr. Langenau, but no
+one ever knew what passed that night.</p>
+<p>Richard came. He was closeted with Sophie until after midnight,
+but I do not think he told her anything that she desired to know. I
+think he only tried to find out from her what had passed (and she
+did not know that I had been in the library since she spoke to me).
+If Mr. Langenau had been well, I have no doubt that it was his
+design to have dismissed him on the following day, no matter at
+what hazard. How much he knew I cannot tell, but enough to have
+warranted him in doing that, perhaps. He probably would have put it
+in Mr. Langenau's power to have gone without any coloring put upon
+his going that would have affected his standing in the household.
+This was his design, no doubt; otherwise he would have told his
+sister all. His delicate consideration for me made him guard as
+sacred the fact that I had wasted my hope and love so cruelly.</p>
+<p>He was not going away again, I soon found; <i>qui va &agrave; la
+chasse perd sa place</i>. He had lost his place, but he would stay
+and guard me all the same; and the chase for gold seemed given up
+for good and all.</p>
+<p>Kilian was in constant surprise, and made out many catechisms,
+but he got little satisfaction.</p>
+<p>Richard was going to have a few weeks' "rest," unless something
+should occur to call him back to town.</p>
+<p>He sought no interview with me, was kind and silent, but his eye
+was never off me. I think he watched his opportunity for saying
+what he had to say to Mr. Langenau, but such an opportunity seemed
+destined not to come.</p>
+<p>Mr. Langenau was ill the day after Richard came home--quite ill
+enough to cause alarm. He had a high fever, and the Doctor even
+seemed uneasy, and prescribed the profoundest quiet. After a day or
+two, however, he improved, and all danger seemed averted.</p>
+<p>As soon as he was strong enough, he was to be removed to his own
+room above, for the sake of quiet, and to release the household
+from its enforced tranquillity.</p>
+<p>All these particulars I heard at table, or from morning groups
+on the piazza: with stony cheeks, and eyes that looked
+unflinchingly into all curious faces: so works the law of
+self-defence.</p>
+<p>All but Richard, I am sure, were staggered, but he read with his
+heart.</p>
+<p>I never blushed now, I never faltered, I never said a word I did
+not mean to say. It was a struggle for life: though I did not value
+the life, and should have found it hard to say why I did not give
+up and let them see that I was killed.</p>
+<p>But I kept wondering how I should sustain myself if I should be
+called upon to meet him once again.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV."></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+<h3>GUARDED.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>Forever at her side, and yet forever lonely,<br>
+I shall unto the end have made life's journey, only<br>
+Daring to ask for naught, and having naught received.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Felix Arvers</i>.<br>
+<br>
+Duty to God is duty to her; I think<br>
+God, who created her, will save her too<br>
+Some new way, by one miracle the more<br>
+Without me. Then, prayer may avail, perhaps.<br>
+<br>
+<i>R. Browning</i>.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>"Mr. Langenau is coming down to-day," said Charlotte Benson in a
+stage-whisper, as we took our places at the table, a week after
+this. "I met him in the hall about an hour ago, looking like a
+ghost, and he told me he was coming down to dinner."</p>
+<p>"<i>Vraiment</i>," said Sophie, looking a little disconcerted.
+"Well, he shall have Charley's place. Charley isn't coming."</p>
+<p>"I hope he's in a better temper than that last day we saw him,"
+said Henrietta.</p>
+<p>"Poor fellow!" said Charlotte, "that was the day before the
+fever began. It was coming on: that was the reason of it all, no
+doubt. He looks ghastly enough now. You'll forgive all, the moment
+that you see him."</p>
+<p>Charlotte had forgiven him herself, though she had never resumed
+the role of Florence Nightingale. Since he had given up the library
+and removed to his own room, he had been quite lost to all, and
+nobody seemed to have gone near him, not even Sophie, who would
+have been glad to forget that he existed, without doubt.</p>
+<p>Richard's eyes were on me as Charlotte said "Hush!" and a step
+crossed the hall in the pause that ensued. Kilian, sitting next me,
+began to talk to me at that moment, the moment that Mr. Langenau
+entered the room. And I think I answered quite coherently: though
+two sets of words were going through my brain, the answer to his
+commonplace question, and the words that Mr. Langenau had said that
+night, "Pauline, I shall never look into your eyes again, I shall
+never touch your hand."</p>
+<p>It seemed to me an even chance which sentence saw the day; but
+as the walls did not fall down about me and no face looked
+amazement, I found I must have answered Kilian's question with
+propriety.</p>
+<p>There were many voices speaking at once; but there was such a
+ringing in my ears, I could not distinguish who spoke, or what was
+said: for a moment I was lost, if any one had taken advantage of
+it. But gradually I regained my senses: one after another they each
+took up their guard again: and I looked up. And met his eyes? No;
+but let mine rest upon his face. And then I found I had not
+measured my temptation, and that there was something to do besides
+defending myself from others' eyes. For there was to defend myself
+from my own heart. The passion of pity and tenderness that rushed
+over me as my eyes fell on his haggard face, so strong and yet so
+wan, swept away for the moment the defences against the public
+gaze. I could have fallen down at his feet before them all and told
+him that I loved him.</p>
+<p>A few moments more of the sound of commonplace words, and the
+repulsion of every-day faces and expressions, swept me back into
+the circle of conventionalities, and brought me under the force of
+that current that keeps us from high tragedy.</p>
+<p>All during the meal Mr. Langenau was grave and silent, speaking
+little and then with effort. He had overrated his strength,
+perhaps, for he went away before the end of the dinner, asking to
+be excused, in a tone almost inaudible. After he had gone, a good
+many commentaries were offered. Kilian seemed to express the sense
+of the assembly when he said: "The man looks shockingly, and he's
+not out of the woods yet."</p>
+<p>Sophie looked troubled: she had some compunctions for the
+neglect of the last few days, perhaps.</p>
+<p>"What does the Doctor say?" pursued her brother.</p>
+<p>"Nothing, I suppose--for he hasn't been here for a week,
+almost."</p>
+<p>"Well, then, you'd better send for him, if you don't want the
+fellow to die on your hands. He's not fit to be out of bed, and
+you'll have trouble if you don't look out."</p>
+<p>"As if I hadn't had trouble," returned his sister, almost
+peevishly.</p>
+<p>"Well, I beg your pardon, Sophie. But I fancied you and Miss
+Charlotte were in charge; and I thought about ten days ago, your
+patient was in a fair way to be killed with kindness, and it's a
+little of a surprise to me to find he's being let alone so very
+systematically."</p>
+<p>"Why, to tell you the truth," cried Charlotte Benson, "we were
+turned out of office without much ceremony, one fine day after
+dinner. I am quite willing to be forgiving; but I don't think you
+can ask me to put myself in the way of being snubbed again to that
+extent."</p>
+<p>"The ungrateful varlet! what did he complain of? Hadn't he been
+coddled enough to please him? Did he want four or five more women
+dancing attendance on him?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, it was not want of attention he complained of. In fact,"
+said Charlotte, coloring, "It was that he didn't like quite so
+much, and wanted to be allowed more liberty."</p>
+<p>Kilian indulged in a good laugh, which wasn't quite fair,
+considering Charlotte's candor.</p>
+<p>"But the truth is," said Charlotte, uneasily, "that he was too
+ill, that day, to be responsible for what he said. He was just
+coming down with the fever, and, you know, people are always most
+unreasonable then."</p>
+<p>"I'm very glad I never gave him a chance to dispense with me,"
+said Mary Leighton, with a view to making herself amiable in
+Kilian's eyes.</p>
+<p>"I think he dispensed with you early in the season," said
+Charlotte, sharply. "Oh, hast thou forgotten that walk that he
+took, upon your invitation? Ah, Miss Leighton, his look was quite
+dramatic. I know you never have forgiven him."</p>
+<p>"I haven't the least idea what you are talking of," returned
+Mary Leighton, with bewildered and child-like simplicity.</p>
+<p>"Ah, then it was not as unique an occurrence as I hoped," said
+Charlotte, viciously. "I imagined it would make more of an
+impression."</p>
+<p>"Charlotte," interrupted Sophie, shocked at this open
+impoliteness, "I hope you are forgiving enough to break it to him
+that he's got to see the Doctor; for if he comes unexpectedly and
+goes up to his room, he will be dramatic, and that is so
+unpleasant, as we know to our sorrow."</p>
+<p>"Indeed, I shan't tell him," cried Charlotte, "you can take your
+life in your hand, and try it if you please; but I cannot consent
+to risk myself. There's Mary Leighton, she bears no malice. Perhaps
+she'll go with you as support."</p>
+<p>"Ha, ha!" cried Kilian. "Richard, you and I may be called on to
+bring up the rear. There's the General's old sword in the hall, and
+I'll take the Joe Manton from the shelf in the library."</p>
+<p>"Richard looks as if he disapproved of us all very much," said
+Sophie, and in truth Richard did look just so. He did not even
+answer these suggestions, but began after a moment to talk to
+Henrietta on indifferent matters.</p>
+<p>It was on this afternoon that a new policy was inaugurated at
+R----. We were taught to feel that we had been quite aggrieved by
+the dullness of the past two weeks or more, and that we must be
+compensated by some refreshing novelties.</p>
+<p>Richard was at the head of the movement--Richard with his sober
+cares and weary look. But the incongruity struck no one; they were
+too glad to be amused. Even Sophie brightened up. Charlotte was
+ready to throw her energies into any active scheme, hospital or
+picnic, charity-school or kettle-drum.</p>
+<p>"To-morrow will be just the sort of day for it," said Richard,
+"cool and fine. And half the pleasure of a picnic is not having
+time to get tired of it beforehand."</p>
+<p>"That's very true," said Charlotte; "but I don't see how we're
+going to get everybody notified and everything in order for nine
+o'clock to-morrow morning."</p>
+<p>"Nothing easier," said Kilian; "we'll go, directly after tea, to
+the De Witts and Prentices, and send Thomas with a note to the
+Lowders. Sophie has done her part in shorter time than that, very
+often; and I don't believe we should be starved, if she only gave
+half an hour's notice to the cook."</p>
+<p>What is heavier than pleasure-seeking in which one has no
+pleasure? I shall never forget the misery of those plans and that
+bustle. I dared not absent myself, and I could scarcely carry out
+my part for very heavy-heartedness. It seemed to me that I could
+not bear it, if the hour came, and I should have to drive away with
+all that merry party, and leave poor Mr. Langenau for a long, long
+day alone.</p>
+<p>I felt sure something would occur to release me: it could not be
+that I should have to go. With the exaggeration of youth, it seemed
+to me an impossibility that I could endure anything so grievous.
+How I hated all the careless, thoughtless, happy household! Only
+Richard, enemy as he was to my happiness, seemed endurable to me.
+For Richard was not merry-making in his heart, and I was sure he
+was sorry for me all the time he was trying to oppose me.</p>
+<p>Mr. Langenau was again in the Doctor's care, who came that
+evening, and who said to Richard, in my hearing, he must be kept
+quiet; he didn't altogether like his symptoms.</p>
+<p>Richard had his hands full, with great matters and small. Sophie
+had washed hers of the invalid; there had been some sharpish words
+between the sister and brother on the matter, I imagine, and the
+result was, Richard was the only one who did or would do anything
+for his comfort and safety.</p>
+<p>That day, after appearing at dinner, he came no more. I watched
+with feverish anxiety every step, every sound; but he came not. I
+knew that the Doctor's admonitions would not have much weight, nor
+yet Richard's opinion. I had the feeling that if he would only
+speak to me, only look at me once, it would ease that horrible
+oppression and pain which I was suffering. The agony I was enduring
+was so intolerable, and its real relief so impossible, like a child
+I caught at some fancied palliation, and craved only that. What
+would one look, one word be--out of a lifetime of silence and
+separation.</p>
+<p>No matter: it was what I raged and died for, just one look, just
+one word more. He had said he would never look into my eyes again:
+that haunted me and made me superstitious. I would <i>make</i> him
+look at me. I would seize his hand and kneel before him, and tell
+him I should die if he did not speak to me once more. Once more!
+Just once, out of years, out of forever. I had thrown duty,
+conscience, thought to the winds. I had but one fear--that we
+should be finally separated without that word spoken, that look
+exchanged. I said to myself again and again, I shall die, if I
+cannot speak to him again. Beyond that I did not look. What better
+I should be after that speaking I did not care. I only longed and
+looked for that as a relief from the insufferable agony of my fate.
+One cannot take in infinite wretchedness: it is our nature to make
+dates and periods to our sorrows in our imagination.</p>
+<p>And so that horrid afternoon and evening passed, amid the racket
+and babel of visitors and visiting. I followed almost blindly, and
+did as the others did. The next morning dawned bright and cold.
+What a day for summer! The sun was brilliant, but the wind came
+from over icebergs; it seemed like "winter painted green."</p>
+<p>We were to start at nine o'clock. I was ready early, waiting on
+the piazza for the aid to fate that was to keep me from the
+punishment of going. No human being had spoken his name that
+morning. How should I know whether he were still so ill or no.</p>
+<p>The hour for starting had arrived. Richard, who never kept long
+out of sight of me, was busy loading the wagon that was to
+accompany us, with baskets of things to eat, and with wines and
+fruits. Kilian was engrossed in arranging the seats and cushions in
+the two carriages which had just driven to the door.</p>
+<p>Mary Leighton was fluttering about the flower-bed at the left of
+the piazza, making herself lovely with geranium and roses. Sophie,
+in a beautiful costume, was pacifying Charley, who had had a
+difference with his uncle Kilian. Charlotte and Henrietta were busy
+in their small way over a little basket of preserves; and two or
+three of the neighboring gentlemen, who were to drive with us, were
+approaching the house by a side-entrance.</p>
+<p>In a moment or two we should be ready to be off. What should I
+do? I was frantic with the thought that he might be worse, he might
+go away. I was to be absent such a length of time. I must--I would
+see him before we went. What better moment than the present, when
+everybody was engaged in this fretting, foolish picnic. I would run
+up-stairs--call to him outside his door--make him speak to me.</p>
+<p>With a guilty look around, I started up, stole through the group
+on the piazza, and ran to the stairs. But alas, Richard had not
+failed to mark my movements, and before my foot had touched the
+stair his voice recalled me. I started with a guilty look, and
+trembled, but dared not meet his eye.</p>
+<p>"Pauline, are you going away? We are just ready start."</p>
+<p>If I had had any presence of mind I should have made an excuse,
+and gone to my own room for a moment, and taken my chance of
+getting to the floor above; but I suppose he would have forestalled
+me. I could not command a single word, but turned back and followed
+him. As we got into the carriage, the voices and the laughing
+really seemed to madden me. Driving away from the house, I never
+shall forget the sensation of growing heaviness at my heart; it
+seemed to be turning into lead. I glanced back at the closed
+windows of his room and wondered if he saw us, and if he thought
+that I was happy.</p>
+<p>The length of that day! The glare of that sun! The chill of that
+unnatural wind! Every moment seemed to me an hour. I can remember
+with such distinctness the whole day, each thing as it happened;
+conversations which seemed so senseless, preparations which seemed
+so endless. The taste of the things I tried to eat: the smell of
+the grass on which we sat, and the pine-trees above our heads: the
+sound of fire blazing under the teakettle, and the pained sensation
+of my eyes when the smoke blew across into our faces: the hateful
+vibration of Mary Leighton's laugh: all these things are
+unnaturally vivid to me at this day.</p>
+<p>I don't know what the condition of my brain must have been, to
+have received such an exaggerated impression of unimportant
+things.</p>
+<p>"What can I do for you, Miss Pauline?" said Kilian, throwing
+himself down on the grass at my feet. I could not sit down for very
+impatience, but was walking restlessly about, and was now standing
+for a moment by a great tree under which the table had been spread.
+It was four o'clock, and there was only vague talk of going home;
+the horses had not yet been brought up, the baskets were not a
+quarter packed. Every one was indolent, and a good deal tired; the
+gentlemen were smoking, and no one seemed in a hurry.</p>
+<p>When Kilian said, "What can I do for you. Miss Pauline?" I could
+not help saying, "Take me home."</p>
+<p>"Home!" cried Kilian. "Here is somebody talking about going
+home. Why, Miss Pauline, I am just beginning to enjoy myself! only
+look, it is but four o'clock."</p>
+<p>"Oh, let us stay and go home by moonlight," cried Mary Leighton,
+in a little rapture.</p>
+<p>"Would it not be heavenly!" said Henrietta.</p>
+<p>"How about tea?" said Charlotte. "We shall be hungry before
+moonlight, and there isn't anything left to eat."</p>
+<p>"How material!" cried Kilian, who had eaten an enormous
+dinner.</p>
+<p>"We shall all get cold," said Sophie, who loved to be
+comfortable, "and the children are beginning to be very cross."</p>
+<p>"Small blame to them," muttered a dissatisfied man in my ear,
+who had singled me out as a companion in discontent, and had
+pursued me with his contempt for pastoral entertainments, and for
+this entertainment in especial.</p>
+<p>"Well, let the people that want to stay, stay; but let us go
+home," I said, hastily.</p>
+<p>"That is so like you, Pauline," exclaimed Mary Leighton, in a
+voice that stung me like nettles.</p>
+<p>"It is very like common-sense," I said, "if that's like me."</p>
+<p>"Well, it isn't particularly."</p>
+<p>"Let dogs delight," said Kilian, "I have a compromise to offer.
+If we go home by the bridge we pass the little Brink hotel, where
+they give capital teas. We can stop there, rest, get tea, have a
+dance in the 'ball-room,' sixteen by twenty, and go home by
+moonlight, filling the souls of Miss Leighton and Henrietta with
+bliss."</p>
+<p>A chorus of ecstasy followed this; Sophie herself was satisfied
+with the plan, and exulted in the prospect of washing her face, and
+lying down on a bed for half an hour, though only at a little
+country inn. Even this low form of civilized life was tempting,
+after seven hours spent in communion with nature on hard rocks.</p>
+<p>Great alacrity was shown in getting ready and in getting off. I
+could not speak to any one, not even the dissatisfied man, but
+walked away by myself and tried to let no one see what I was
+feeling. After all was ready, I got into the carriage beside one of
+the Miss Lowders, and the dissatisfied man sat opposite. He wore
+canvas shoes and a corduroy suit, and sleeve-buttons and studs that
+were all bugs and bees. I think I could make a drawing of the
+sleeve-button on the arm with which he held the umbrella over us;
+there were five different forms of insect-life represented on it,
+but I remember them all.</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid you haven't enjoyed yourself very much," said Miss
+Lowder, looking at me rather critically.</p>
+<p>"I? why--no, perhaps not; I don't generally enjoy myself very
+much."</p>
+<p>Somebody out on the front seat laughed very shrilly at this: of
+course it was Mary Leighton, who was sitting beside Kilian, who
+drove. I felt I would have liked to push her over among the horses,
+and drive on.</p>
+<p>"Isn't her voice like a steel file?" I said with great
+simplicity to my companions. The dissatisfied man, writhing
+uncomfortably on his seat, four inches too narrow for any one but a
+child of six, assented gloomily. Miss Lowder, who was twenty-eight
+years old and very well bred, looked disapproving, and changed the
+subject. Not much more was said after this. Miss Lowder had a
+neuralgic headache, developed by the cold wind and an undigested
+dinner eaten irregularly. She was too polite to mention her
+sufferings, but leaned back in the carriage and was silent.</p>
+<p>My vis-&agrave;-vis was at last relieved by the declining sun
+from his task, and so the umbrella-arm and its sleeve-button were
+removed from my range of vision.</p>
+<p>We counted the mile-posts, and we looked sometimes at our
+watches, and so the time wore away.</p>
+<p>Kilian and Mary Leighton were chattering incessantly, and did
+not pay much attention to us. Kilian drove pretty fast almost all
+the way, but sometimes forgot himself when Mary was too seductive,
+and let the horses creep along like snails.</p>
+<p>"There's our little tavern," cried Kilian at last, starting up
+the horses.</p>
+<p>"Oh, I'm so sorry," murmured Mary Leighton, "we have had such a
+lovely drive."</p>
+<p>My vis-&agrave;-vis groaned and looked at me as this observation
+reached us. I laughed a little hysterically: I was so glad to be at
+the half-way house--and Mary Leighton's words were so absurd. When
+we got out of the carriage, the dissatisfied man stretched his long
+English limbs out, and lighting his cigar, began silently to pace
+the bricks in front of the house.</p>
+<p>Kilian took us into the little parlor (we were the first to
+arrive), and committed us to the care of a thin, tired-looking
+woman, and then went to see to the comfort of his horses.</p>
+<p>The tired woman, who looked as if she never had sat down since
+she grew up, took us to some rooms, where we were to rest till tea
+was ready. The rooms had been shut up all day, and the sun had been
+beating on them: they smelled of paint and dust and ill-brushed
+carpets. The water in the pitchers was warm and not very clear: the
+towels were very small and thin, the beds were hard, and the
+pillows very small, like the towels: they felt soft and warm and
+limp, like sick kittens. We threw open the windows and aired the
+rooms, and washed our faces and hands: and Miss Lowder lay down on
+the bed and put her head on a pile of four of the little pillows
+collected from the different rooms. Mary Leighton spent the time in
+re-arranging her hair, and I walked up and down the hall, too
+impatient to rest myself in any way.</p>
+<p>By-and-by the others came, and then there was a hubbub and a
+clatter, and poor Miss Lowder's head was overlooked in the
+m&ecirc;l&eacute;e; for these were all the rooms the house afforded
+for the entertainment of wayfarers, and as there were nine ladies
+in our party, it is not difficult to imagine the confusion that
+ensued.</p>
+<p>Benny and Charley also came to have their hair arranged, and it
+devolved on Charlotte and me to do it, as their mamma had thrown
+herself exhausted on one of the beds, and with the bolsters doubled
+up under her head, was trying to get some rest.</p>
+<p>It was fully half-past seven before the tea-bell rang. I seized
+Benny's hand, and we were the first on the ground. I don't know how
+I thought this would be useful in hurrying matters, for Benny's tea
+and mine were very soon taken, and were very insignificant
+fractions of the general business.</p>
+<p>There were kerosene lamps on the table, and everything was
+served in the plainest manner, but the cooking was really good, and
+it was evident that the tired woman had been on her feet all her
+life to some purpose. Almost every one was hungry, and the contrast
+to the cold meats, and the hard rocks, and the disjointed apparatus
+of the noonday meal, was very favorable.</p>
+<p>Richard had put me between himself and Benny, and he watched my
+undiminished supper with disapprobation: but I do not believe he
+ate much more himself. He put everything that he thought I might
+like, before me, silently: and I think the tired woman (who was
+waitress as well as cook), must have groaned over the frequent
+changing of my plate.</p>
+<p>"Do not take any more of that," he said, as I put out my hand
+for another cup of coffee.</p>
+<p>"Well, what shall I take?" I exclaimed peevishly. But indeed I
+did not mean to be peevish, nor did I know quite what I said, I was
+so miserable. Richard sighed as he turned away and answered some
+question of Sophie; who was quite revived.</p>
+<p>Charlotte and Henrietta each had an admirer, one of the Lowders,
+and a young Frenchman who had come with the Lowders.</p>
+<p>It had evidently been a very happy day with all the young ladies
+from the house. After tea the gentlemen must smoke, and after the
+smoking there was to be dancing. The preparations for the dancing
+created a good deal of amusement and consumed a great deal of time.
+Kilian and young Lowder went a mile and a half to get a man to play
+for them. When he came, he had to be instructed as to the style of
+music to be furnished, and the rasping and scraping of that
+miserable instrument put me beside myself with nervousness. Then
+the "ball-room" had to be aired and lighted; then the negro's music
+was found to be incompatible with modern movements; even a waltz
+was proved impossible, and nobody would consent to remember a
+quadrille but Richard. So they had to fall back upon Virginia
+reels, and everybody was made to dance.</p>
+<p>The dissatisfied man was at my side when the order was given. He
+turned to me languidly, and offered me his hand.</p>
+<p>"No," I exclaimed, biting my lips with impatience, and added,
+"You will excuse me, won't you?"</p>
+<p>He said, with grave philosophy, "I really think it will seem
+shorter than if we were looking on."</p>
+<p>I accepted this wise counsel, and went to dance with him. And
+what a dance it was! The blinking kerosene lamps at the sides of
+the room, the asparagus boughs overhead, the grinning negro on the
+little platform by the door: the amused faces looking in at the
+open windows: the romping, well-dressed, pretty women: the handsome
+men who were trying to act like clowns: the noise of laughing and
+the calling out of the figures: all this, I am sure, I never shall
+forget. And, strange to say, I somewhat enjoyed it after all. The
+coffee had stimulated me: the music was merry: I was reckless, and
+my companions were full of glee. Even the <i>ennuy&eacute;</i>
+skipped up and down the room like a school-boy: I never shall
+forget Richard's happy and relieved expression, when I laughed
+aloud at somebody's amusing blunder.</p>
+<p>Then came the reaction, when the dancing was over, and we were
+getting ready to go home. It was a good deal after ten o'clock, and
+the night was cold. There were not quite shawls enough, no
+preparations having been made for staying out after dark. Richard
+went up to Sophie (I was standing out by the steps to be ready the
+moment the carriages should come), and I heard him negotiating with
+her for a shawl for me. She was quite impatient and peremptory,
+though <i>sotto voce</i>. The children needed both her extra ones,
+and there was an end of it.</p>
+<p>I did not care at all, and feeling warm with dancing, did not
+dread what I had not yet felt. I pulled my light cloak around me,
+and only longed for the carriage to arrive. But after we had
+started and were about forty rods from the door, quite out of the
+light of the little tavern, just within a grove of locust-trees
+(the moon was under clouds), Richard's voice called out to Kilian
+to stop, and coming up to the side of the carriage, said, "Put this
+around you, Pauline, you haven't got enough." He put something
+around my shoulders which felt very warm and comfortable: I believe
+I said, Thank you, though I am not at all sure, and Kilian drove on
+rapidly.</p>
+<p>By-and-by, when I began to feel a little chilly, I drew it
+together round my throat: the air was like November, and, August
+though it was, there was a white frost that night. I was frightened
+when I found what I had about my shoulders. It was Richard's coat.
+I called to Kilian to stop a moment, I wanted to speak to Richard.
+But when we stopped, the carriage in which he was to drive was just
+behind us--and some one in it said, Richard had walked. He had not
+come back after he ran out to speak to us--must have struck across
+the fields and gone ahead. And Richard walked home, five miles,
+that night! the only way to save himself from the deadly chill of
+the keen air, without his coat.</p>
+<p>When we drove into the gate, at home, I stooped eagerly forward
+to get a sight of the house through the trees. There was a light
+burning in the room over mine: that was all I wanted to know, and
+with a sigh of relief I sank back.</p>
+<p>When we went into the hall, I remembered to hang Richard's coat
+upon a rack there, and then ran to my room. I could not get any
+news of Mr. Langenau, and could not hear how the day had gone with
+him: could only take the hope that the sight of the little lamp
+conveyed.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV."></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+<h3>I SHALL HAVE SEEN HIM.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>Go on, go on:<br>
+Thou canst not speak too much; I have deserved<br>
+All tongues to talk their bitterest.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Winter's Tale</i>.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<p>Of course, the night was entirely sleepless after such, a day. I
+was over-tired, and the coffee would have been fatal to rest in any
+case. I tossed about restlessly till three o'clock, and then fell
+into a heavy sleep.</p>
+<p>The sun was shining into the room, and I heard the voices of
+people on the lawn when I awoke. When I went down, after a hurried
+and nervous half-hour of dressing, I found the morning, apparently,
+half gone, and the breakfast-table cleared.</p>
+<p>Mary Leighton, with a croquet mallet in her hand, was following
+Kilian through the hall to get a drink of water. She made a great
+outcry at me and my appearance.</p>
+<p>"What a headache you must have," she cried. "But ah! think what
+you've missed, dear! The tutor has been down at breakfast, or
+rather at the breakfast-table, for he didn't eat a thing. He is a,
+little paler than he was at dinner day before yesterday--and he's
+gone up-stairs; and we've voted that we hope he'll stay there, for
+he depresses us just to look at him."</p>
+<p>And then, with an unmeaning laugh, she tripped on after Kilian
+to get that drink of water, which was nothing but a ticket for a
+moment's <i>t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te</i> away from the
+croquet party. Richard had seen me by this time, and came in and
+asked how I felt, and rang the bell in the dining-room, and ordered
+my breakfast brought. He did not exactly stay and watch it, but he
+came in and out of the dining-room enough times to see that I had
+everything that was dainty and nice (and to see, alas! that I could
+not eat it); for that piece of news from Mary Leighton had levelled
+me with the ground again.</p>
+<p>That I had missed seeing him was too cruel, and that he looked
+so ill; how could I bear it?</p>
+<p>After my breakfast was taken away, I went into the hall, and sat
+down on the sofa between the parlor doors. Pretty soon the people
+came in from the croquet ground, talking fiercely about a game in
+which Kilian and Mary had been cheating. Charlotte Benson was quite
+angry, and Charley, who had played with her, was enraged. I thought
+they were such, fools to care, and Richard looked as if he thought
+they were all silly children. The day was warm and close, such a
+contrast to the day before. The sudden cold had broken down into a
+sultry August atmosphere. The sun, which had been bright an hour
+ago, was becoming obscured, and the sky was grayish. Every one felt
+languid. We were all sitting about the hall, idly, when a servant
+brought a note. It was an invitation; that roused them all--and for
+to-day. There was no time to lose.</p>
+<p>The Lowders had sent to ask us all to a croquet party there at
+four o'clock.</p>
+<p>"What an hour!" cried Sophie, who was tired; "I should think
+they might have let us get rested from the picnic."</p>
+<p>But Charlotte and Henrietta were so much charmed at the prospect
+of seeing so soon the Frenchman and the young devoted Lowder, that
+they listened to no criticism on the hour or day.</p>
+<p>"How nice!" they said, "we shall get there a little before
+five--play for a couple of hours--then have tea on the lawn,
+perhaps--a little dance, and home by moonlight." It was a ravishing
+prospect for their unemployed imaginations, and they left no time
+in rendering their answer.</p>
+<p>For myself, I had taken a firm resolve. I would never repeat the
+misery of yesterday; nothing should persuade me to go with them,
+but I would manage it so that I should be free from every one, even
+Richard.</p>
+<p>Croquet parties are great occasions for pretty costumes; all
+this was talked over. What should I wear? Oh, my gray grenadine,
+with the violet trimmings, and a gray hat with violet velvet and
+feather.</p>
+<p>"You have everything so perfect for that suit," said Mary
+Leighton, in a tone of envy. "Cravat and parasol and gloves of just
+the shade of violet."</p>
+<p>"And gray boots," I said. "It <i>is</i> a pretty suit." No one
+but Sophie had such expensive clothes as I, but I cannot say at
+that moment they made me very happy. I was only thinking how
+improbable that the gray suit would come out of the box that day,
+unless I should be obliged to dress to mislead the others till the
+last.</p>
+<p>The carriages (for we filled two), were to be at the door at
+four o'clock punctually. The Lowders were five miles away: the
+whole thing was so talked about and planned about, that when dinner
+was over, I felt we had had a croquet party, and quite a long one
+at that.</p>
+<p>Mr. Langenau did not come to dinner; Sophie sent a servant to
+his room after we were at table, to ask him if he would come down,
+or have his dinner sent to him; but the servant came back, saying
+he did not want any dinner, with his compliments to Mrs.
+Hollenbeck.</p>
+<p>"<i>&Agrave; la bonne heure</i>" cried Kilian. "A skeleton
+always interferes with my appetite at a feast."</p>
+<p>"It is the only thing, then, that does, isn't it?" asked
+Charlotte, who seemed to have a pick at him always.</p>
+<p>"No, not the only thing. There is one other--just one
+other."</p>
+<p>"And, for the sake of science, what is that?"</p>
+<p>"A woman with a sharp tongue, Miss Charlotte.--Sophie, I don't
+think much of these last soups. Your famous cook's degenerating,
+take my word."</p>
+<p>And so on, while Charlotte colored, and was silent through the
+meal. She knew her tongue was sharp; she knew that she was
+self-willed and was not humble. But she had not taken herself in
+hand, religiously; to take one's self in hand morally, or on
+grounds of expediency, never amounts to much; and such taking in
+hand was all that Charlotte had as yet attempted. In a little
+passion of self-reproach and mortification, she occasionally lopped
+off ugly shoots; but the root was still vigorous and lusty, and
+only grew the better for its petty pruning. Richard looked very
+much displeased at his brother's rudeness, and tried to make up for
+it by great kindness and attention.</p>
+<p>About this time I had become aware of what were Sophie's plans
+for Richard. In case he must marry (to be cured of me), he was to
+marry Charlotte, who was so capable, so sensible, of so good
+family, so much indebted to Sophie, and so decidedly averse to
+living in the country. Sophie saw herself still mistress here,
+with, to be sure, a shortened income, and Richard and his wife
+spending a few weeks with her in the summer. I do not know how far
+Charlotte entered into these plans. Probably not at all,
+consciously; but I became aware that, as a little girl, Richard had
+been her hero; and he did not seem to have been displaced by any
+one entirely yet. But I took a very faint interest in all this. I
+should have cared, probably, if I had seen Richard devoted to her.
+He seemed to belong to me, and I should have resented any
+interference with my rights. But I did not dread any. I knew,
+though I took little pleasure in the knowledge, that he loved me
+with all his good and manly heart; and it never seemed a
+possibility that he could change.</p>
+<p>The simple selfishness of young women in these matters is
+appalling. Richard was mine by right of conquest, and I owed him no
+gratitude for the service of his life. That other was the lord who
+had the right inalienable over me. I bent myself in the dust before
+him. I would have taken shame itself as an honor from his hands. I
+thought of him day and night. I filled my soul with passionate
+admiration for his good deeds, his ill deeds, his all. And the
+other was as the ground beneath my feet, of which I seldom
+thought.</p>
+<p>Richard met me at the foot of the stairs, after dinner, as I was
+going up.</p>
+<p>"Pauline, will you go in the carriage with Charlotte and Sophie?
+I am going to drive."</p>
+<p>"Oh, it doesn't make any difference," I answered, with
+confusion. "Anywhere you choose."</p>
+<p>I think he had misgivings about my going from that moment; to
+allay which, I called out something about my costume to Sophie as I
+went up to my room. The day was growing duller, and stiller, and
+grayer. I sat by the window and watched the leaden river. It was
+like an afternoon in September, before the chill of the autumn has
+come. Not a leaf moved upon the trees, not a cloud crept over the
+sky. It was all one dim, gray, gloomy stillness overhead. I
+wondered if they would have rain. <i>They</i>, not I, for I was
+going to stay at home, and before they came back I should have seen
+him. I said that over and over to myself with bated breath, and
+cheeks that burned like flame. Every step that passed my door made
+me start guiltily. Once, when some one knocked, I pulled out my
+gray dress, and flung it on the bed, before I answered.</p>
+<p>It was approaching four o'clock. I undressed myself rapidly, put
+on a dressing-sack, and threw myself upon the bed. What should I
+say when they came for me? They could not <i>make</i> me go. I felt
+very brave. At last the carriages drove up to the door. I crept to
+the window to see if any one was ready. While I was watching
+through the half-closed blinds, some one crossed the piazza. My
+heart gave a great leap, and then every pulse stood still. It was
+Mr. Langenau. His step was slower than it used to be, and, I
+thought, a little faltering. He crossed the road, and took the path
+that led through the grove and garden to the river. He had a book
+under his arm; he must be going to the boat-house to sit there and
+read. My heart gave such an ecstasy of life to my veins at the
+thought, that for a moment I felt sick and faint, as I drew back
+from the window.</p>
+<p>I threw myself on the bed as some one knocked. It was a servant
+to tell me they were ready. I sent word to Mrs. Hollenbeck that I
+was not well, and should not be able to go with them. Then I lay
+still and waited in much trepidation for the second knock. I heard
+in a few moments the rustle of Sophie's dress outside. She was not
+pleased at all. She could scarcely be polite. But then everything
+looked very plausible. There lay my dress upon the bed, as if I had
+begun to dress, and I was pale and trembling, and I am sure must
+have looked ill enough to have convinced her that I spoke the
+truth.</p>
+<p>She made some feeble offer to stay and take care of me. "Oh,
+pray don't," I cried, too eagerly, I am afraid. And then she said
+her maid should come and stay with me, for the children were going
+with them, and there would be nothing for her to do. I stammered
+thanks, and then she went away. I did not dare to move till after I
+had heard both carriages drive off, and all voices die away in the
+distance.</p>
+<p>Bettina came to the door, and was sent away with thanks. Then I
+began to dress myself with very trembling hands. This was new work
+to me, this horrible deception. But all remorse for that, was
+swallowed up in the one engrossing thought and desire which had
+usurped my soul for the days just passed.</p>
+<p>It was a full half-hour before I was ready, my hands shook so
+unaccountably, and I could scarcely find the things I wanted to put
+on. When I went to the door I could hardly turn the key, I felt so
+weak, and I stood in the passage many minutes before I dared go on.
+If any one had appeared or spoken to me, I am quite sure I should
+have fainted, my nerves were in such a shaken state.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI."></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+<h3>AUGUST THIRTIETH.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>Were Death so unlike Sleep,<br>
+Caught this way? Death's to fear from flame, or steel,<br>
+Or poison doubtless; but from water--feel!<br>
+<br>
+<i>Robert Browning</i>.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>I met no one in the hall or on the piazza. The house was silent
+and deserted: one of the maids was closing the parlor windows. She
+did not look at me with any surprise, for she had not probably
+heard that I was ill.</p>
+<p>Once in the open air I felt stronger. I took the river-path, and
+walked quickly, feeling freed from a nightmare: and my mind was
+filled with one thought. "In a few moments I shall be beside him, I
+shall make him look at me, he cannot help but touch my hand." I did
+not think of past or future, only of the greedy, passionate
+present. My infatuation was at its height. I cannot imagine a
+passion more absorbing, more unresisted, and more dangerous. I
+passed quickly through the garden without even noticing the flowers
+that brushed against my dress.</p>
+<p>As I reached the grove I thought for one instant of the morning
+that he had met me here, just where the paths intersected. At that
+moment I heard a step; and full of that hope, with a quick thrill,
+I glanced in the direction of the sound. There, not ten yards from
+me, coming from the opposite direction, was Richard. I felt a shock
+of disappointment, then fear, then anger. What right had he to dog
+me so? He looked at me without surprise, but as if his heart was
+full of bitterness and sorrow. He approached, and turned as if to
+walk with me.</p>
+<p>"I want to be alone," I said angrily, moving away from him.</p>
+<p>"No, Pauline," he answered with a sigh, as he turned from me,
+"you do not want to be alone."</p>
+<p>Full of shame and anger, and jarred with the shock and fear, I
+went on more slowly. The wood was so silent--the river through the
+trees lay so still and leaden. If it had not been for the fire
+burning in my heart, I could have thought the world was dead.</p>
+<p>There was not a sound but my own steps; should I soon meet him,
+would he be sitting in his old seat by the boat-house door, or
+would he be wandering along the dead, still river-bank? What should
+I say to him? O! he would speak. If he saw me he would have to
+speak.</p>
+<p>I soon forgot that I had met Richard, that I had been angry; and
+again I had but this one thought.</p>
+<p>The pine cones were slippery under my feet. I held by the old
+trees as I went down the bank, step by step. I had to turn and pass
+a clump of trees before I reached the boat-house door.</p>
+<p>I was there! With a beating heart I stepped up on the threshold.
+There were two doors, one that opened on the path, one that opened
+on the river. The house was empty. I had a little sinking pang of
+disappointment, but I passed on to the door looking out on the
+river. By this door was a seat, empty, but on this lay a book and a
+straw hat. I could feel the hot blushes cover my face, my neck, as
+I caught sight of these. I stooped down, feeling guilty, and took
+up the book. It was a book which he had read daily to me in our
+lesson-hours. It had his name on the blank page, and was full of
+his pencil-marks. I meant to ask him to give me this book; I would
+rather have it than anything the world held, when I should be
+parted from him. <i>When!</i> I sat down on the seat beside the
+door, with the book lying in my lap, the straw hat on the bench. I
+longed to take it in my hands--to wreathe it with the clematis that
+grew about the door, as I had done one foolish, happy afternoon,
+not three weeks ago. But with a strange inconsistency, I dared not
+touch it; my face grew hot with blushes as I thought of it.</p>
+<p>How should I meet him? Now that the moment I had longed for had
+arrived, I wondered that I had dared to long for it. I felt that if
+I heard his step, I should fly and hide myself from him. The
+recollection of that last interview in the library--which I had
+lived over and over, nights and days, incessantly, since then, came
+back with fresh force, fresh vehemence. But no step approached me,
+all was silent; it began to impress me strangely, and I looked
+about me. I don't know at what moment it was, my eye fell upon the
+trace of footsteps on the bank, and then on the mark of the boat
+dragged along the sand; a little below the boat-house it had been
+pushed off into the water.</p>
+<p>I started to my feet, and ran down to the water's edge (at the
+boat-house the trees had been in the way of my seeing the river any
+distance).</p>
+<p>I stood still, the water lapping faintly on the sand at my feet;
+it was hardly a sound. I looked out on the unruffled lead-colored
+river: there, about quarter of a mile from the bank, the boat was
+lying: empty --motionless. The oars were floating a few rods from
+her, drifting slowly, slowly, down the stream.</p>
+<p>The sight seemed to turn my warm blood and blushes into ice:
+even before I had a distinct impression of what I feared, I was
+benumbed. But it did not take many moments for the truth, or a
+dread of it, to reach my brain.</p>
+<p>I covered my eyes with my hands, then sprang up the bank and
+called wildly.</p>
+<p>My voice was like a madwoman's, and it must have sounded far on
+that still air. In less than a moment Richard came hurrying with
+great strides down the path. I sprang to him, and caught his arm
+and dragged him to the water's edge.</p>
+<p>"Look," I whispered--pointing to the hat and book--and then out
+to the boat. I read his face in terror. It grew slowly, deadly
+white.</p>
+<p>"My God!" he said in a tone of awe. Then shaking me from him,
+sprang up the bank, and his voice was something fearful as he
+shouted, as he ran, for help.</p>
+<p>There were men laboring, two or three fields off. I don't know
+how long it took them to get to him, nor how long to get a boat out
+on the water, nor what boat it was. I know they had ropes and
+poles, and that they were talking in eager, hurried voices, as they
+passed me.</p>
+<p>I sat on the steps that led down the bank, clinging to the low
+railing with my hands: I had sunk down because my strength had
+given way all at once, and I felt as if everything were rocking and
+surging under me. Sometimes everything was black before me, and
+then again I could see plainly the wide expanse of the river, the
+wide expanse of the gray sky, and between them--the empty,
+motionless boat, and the floating oars beyond upon the tide.</p>
+<p>The voices of the men, and the splashing of the water, when at
+last they were launched and pulling away from shore, made a
+ringing, frightful noise in my head. I watched till I saw them
+reach the boat--till I saw one of them get over in it. Then while
+they groped about with ropes and poles, and lashed their boats
+together, and leaned over and gazed down into the water, I watched
+in a strange, benumbed state.</p>
+<p>But, by-and-by, there were some exclamations--a stir, and effort
+of strength. I saw them pulling in the ropes with combined
+movement. I saw them leaning over the side of the boat, nearest the
+shore, and together trying to lift something heavy over into it. I
+saw the water dripping as they raised it--and then I think I must
+have swooned. For I knew nothing further till I heard Richard's
+voice, and, raising my head, saw him leaping from the boat upon the
+bank. The other boat was further out, and was approaching slowly. I
+stood up as he came to me, and held by the railing.</p>
+<p>"I want you to go up to the house," he said, gently, "there can
+be no good in your staying here."</p>
+<p>"I will stay," I cried, everything coming back to me. "I
+will--will see him."</p>
+<p>"There is no hope, Pauline," he said, in a quick voice, for the
+boat was very near the bank, "or very little--and you must not
+stay. Everything shall be done that can be done. I will do all. But
+you must not stay."</p>
+<p>"I will," I said, frantically, trying to burst past him. He
+caught my arms and turned me toward the boat-house, and led me
+through it, out into the path that went up to the grove.</p>
+<p>"Go home," he said, in a voice I never shall forget. "You shall
+not make a spectacle for these men. I have promised you I will do
+all. Mind you obey me strictly, and go up to your room and wait
+there till I come."</p>
+<p>I don't know how I got there. I believe Bettina found me at the
+entrance to the garden, and helped me to the house, and put me on
+my bed.</p>
+<p>An hour passed--perhaps more--and such an hour! (for I was not
+for a moment unconscious, after this, only deadly faint and weak),
+and then Richard came. The door was a little open, and he pushed it
+back and came in, and stood beside the bed.</p>
+<p>I suppose the sight of me, so broken and spoiled by suffering,
+overcame him, for he stooped down suddenly, and kissed me, and then
+did not speak for a moment.</p>
+<p>At last he said, in a voice not quite steady, "I didn't mean to
+be hard on you, Pauline. But you know I had to do it."</p>
+<p>"And there isn't any--any--" I gasped for the words, and could
+hardly speak.</p>
+<p>"No, none, Pauline," he said, keeping my hand in his. "The
+doctors have just gone away. It was all no use."</p>
+<p>"Tell me about it," I whispered.</p>
+<p>"About what?" he said, looking troubled.</p>
+<p>"About how it happened."</p>
+<p>"Nobody can tell," he answered, averting his face. "We can only
+conjecture about some things. Don't try to think about it. Try to
+rest."</p>
+<p>"How does he look?" I whispered, clinging to his hand.</p>
+<p>"Just the same as ever; more quiet, perhaps," he answered,
+looking troubled.</p>
+<p>I gave a sort of gasp, but did not cry. I think he was
+frightened, for he said, uneasily, "Let me call Bettina; she can
+give you something--she can sit beside you."</p>
+<p>I shook my head, and said, faintly, "Don't let her come."</p>
+<p>"I have sent for Sophie," he said, soothingly. "She will soon be
+here, and will know what to do for you."</p>
+<p>"Keep her out of this room," I cried, half raising myself, and
+then falling back from sudden faintness. "Don't let her come
+<i>near</i> me," I panted, after a moment, "nor any of them, but,
+most of all, Sophie; remember--don't let her even look at me;" and
+with moaning, I turned my face down on the pillow. I had taken in
+about a thousandth fraction of my great calamity by that time.
+Every moment was giving to me some additional possession of it.</p>
+<p>Some one at that instant called Richard, in that subdued tone
+that people use about a house in which there is one dead.</p>
+<p>"I have got to go," he said, uneasily. I still kept hold of his
+hand. "But I will come back before very long; and I will tell
+Bettina to bring a chair and sit outside your door, and not let any
+one come in."</p>
+<p>"That will do," I said, letting go his hand, "only I don't want
+my door shut tight."</p>
+<p>I felt as if the separation were not so entire, so tremendous,
+while I could hear what was going on below, and know that no door
+was shut between us--no door! Bettina, in a moment more, had taken
+up her station in the passage-way outside.</p>
+<p>I heard people coming and going quietly through the hall below.
+I heard doors softly shut and opened.</p>
+<p>I knew, by some intuition, that <i>he</i> was lying in the
+library. They moved furniture with a smothered sound; and when I
+heard two or three men sent off on messages by Richard, even the
+horses' hoofs seemed to be muffled as they struck the ground. This
+was the effect of the coming in of death into busy, household life.
+I had never been under the roof with it before.</p>
+<p>About dusk a servant came to the door, with a tray of tea and
+something to eat, that Mr. Richard had sent her with.</p>
+<p>"No," I said, "don't leave it here."</p>
+<p>But, in a few moments, Richard himself brought it back. I can
+well imagine how anxious and unhappy he felt. He had, perhaps,
+never before had charge of any one ill or in trouble, and this was
+a strange experience.</p>
+<p>"You must eat something, Pauline," he said. "I want you to. Sit
+up, and take this tea."</p>
+<p>I was not inclined to dispute his will, but raised my head, and
+drank the tea, and ate a few mouthfuls of the biscuit. But that
+made me too ill, and I put the plate away from me.</p>
+<p>"I am very sorry," I said, meekly, "but I can't eat it. I feel
+as if it choked me."</p>
+<p>He seemed touched with my submissiveness, and, giving Bettina
+the tray, stood looking down at me as if he did not know how to say
+something that was in his mind. Suddenly my ear, always quick, now
+exaggeratedly so, caught sound of carriage-wheels. I started up and
+cried, "They are coming," and hid my face in my hands.</p>
+<p>"Don't be troubled," he said, "you shall not be disturbed."</p>
+<p>"Oh, Richard," I exclaimed, as he was going away, after another
+undecided movement as if to speak, "you know what I want."</p>
+<p>"Yes, I know," he said, in a low voice.</p>
+<p>"And now they're come, I cannot. They will see him, and I
+cannot."</p>
+<p>"Be patient. I will arrange for you to go. Don't, don't,
+Pauline."</p>
+<p>For I was in a sort of spasm, though no tears came, and my sobs
+were more like the gasps of a person being suffocated, than like
+one in grief.</p>
+<p>"If you will only be quiet, I will take you down, after a few
+hours, when they are all gone to their rooms. Pauline, you'll kill
+me; don't do so--Pauline, they'll hear you. Try not to do so;
+that's right--lie down and try to quiet yourself, poor child. I
+can't bear to go away; but there is Sophie on the stairs."</p>
+<p>He had scarcely time to reach the hall before Sophie burst upon
+him with almost a shriek.</p>
+<p>"What is this horrible affair, Richard? What a terrible disgrace
+and scandal! we never shall get over it. Will it get in the papers,
+do you think? I am so ill--I have been in such a state since the
+news came. Such a drive home as this has been! Oh, Richard, tell me
+all about it quickly. Where is Pauline? how does she bear it?"
+making for my door.</p>
+<p>Richard put out his hand and stopped her. I had sprung up from
+the bed, and stood, trembling violently, at the further extremity
+of the room. I do not know what I meant to do if she came in, for I
+was almost beside myself at that moment.</p>
+<p>She was persistent, angry, agitated. How well I knew the
+curiosity that made her so intent to gain admission to me. It was
+not so much that I dreaded being a spectacle, as the horror and
+hatred I felt at being approached by her coldness and hypocrisy,
+while I was so sore and wounded. I was hardly responsible; I don't
+think I could have borne the touch of her hand.</p>
+<p>But Richard saved me, and sent her away angry. I crept back to
+the bed, and lay down on it again. I heard the others whispering as
+they passed through the hall. Mary Leighton was crying; Charlotte
+was silent. I don't think I heard her voice at all.</p>
+<p>After a long while I heard them go down, and go into the
+dining-room. They spoke in very subdued tones, and there was only
+the slightest movement of china and silver, to indicate that a meal
+was going on. But this seemed to give me a more frantic sense of
+change than anything else. I flung myself across the bed, and
+another of those dreadful, tearless spasms seized me.
+Everything--all life--was going on just the same; even in this very
+house they were eating and drinking as they ate and drank
+before--the very people who had talked with him this day; the very
+table at which he had sat this morning. Oh! they were so heartless
+and selfish: every one was; life itself was. I did not know where
+to turn for comfort. I had a feeling of dreading every one, of
+shrinking away from every one.</p>
+<p>"Oh!" I said to myself, "if Richard is with them at the table, I
+never want to see him again."</p>
+<p>But Richard was not with them. In a moment or two he came to the
+door, only to ask me if I wanted anything, and to say he would come
+back by-and-by.</p>
+<p>There was a question which I longed so frantically to ask him,
+but which I dared not; my life seemed to hang on the answer.
+<i>When were they going to take him away?</i> I had heard something
+about trains and carriages, and I had a wild dread that it was soon
+to be.</p>
+<p>I went to the door and called Richard back, and made him
+understand what I wanted to know. He looked troubled, and said in a
+low tone,</p>
+<p>"At four o'clock we go from here to meet the earliest train. I
+have telegraphed his friends, and have had an answer. I am going
+down myself, and it is all arranged in the best way, I think. Go
+and lie down now, Pauline; I will come and take you down soon as
+the house is quiet."</p>
+<p>Richard went away unconscious of the stab his news had given me.
+I had not counted on anything so sudden as this parting. While he
+was in the house, while I was again to look upon his face, the end
+had not come; there was a sort of hope, though only a hope of
+suffering, something to look forward to, before black monotony
+began its endless day.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII."></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+<h3>BESIDE HIM ONCE AGAIN.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>There are blind ways provided, the foredone<br>
+Heart-weary player in this pageant world<br>
+Drops out by, letting the main masque defile<br>
+By the conspicuous portal.<br>
+<br>
+<i>R. Browning</i>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+What is this world? What asken men to have?<br>
+Now with his love--now in his cold grave--<br>
+Alone, withouten any companie!<br>
+<br>
+<i>Chaucer</i>.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>The tall old clock, which stood by the dining-room door, had
+struck two, and been silent many minutes, before Richard came to
+me. I had spent those dreadful hours in feverish restlessness: my
+room seemed suffocating to me. I had walked about, had put away my
+trinkets, I had changed my dress, and put on a white one which I
+had worn in the morning, and had tried to braid my hair.</p>
+<p>The quieting of the house, it seemed, would never come. It was
+twelve o'clock before any one came up-stairs. I heard one door
+after another shut, and then sat waiting and wondering why Richard
+did not come, till the moments seemed to grow to centuries. At last
+I heard him at the door, and I went toward it trembling, and
+followed him into the hall. He carried a light, for up-stairs it
+was all dark, and when we reached the stairway, he took my hand to
+lead me. I was trembling very much; the hall below was dimly lit by
+a large lamp which had been turned low. Our steps on the bare
+staircase made so much noise, though we tried to move so silently.
+It was weird and awful. I clung to Richard's hand in silence. He
+led me across the hall, and stopped before the library-door. He let
+go my hand, and taking a key from his pocket, put it in the lock,
+turned it slowly, then opened the door a little way, and motioned
+me to enter.</p>
+<p>Like one in a trance, I obeyed him, and went in alone. He shut
+the door noiselessly, and left me with the dead.</p>
+<p>That was the great, the immense hour of my life. No vicissitude,
+no calamity of this mortal state, no experience that may be to
+come, can ever have the force, the magnitude of this. All feelings,
+but a child's feelings, were comparatively new to me, and here, at
+one moment, I had put into my hand the plummet that sounded hell;
+anguish, remorse, fear--a woman's heart in hopeless pain. For I
+will not believe that any child, that any woman, had ever loved
+more absolutely, more passionately, than I had loved the man who
+lay there dead before me. But I cannot talk about what I felt in
+those moments; all that concerns what I write is the external.</p>
+<p>The--coffin was in the middle of the room, where the table
+ordinarily stood--where my chair had been that night, when he told
+me his story. Surely if I sinned, in thought, in word, <i>that</i>
+night, I paid its full atonement, <i>this</i>. Candles stood on a
+small table at the head of where he lay, and many flowers were
+about the room. The smell of verbena-leaves filled the air: a
+branch of them was in a vase that some one had put beside his
+coffin. The fresh, cool night-air came in from the large window,
+open at the top.</p>
+<p>His face was, as Richard said, much as in life, only quieter. I
+do not know what length of time Richard left me there, but at last,
+I was recalled to the present, by his hand upon my shoulder, and
+his voice in a whisper, "Come with me now, Pauline."</p>
+<p>I rose to my feet, hardly understanding what he said, but
+resisted when I did understand him.</p>
+<p>"Come with me," he said, gently, "You shall come back again and
+say good-bye. Only come out into the hall and stay awhile with me;
+it is not good for you to be here so long."</p>
+<p>He took my hand and led me out, shutting the door noiselessly.
+He took me across the hall, and into the parlor, where there was no
+light, except what came in from the hall. There was a sofa opposite
+the door, and to that he led me, standing himself before me, with
+his perplexed and careworn face. I was very silent for some time:
+all that awful time in the library, I had never made a sound: but
+suddenly, some thought came that reached the source of my tears,
+and I burst into a passion of weeping. I am not sure what it was: I
+think, perhaps, the sight of the piano, and the recollection of
+that magnificent voice that would never be heard again, Whatever it
+was, I bless it, for I think it saved my brain. I threw myself down
+upon the sofa, and clung to Richard's hand, and sobbed, and sobbed,
+and sobbed.</p>
+<p>Poor fellow! my tears seemed to shake him terribly. Once he
+turned away, and drew his hand across his brow, as if it were a
+little more than he could bear. But some men, like many women, are
+born to sacrifice.</p>
+<p>He tried to comfort and soothe me with broken words. But what
+was there to say?</p>
+<p>"Oh, Richard," I cried, "What does it all mean? why am I so
+punished? was it so very wicked to have loved him after I knew all?
+Was all this allowed to come because I did that? Answer me, tell
+me; tell me what you think."</p>
+<p>"No, Pauline, I don't think that was it. Don't talk about it
+now. Try to be quiet. You are not fit to think about it now."</p>
+<p>"But, Richard, what else can it mean? I know, I know that it is
+the truth. God wouldn't have sent such a punishment upon me if he
+hadn't seen my sin."</p>
+<p>"It's more likely He sent it to--" and then he paused.</p>
+<p>I know now he meant, it was more likely He had sent it to save
+me from the sins of others; but he had the holy charity not to say
+it.</p>
+<p>"Oh," I cried, passionately, "When all the sin was mine, that he
+should have had to die: when he never came near me, never looked at
+me: when he would rather die than break his word to me. That night
+in the library, after he had told me all, he said, 'I will never
+look into your eyes again, I will never touch your hand;' and
+though we were in the same room together after that, and in the
+same house all this time, and though he knew I loved him so--he
+never looked at me, he never turned his eyes upon me; and I--I was
+willing to sin for him--to die for him. I would have followed him
+to the ends of the earth, not twelve hours ago."</p>
+<p>"Hush, Pauline," said Richard huskily, "you don't know what
+you're saying--you are a child."</p>
+<p>"No, I'm not a child--after to-day, after to-night--I am not a
+child--and I know too well what I say--too well--too well. Richard,
+you don't know what has been in my heart. That night, he held me in
+his arms and kissed me--when he said good-bye. Then I was innocent,
+for I was dazed by grief and had not come to my senses, after what
+he told me. But to-day I said--<i>to-day</i>--to have his arms
+around me once again--to have him kiss me once again as he kissed
+me then--I would go away from all I ever had been taught of right
+and duty, and would be satisfied."</p>
+<p>"Then, thank God for what has come," said Richard, hoarsely,
+wiping from his forehead the great drops that had broken out upon
+it.</p>
+<p>"No!" I cried with a fresh burst of weeping. "No, I cannot thank
+God, for I want him back again. <i>I want him</i>. I had rather die
+than be separated from him. I cannot thank God for taking him away
+from me. Oh, Richard, what shall I do? I loved him, loved him so.
+Don't look so stern; don't turn away from me. You used to love me.
+Could you thank God for taking me away from you, out of your arms,
+warm, and strong, and living, and making me cold, and dumb, and
+stiff, like <i>that</i>?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, Pauline, if it had been to save us both from sin."</p>
+<p>"You don't know what love is, if you say that."</p>
+<p>"I know what sin is, better than you do, maybe. Listen, Pauline.
+I've loved you ever since I saw you; men don't often love better
+than I have loved you; but I'd rather drag you, to-night, to that
+black river there, and hold you down with my own hands till the
+breath left your body, than see you turn into a sinful woman, and
+lead the life of shame you tell me you had it in your heart to
+lead, to-day."</p>
+<p>"Is it so very awful?" I whispered with a shiver, my own emotion
+stilled before his. "I only loved him!"</p>
+<p>"Forget you ever did," he said, rising, and pacing up and down
+the room.</p>
+<p>I put my hands before my face, and felt as if I were alone in
+the world with sin. If this unspoken, passionate, sweet thought,
+that I had harbored, were so full of danger as to force God to
+blast me with such punishment, as to drive this tender, generous,
+loving man to wish me dead, what must be the blackness of the sin
+from which I had been saved, if I were saved? If there were,
+indeed, anything but shocks of woe and punishment, and deadly
+despair and darkness, in this strange world in which I found
+myself. There was a silence. I rose to my feet. I don't know what I
+meant to do or where to go; my only impulse was to hide myself from
+the eyes of my companion, and to go away from him, as I had hidden
+myself from all others, since I was smitten with this
+chastisement.</p>
+<p>"Forgive me, Pauline," he said, coming to my side. "It is the
+second time I have been harsh with you this dreadful day. This is
+what comes of selfishness. I hope you will forget what I have
+said."</p>
+<p>I still turned to go away, feeling afraid of him and ashamed
+before him. He put out his hand to stop me.</p>
+<p>"Pauline, remember, I have been sorely tried. I would do
+anything to comfort you. I haven't another wish in my heart but to
+be of use to you."</p>
+<p>"Oh, Richard," I cried, bursting into tears afresh, and hiding
+my eyes, "if you give me up and drive me away from you, I am all
+alone. There isn't another human being that I love or that cares
+for me. Dear Richard, do be good to me; do be sorry for me."</p>
+<p>"I am sorry for you, Pauline; you know that."</p>
+<p>"And you will take care of me?" I cried, stretching out my arms
+toward him, with a sudden overwhelming sense of my loneliness and
+destitution.</p>
+<p>"Yes, Pauline, to the end of my life or of yours; as if you were
+my sister or almost my child."</p>
+<p>"Dear Richard," I whispered, as I buried my face on his arm, "if
+it were not for you I should not live through this dreadful time. I
+hope I shall die soon; as soon as I am better. But till I do die, I
+hope you will be good to me, and love me." And I pressed his hand
+against my cheek and lips, like the poor, frantic, grief-bewildered
+child that I was.</p>
+<p>At this moment there came a sound of movement in the stables: I
+heard one of the heavy doors thrown open, and a man leading a horse
+across the stable-floor. (The windows were open and the night was
+very still.) Richard started, and looked uneasily at his watch,
+stepping to the door to get the light.</p>
+<p>"How late is it?" I faltered.</p>
+<p>"Half-past three," he said, turning his eyes away, as if he
+could not bear the sight of my face. I do not like to remember the
+dreadful moments that followed this: the misery that I put upon
+Richard by my passionate, ungoverned grief. I threw myself upon the
+floor, I clung to his knees, I prayed him to delay the hour of
+going--another hour, another day. I said all the wild and frantic
+things that were in my heart, as he closed the library-door and led
+me to my room.</p>
+<p>"Try to say your prayers, Pauline," was all he could answer
+me.</p>
+<p>I did try to say them, as I knelt by the window, and saw in the
+dull, gray dawn, those two carriages drive slowly from the
+door.</p>
+<p>Richard went away alone. Kilian indeed came down-stairs just as
+he was starting.</p>
+<p>Sophie had awakened, and called him into her room for a few
+moments.</p>
+<p>Then he came down, and I saw him get into the carriage alone,
+and motion the man to drive on, after that other--which stood
+waiting a few rods farther on.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII."></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+<h3>A JOURNEY.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>He, full of modesty and truth,<br>
+Loved much, hoped little, and desired nought.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Tasso</i>.<br>
+<br>
+Fresh grief can occupy itself<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;With its own recent smart;<br>
+It feeds itself on outward things,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And not on its own heart.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Faber</i></blockquote>
+<br>
+<p>A thing which surprises me very much in looking over those days
+of suffering, is, that during that day a frightful irritability is
+the emotion that I most remember--an irritability of feeling, not
+of expression: for I lay quite still upon the bed all day, and only
+answered, briefly and simply, the questions of Sophie and the
+maid.</p>
+<p>I could not sleep: it was many hours since I had slept: but
+nothing seemed further from possibility than sleeping. The lightest
+sound enraged my nerves: the approach of any one made me frantic. I
+lay with my hands crushed together, and my teeth against each
+other, whenever Sophie entered the room.</p>
+<p>She tried to be sympathetic and kind: but she was not much
+encouraged. Toward afternoon, she left me a good deal alone. "I
+wonder how people feel when they are going mad," I said, getting up
+and putting cold water on my head. I was so engaged with the
+strange sensations that pursued me, that I did not dwell upon my
+trouble.</p>
+<p>"Is this the way you feel when you are going to die? or what
+happens if you never go to sleep?" My body was so young and
+healthy, that it was making a good fight.</p>
+<p>Just at dusk, Richard returned. In a little while, about half an
+hour, Sophie came and told me Richard would like to see me in her
+little dressing-room.</p>
+<p>The day of panic and horror was over, and proprieties must begin
+their sway. I felt I hated Sophie for making me go out of my own
+room, but I pulled a shawl over my shoulders and followed her
+across the hall into her little room. There Richard was waiting for
+me. He gave me a chair, and then said, "You needn't wait, Sophie,"
+and sat down beside me.</p>
+<p>Sophie went away half angry, and Richard looked at me
+uneasily.</p>
+<p>"I thought you'd want to see me," he said.</p>
+<p>"Yes," I answered; "I wish you'd tell me everything," but in so
+commonplace a voice, I know that he was startled.</p>
+<p>"You do not feel well, do you? Maybe we'd better not talk about
+it now."</p>
+<p>"Oh, yes. You might as well tell me all to-night."</p>
+<p>"Well, everything is done. The two persons to whom I telegraphed
+met me at the station. There was very little delay. I went with
+them to the cemetery."</p>
+<p>"I am very glad of that. I thought perhaps you wouldn't go. Was
+there a clergyman, or don't they have a clergyman when--when--"</p>
+<p>"There was a clergyman," said Richard, briefly.</p>
+<p>"I hope you'll take me there some time," I said dreamily.
+"Should you know where to go--exactly?"</p>
+<p>"Exactly," he answered. "But, Pauline, I am afraid you havn't
+rested at all to-day. Have you slept?"</p>
+<p>"No; and I wish I could; my head feels so strangely--light, you
+know--and as if I couldn't think."</p>
+<p>"Haven't you seen the Doctor?"</p>
+<p>"No--and that's what I want to say. I <i>won't</i> have the
+Doctor here; and I want you to take me home to-morrow morning,
+early, I have put a good many of my clothes into my trunk, and
+Bettina will help me with the rest to-night. Isn't there any train
+before the five o'clock?"</p>
+<p>"No," said Richard, uneasily. "Pauline, I think you'd better not
+arrange to go away to-morrow."</p>
+<p>"If you don't take me out of this house I shall go mad. I have
+been thinking about it all day, and I know I shall."</p>
+<p>Richard was silent for a moment, then, with the wise instinct of
+affection, wonderful in man, and in a man who had had no experience
+in dealing with diseased or suffering minds, he acquiesced in my
+plan to go; told me that we would take the earliest train, and
+interested me in thoughts about my packing. About nine o'clock he
+came to my room-door, and I heard some one with him. It was the
+Doctor.</p>
+<p>I turned upon Richard a fierce look, and said, very quietly, he
+might go away, for I would not see the Doctor. After that, they
+tried me with Sophie, but with less success; and, finally, Richard
+came back alone, with a glass in his hand.</p>
+<p>"Take this, Pauline, it will make you sleep."</p>
+<p>I wanted to sleep very much, so I took it.</p>
+<p>Bettina had finished my packing, and had laid my travelling
+dress and hat upon a chair.</p>
+<p>"Shall Bettina come and sleep on the floor, by your bed?" asked
+Richard, anxiously.</p>
+<p>"No, I would not have her for the world."</p>
+<p>"Maybe you might not wake in time," said Richard, warily.</p>
+<p>That was very true: so I let Bettina come. Richard gave her some
+instructions at the door, and she came in and arranged things for
+the night, and lay down on a mattress at the foot of my bed.</p>
+<p>The sedative which the Doctor sent did not work very well. I had
+very little sleep, and that full of such hideous, freezing dreams,
+that every time I woke, I found Bettina standing by my bed, looking
+at me with alarm. I had been screaming and moaning, she said, The
+screaming and moaning and sleeping (such as it was), were all over
+in about two hours, and then I had the rest of the night to endure,
+with the same strange, light feeling in my head--the restlessness
+not much, but somewhat abated.</p>
+<p>I was very glad that Bettina was in the room, for though she was
+sleepy, and always a little stupid, she was human, and I was a
+coward, both in the matter of loneliness and of suffering. I made
+her sit by me, and take hold of my hand, and I asked her several
+times if she had ever been with any one that died, or that--I did
+not quite dare to ask her about going mad.</p>
+<p>My questions seemed to trouble her. She crossed herself, and
+shuddered, and said, No, she had never been with any one that died,
+and she prayed the good God never to let her be.</p>
+<p>"You'll have to be with one person that dies, Bettina. That's
+yourself. You know it's got to come. We've all got to go out at
+that gate," and I moaned, and turned my face away.</p>
+<p>"Let me call Mr. Richard," said Bettina, very much afraid. I
+would have given all the world to have seen Richard then; but I
+knew it was impossible, and I said, No, it would soon be
+morning.</p>
+<p>Long before morning, I heard Richard up and walking about the
+house. We were to leave the house at half-past four. By four, all
+the trunks, and shawls, and packages, were strapped and ready, and
+I was sitting dressed, and waiting by the window.</p>
+<p>Bettina liked very much better to pack trunks, and put rooms in
+order, than to sit still and hold a person's hot hands, in the
+middle of the night, and have dreadful questions asked her; and she
+had been very active and efficient. Soon Richard called her to come
+down and take my breakfast up to me. I could not eat it, and it was
+taken away. Then the carriage came, and the wagon to take the
+baggage. Finally, Richard came, and told me it was time to start,
+if I were ready.</p>
+<p>Sophie came into the room in a wrapper, looking very dutiful and
+patient, and said all that was dutiful and civil. But I suppose I
+was a fiery trial to her, and she wished, no doubt, that she had
+never seen me, or better, that Richard never had. All this I felt,
+through her decently framed good-bye, but I did not care at all; to
+be out of her sight as soon as possible, was all that I
+requested.</p>
+<p>When we went down in the hall, Richard looked anxiously at me,
+but I did not feel as if I had ever been there before; I really had
+no feeling. I said good-bye to Bettina, who was the only servant
+that I saw, and Richard put me into the carriage. When, we drove
+away, I did not even look back. As we passed out of the gate, I
+said to him, "What day of the month is it to-day?"</p>
+<p>"It is the first of September," he returned.</p>
+<p>"And when did I come here?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"Early in June, was it not?" he said. "You know I was not
+here."</p>
+<p>"Then it is not three months," and I leaned back wearily in the
+carriage, and was silent.</p>
+<p>Before we reached the city, Richard had good reason to think
+that I was very ill. He made me as comfortable as he could, poor
+fellow! but I was so restless, I could not keep in one position two
+minutes at a time. Several times I turned to him and said, "It is
+suffocating in this car; cannot the window be put up?" and when it
+was put up, I would seem to feel no relief, and in a few moments,
+perhaps, would be shaking with a nervous chill. It must have been a
+miserable journey, as I remember it. Once I said to Richard, after
+some useless trouble I had put him to, "I am very sorry, Richard, I
+don't know how to help it, I feel so dreadfully."</p>
+<p>Richard tried to answer, but his voice was husky, and he bent
+his head down to arrange the bundle of shawls beneath my feet. I
+knew that there were tears in his eyes, and that that was the
+reason that he did not speak. It made me strangely, momentarily
+grateful.</p>
+<p>"How strange that you should be so good," I said dreamily, "when
+Sophie is so hateful, and Kilian is so trifling. I think your
+mother must have been a good woman."</p>
+<p>I had never talked about Richard's mother before, never even
+thought whether he had had one or not, in my supreme and
+light-hearted selfishness. But the mind, at such a point as I was
+then, makes strange plunges out of its own orbit.</p>
+<p>"And she died when you were little?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, when I was scarcely twelve years old."</p>
+<p>"A woman ought to be very good when it makes so much difference
+to her children. Richard, did my uncle ever tell you anything about
+my mother--what sort of a woman she was, and whether I am like
+her?"</p>
+<p>"He never said a great deal to me about it," Richard answered,
+not looking at me as he talked. "He thinks you are like her, very
+strikingly, I believe."</p>
+<p>"Think! I haven't even a scrap of a picture of her, and no one
+has ever talked to me about her. All I have are some old yellow
+letters to my father, written before I was born. I think she loved
+my father very much. The noise of these cars makes me feel so
+strangely. Can't we go into the one behind? I am sure it cannot be
+so bad."</p>
+<p>"This is the best car on the train, Pauline. I know the noise is
+very bad, but try to bear it for a little while. We shall soon be
+there." And so on, through the weary journey.</p>
+<p>At one station Richard got out, and I saw him speaking to
+several men. I believe he was hoping to find a doctor, for he was
+thoroughly frightened.</p>
+<p>Before we reached the city I was past being frightened for
+myself, for I was suffering too much to think of what might be the
+result of my condition. When we left the cars, and Richard put me
+in a carriage, the motion of the carriage and its jarring over the
+stones were almost unendurable. Richard was too anxious now to say
+much to me. The expression of relief on his face as we reached
+Varick-street was unspeakable. He hurried up the steps and rang the
+bell, then came back for me, and half carried me up the steps.</p>
+<p>The door was opened by Ann Coddle, who was thrown into a
+helpless state of amazement by seeing me, not knowing why in this
+condition I did come, or why I came at all. She shrieked, and
+ejaculated, and backed almost down the basement stairs. Richard
+sternly told her she was acting like a fool, and ordered her to
+show him where Miss Pauline's room was, that he might take her to
+it.</p>
+<p>"But her room isn't ready," ejaculated Ann, coming to herself,
+which was a wretched thing to come to, as poor Richard found.</p>
+<p>"Not ready? well, make it ready, then. Go before me and open the
+windows, and I will put her on the sofa till you have the bed ready
+for her."</p>
+<p>"The sofa--oh, Mr. Richard, it's all full of her dear clothes
+that have come up from the wash."</p>
+<p>"Well, then, take them off--idiot--and do as you are told."</p>
+<p>"Oh, Miss Pauline--oh, my poor, dear lamb. Oh, I'm all in a
+flutter; I don't know what to do. I'd better call the cook."</p>
+<p>"Well, call the cook, then," said Richard, groaning, "only tell
+her to be quick."</p>
+<p>All this time Richard was supporting me up the stairs. As we
+reached the top, Richard called out, "Tell Peter I want him at
+once, to take a message for me."</p>
+<p>Ann was watching our progress up the stairs, with groans and
+ejaculations, forgetting that she was to call the cook. At the
+mention of Peter she exclaimed,</p>
+<p>"He's laid up with the rheumatism, Mr. Richard. Oh, whatever
+shall we do!"</p>
+<p>When we reached the middle of the second pair of stairs, I was
+almost helpless; Richard took me in his arms, and carried me.</p>
+<p>"Is it this door, Pauline dear?" he said, opening the first he
+came to.</p>
+<p>I should think the room had not been opened since I went away,
+it was so warm and close.</p>
+<p>Richard carried me to the sofa, and scattered the
+<i>lingerie</i> far and wide as he laid me down upon it, and went
+to open the windows. Then he went to the bell and pulled it
+violently. In a few moments the cook came up (accompanied by Ann).
+She was a huge, unwieldy woman, but she had some intelligence, and
+knew better than to whimper.</p>
+<p>"Miss Pauline is ill," he said, "and I want you to stay by her,
+and not leave her for a moment, till I come back. Make that woman
+get the room in order instantly, and keep everything as quiet as
+you can." To me: "I am going to bring a doctor, and I shall be back
+in a few moments. Do not worry, they will take good care of
+you."</p>
+<p>When I heard Richard shut the carriage-door and drive away
+rapidly, I felt as if I were abandoned, and by the time he returned
+with the Doctor, I was in a state that warranted them in supposing
+me unconscious, tossing and moaning, and uttering inarticulate
+words.</p>
+<p>The Doctor stood beside me, and talked about me to Richard with
+as much freedom as if I had been a corpse.</p>
+<p>"I may as well be frank with you," he said, after a few moments
+of examination. "I apprehend great trouble from the brain. How long
+has she been in this condition?"</p>
+<p>"She has been unlike herself since yesterday; as soon as I saw
+her, at seven o'clock last night, I noticed she was looking badly.
+She answered me in an abstracted, odd way, and was unlike herself,
+as I have said. But she had been under much excitement for some
+time."</p>
+<p>"Tell me, if you please, all about it; and how long she has been
+under this excitement."</p>
+<p>"She has been often agitated, and quite overstrained in feeling
+for some time. Three weeks ago I thought her looking badly. Two
+days ago she had a frightful shock--a suicide--which she was the
+first to discover. Since then I do not think that she has
+slept."</p>
+<p>"Ah! poor young lady. She has had a terrible experience, and is
+paying for it. Now for what we can do for her. In the first place,
+who takes care of her?" with a look about the room.</p>
+<p>"You may well ask. I have just brought her home, and find here,
+the man-servant ill, one woman too old and inactive to perform much
+service, and another to whom I would not trust her for a moment. I
+must ask <i>you</i>, who shall I get to take care of her?"</p>
+<p>"You have no friend, no one to whom you could send in such a
+case? One of life and death,--I hope you understand?"</p>
+<p>"None," answered Richard, with a groan. "There is not a person
+in the city to whom I could send for help. All my family--all our
+friends, are away. Is there no one that can be got for money--any
+money? no nurse that you could recommend?"</p>
+<p>"I have a list of twenty. Yesterday I sent to every one, for a
+dangerous case of hemorrhage, and could not find one disengaged. It
+may be to-morrow night before you get on the track of one that is
+at liberty, if you hunt the city over. And this girl is in need of
+instant care; her life hangs on it, you must see."</p>
+<p>"In God's name, then," said Richard, with a groan, pacing up and
+down the room, "what am I to do?"</p>
+<p>"In <i>His</i> name, if you come, to that," said the Doctor, who
+was a good sort of man, notwithstanding his professional cool ways,
+"there is a sisterhood, that I am told offer to do things like
+this. I never sent to them, for I only heard of it a short time
+ago; but if you have no objection to crosses, and caps, and
+ritualistic nonsense in its highest flower, I have no doubt, that
+they will let you have a sister, and that she'll do good service
+here."</p>
+<p>"The direction," said Richard, too eager to be civil. "How am I
+to get there?"</p>
+<p>The Doctor pulled over a pocket-case of loose papers, and at
+last found one, which he handed his companion.</p>
+<p>"I give you three quarters of an hour to get back," he said. "I
+will stay here till then, at all events. Do not waste any time--nor
+spare any eloquence," he added to himself, as Richard hurried from
+the room.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX."></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+<h3>SISTER MADELINE.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>Yes! it is well for us: from these alarms,<br>
+Like children scared, we fly into thine arms;<br>
+And pressing sorrows put our pride to rout<br>
+With a swift faith which has not time to doubt.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Faber.</i><br>
+<br>
+Learn by a mortal yearning to ascend<br>
+Towards a higher object. Love was given,<br>
+Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end;<br>
+For this the passion to excess was driven---<br>
+That self might be annulled; her bondage prove<br>
+The fetters of a dream, opposed to love.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Wordsworth</i>.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>The next thing that I recall, is rousing from slumber, or
+something related to slumber, and seeing a tall woman in the dress
+of a sister, standing by my bed. It was night, and there was a lamp
+upon a table near. The unusual dress, and the unfamiliarity of her
+whole appearance, made me start and stare at her, half raising
+myself in the bed.</p>
+<p>"Why did you come here?" I said. "Who sent for you?"</p>
+<p>"I came because you were sick and suffering, and I was sent in
+the Name ----" and bending her head slightly, she said a Name too
+sacred for these pages.</p>
+<p>I gave a great sigh of relief, and sank back on my pillow. Her
+answer satisfied me, for I was not able to reason. I let her hold
+my hand; and all through that dark and troubled time submitted to
+her will, and desired her presence, and was soothed by her voice
+and touch.</p>
+<p>Sister Madeline was not at all the ideal sister, being tall and
+dark, and with nothing peculiarly devotional or pensive in her cast
+of feature. Her face was a fine, earnest one. Her movements were
+full of energy and decision, though not quick or sharp. The whole
+impression left was that of one by nature far from humility,
+tenderness, devotion; but, by the force of a magnificent faith,
+made passionately humble, devout from the very heart, more than
+humanly compassionate and tender.</p>
+<p>I never felt toward her as if she were "born so"--but as if she
+were rescued from the world by some great effort or experience; as
+if it were all "made ground," reclaimed from nature by infinite
+patience and incessant labor. She lived the life of an angel upon
+the earth. I never saw her, by look, by word, or tone, transgress
+the least of the commandments, so wonderful was the curb she held
+over all her human feelings. Nor was this perfection attained by a
+sudden and grand sacrifice; the consecration of herself to the
+religious life was not the "single step 'twixt earth and heaven,"
+but it was attained by daily and hourly study--by the practice of a
+hundred self-denials--by the most accurate science of spiritual
+progress.</p>
+<p>Doubtless, saints can be made in other ways, but this is one way
+they can be made, starting with a sincere intention to serve God.
+At least, so I believe, from knowing Sister Madeline.</p>
+<p>She made a great change in my life, and I owe her a great deal.
+It is not strange I feel enthusiasm for her. I cannot bear to think
+what my coming back to life would have been without her.</p>
+<p>Of the alarming nature of my illness, I only know that there
+were several days when Richard never left the house, but waited,
+hour after hour, in the library below, for the news of my
+condition, and when even Uncle Leonard came home in the middle of
+the day, and walked about the house, silent and unapproachable.</p>
+<p>One night--how well I remember it! I had been convalescent, I do
+not know how long; I had passed the childish state of interest in
+my <i>bouilli</i>, and fretfulness about my <i>peignoir</i>; my
+mind had begun to regain its ordinary power, and with the first
+efforts of memory and thought had come fearful depression and
+despondency. I was so weak, physically, that I could not fight
+against this in the least. Sister Madeline came to my bedside, and
+found me in an agony of weeping. It was not an easy matter to gain
+my confidence, for I thought she knew nothing of me, and I was not
+equal to the mental effort of explaining myself; she was only
+associated with my illness. But at last she made me understand that
+she was not ignorant of a great deal that troubled me.</p>
+<p>"Who has told you?" I said, my heart hardening itself against
+Richard, who could have spoken of my trouble to a stranger.</p>
+<p>"You, yourself," she answered me.</p>
+<p>"I have raved?" I said.</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"And who has heard me?"</p>
+<p>"No one else. I sent every one else from the room whenever your
+delirium became intelligible."</p>
+<p>This made me grateful toward her; and I longed for sympathy. I
+threw my arms about her and wept bitterly.</p>
+<p>"Then you know that I can never cry enough," I said.</p>
+<p>"I do not know that," she answered. After a vain attempt to
+soothe me with general words of comfort, she said, with much
+wisdom, "Tell me exactly what thought gives you the most pain, now,
+at this moment."</p>
+<p>"The thought of his dreadful act, and that by it he has lost his
+soul."</p>
+<p>"We know with Whom all things are possible," she said, "and we
+do not know what cloud may have been over his reason at that
+moment. Would it comfort you to pray for him?"</p>
+<p>"Ought I?" I asked, raising my head.</p>
+<p>"I do not know any reason that you ought not," she returned.
+"Shall I say some prayers for him now?"</p>
+<p>I grasped her hand: she took a little book from her pocket, and
+knelt down beside me, holding my hand in hers. Oh, the mercy, the
+relief of those prayers! They may not have done him any good, but
+they did me. The hopeless grief that was killing me, I "wept it
+from my heart" that hour.</p>
+<p>"Promise me one thing," I whispered as she rose, "that you will
+read that prayer, every hour during the day, to-morrow, by my bed,
+whether I am sleeping or awake."</p>
+<p>"I promise," she said, and I am sure she kept her word, that day
+and many others after it.</p>
+<p>During my convalescence, which was slow, I had no other person
+near me, and wanted none. Uncle Leonard came in once a day, and
+spent a few minutes, much to his discomfort and my disadvantage.
+Richard I had not seen at all, and dreaded very much to meet. Ann
+Coddle fretted me, and was very little in the room.</p>
+<p>Over these days there is a sort of peace. I was entering upon so
+much that was new and elevating, under the guidance of Sister
+Madeline, and was so entirely influenced by her, that I was brought
+out of my trouble wonderfully. Not out of it, of course, but from
+under its crushing weight. I know that I am rather easily
+influenced, and only too ready to follow those who have won my
+love. Therefore, I am in every way thankful that I came at such a
+time under the influence of a mind like that of Sister
+Madeline.</p>
+<p>But the time was approaching for her to go away. I was well
+enough to do without her, and she had other duties. The sick-room
+peace and indulgence were over, and I must take up the burden of
+every-day life again. I was very unhappy, and felt as if I were
+without stay or guidance.</p>
+<p>"To whom am I to go when I am in doubt?" I said; "you will be so
+far away."</p>
+<p>"That is what I want to arrange: the next time you are able to
+go out, I want to take you to some one who can direct you much
+better than I."</p>
+<p>"A priest?" I asked. "Tell me one thing: will he give me
+absolution?"</p>
+<p>"I suppose he will, if he finds that you desire it."</p>
+<p>"What would be the use of going to him for anything else?" I
+said. "It is the only thing that can give me any comfort."</p>
+<p>"All people do not feel so, Pauline."</p>
+<p>"But you feel so, dear Sister Madeline, do you not? You can
+understand how I am burdened, and how I long to have the bands
+undone?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, Pauline, I can understand."</p>
+<p>I am not inclined to give much weight to my own opinions, and as
+for my feelings, I know they were, then, those of a child, and in
+many ways will always be. I can only say what comforted me, and
+what I longed for. There had always been great force to me, in the
+Scripture that says, "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted
+unto them, and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained," even
+before I felt the burden of my sins.</p>
+<p>I had once seen the ordination of a priest, and I suppose that
+added to the weight of the words ever after in my mind. I never had
+any doubt of the power then conferred, and I no sooner felt the
+guilt and stain of sin upon my soul, than I yearned to hear the
+pardon spoken, that Heaven offered to the penitent. I had been
+tangibly smitten; I longed to be tangibly healed.</p>
+<p>Whatever shame and pain there was about laying bare my soul
+before another, I gladly embraced it, as one poor means at my
+command of showing to Him whom I had offended, that my repentance
+was actual, that I stopped at no humiliation.</p>
+<p>It may very well be that these feelings would find no place in
+larger, grander, more self-reliant natures; that what healed my
+soul would only wound another. I am not prepared to think that one
+remedy is cure for all diseases, but I know what cured mine. I
+bless God for "the soothing hand that Love on Conscience laid." I
+mark that hour as the beginning of a fresh and favored life; the
+dawning of a hope that has not yet lost its power</p>
+<blockquote>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"to
+tame<br>
+The haughty brow, to curb the unchastened eye,<br>
+And shape to deeds of good each wavering aim."</blockquote>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX."></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+<h3>THE HOUR OF DAWN.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>Slowly light came, the thinnest dawn,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Not sunshine, to my night;<br>
+A new, more spiritual thing,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;An advent of pure light.<br>
+<br>
+All grief has its limits, all chastenings their pause;<br>
+Thy love and our weakness are sorrow's two laws.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>The winter that followed seemed very long and uneventful. After
+Sister Madeline went away, my days settled themselves into the
+routine in which they continued to revolve for many months. I was
+as lonely as formerly, save for the companionship of well-chosen
+books, and for the direction of another mind, which I felt to be
+the truest support and guidance. I was taught to bend to my uncle's
+wishes, and to give up constant church-going, and visiting among
+the poor, which would have been such a resource and occupation to
+me. And so my life, outwardly, was very little changed from former
+years--years that I had found almost insupportable, without any
+sorrow; and yet, strange to say, I was not unhappy.</p>
+<p>My hours were full of little duties, little rules. (I suppose my
+heart was in them, or I should have found them irksome.) Above all,
+I was not permitted to brood over the past: I was taught to feel
+that every thought of it indulged, was a sin, and to be accounted
+for as such: I could only remember the one for whom I mourned, on
+my knees, in my prayers. This checked, as nothing else could have
+done, the morbid tendency of grief, in a lonely, unoccupied,
+undisciplined mind. I was thoroughly obedient, and bent myself with
+all simplicity to follow the instructions given me. Sometimes they
+seemed very irrelevant and useless, but I never rebelled against
+any, even one that seemed as hard to flesh and blood as this. And I
+have, sooner or later, seen the wisdom of them all, as I have
+worked out the problem of my correction.</p>
+<p>Obedient as I was, though, and simple as the routine of my life
+continued, sometimes there came crises that were beyond my
+strength.</p>
+<p>I can remember one; it was a furious storm--a day that nailed
+one in the house. There was something in the rage without that
+disturbed me; I wandered about the house, and found myself unable
+to settle to any task. Some one to speak to! Oh, it was so dreary
+to be alone. I went into my uncle's room where there were many
+books. Among those that were there I found one in French, (I have
+no idea how it came there, I am sure my uncle had never read it.) I
+carelessly turned it over, and finally became absorbed in it. I
+came upon this passage:</p>
+<blockquote>Quel plus noir ab&icirc;me d'angoisse y a-t-il an
+monde que le coeur d'un suicide? Quand le malheur d'un homme est
+d&ucirc; &agrave; quelque circonstance de sa vie, on pent
+esp&eacute;rer de l'en voir d&eacute;livrer par un changement qui
+pent survenir dans sa position. Mais lorsque ce malheur a sa source
+en lui; quand c'est l'&acirc;me elle-m&ecirc;me qui est le tourment
+de l'&acirc;me; la vie elle-m&ecirc;me qui est le fardeau de la
+vie; que faire, que de reconna&icirc;tre en g&eacute;missant qu'il
+n'y a rien &agrave; faire--rien, selon le monde; et qu'un tel
+homme, plus &agrave; plaindre que ce prisonnier que l'histoire nous
+peint dans les angoisses de la faim, se repaissant de sa propre
+chair, est r&eacute;duit &agrave; d&eacute;vorer la substance
+m&ecirc;me de son &acirc;me dans les horreurs de son
+d&eacute;sespoir. Et qu'imagine-t-il done pour &eacute;chapper
+&agrave; lui-m&ecirc;me, comme &agrave; son plus cruel ennemi? Je
+ne dis pas: 'O&ugrave; ira-t-il loin de l'esprit de Dieu? o&ugrave;
+fuira-t-il loin de sa face?' Je demande, o&ugrave; ira-t-il loin de
+son propre esprit? o&ugrave; fuira-t-il loin de sa propre face?
+O&ugrave; descendra-t-il qu'il ne s'y suive lui-m&ecirc;me;
+o&ugrave; se cachera-t-il qu'il ne s'y trouve encore?
+Insens&eacute;, dont la folie &eacute;gale la mis&egrave;re, quand
+tu te seras tu&eacute;, on dira: 'Il est mort;' mais ce sont les
+autres qui le diront; ce ne sera pas toi-m&ecirc;me. Tu seras mort
+pour ton pays, mort pour ta ville, mort pour ta famille; mais pour
+toi-m&ecirc;me, pour ce qui pense en toi, h&eacute;las! pour ce qui
+souffre en toi, tu vivras toujours.<br>
+<br>
+Et comment ne sens-tu pas, que pour cesser d'&ecirc;tre malheureux,
+ce n'est pas ta place qu'il faut changer, c'est ton coeur. Que tu
+disparaisses sous les flots, qu'un plomb meurtrier brise ta
+t&ecirc;te, ou qu'un poison subtil glace tes veines; quoi que tu
+fasses, et o&ugrave; que tu ailles, tu n'y peux aller qu'avec
+toi-m&ecirc;me, qu'avec ton coeur, qu'avec ta mis&egrave;re! Que
+dis-je? Tu y vas avec un compte de plus &agrave; rendre, &agrave;
+la rencontre du grand Dieu qui doit te juger; tu y vas avec
+l'&eacute;ternit&eacute; de plus pour souffrir, et le temps de
+moins pour te repentir!<br>
+<br>
+A moins que tu ne penses peut-&ecirc;tre, parceque l'oeil de
+l'homme n'a rien vu au-del&agrave; de la tombe, que cette vie n'ait
+pas de suite. Mais non, tu ne saurais le croire! Quand tous les
+autres le penseraient, toi, tu ne le pourrais pas. Tu as une preuve
+d'immortalit&eacute; qui t'appartient en propre. Cette tristesse
+qui te consume, est quelque chose de trop intime et de trop profond
+pour se dissoudre avec tes organes, et ce qui est capable de tant
+souffrir ne pent pas s'aller perdre dans la terre. Les vers
+h&eacute;riteront de la poussi&egrave;re de ton corps, mais
+l'amertume de ton &acirc;me, qui en h&eacute;ritera? Ces extases
+sublimes, ces tourments affreux; ces hauteurs des cieux, ces
+profondeurs des ab&icirc;mes; qu'y a-t-il d'assez grand ou d'assez
+abaiss&eacute;, d'assez &eacute;lev&eacute; ou d'assez avili pour
+les rev&ecirc;tir en ta place? Non, tu ne saurais jamais croire que
+tout meurt avec le corps; ou si tu le pouvais tu n'en serais que
+plus insens&eacute;, plus mis&eacute;rable encore.</blockquote>
+<p>It is proof how child-like I had been, how obedient in
+suppressing all forbidden thoughts, that these words smote me with
+such horror. I had indulged in no speculation; I had never thought
+of him as haunted by the self he fled; as still bound to an
+inexorable and inextinguishable life,</p>
+<blockquote>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+"With time and hope behind him cast,<br>
+And all his work to do with palsied hands and cold."</blockquote>
+<p>The terrors I had had, had been vague. I had thought dimly of
+punishment, more keenly of separation. If I had analysed my
+thoughts, I suppose I should have found annihilation to have been
+my belief--death forever, loss eternal. But this--if this were
+truth--(and it smote me as the truth alone can smite), oh, it was
+maddening. To my knees! To my knees! Oh, that I might live long
+years to pray for him! Oh, that I might stretch out my hands to God
+for him, withered with age and shrunk with fasting, and strong but
+in faith and final perseverance! Oh, it could not be too late! What
+was prayer made for, but for a time like this? What was this little
+breath of time, compared with the Eternal Years, that we should
+only speak <i>now</i> for each other to our merciful God, and never
+speak for each other afterward? Spirits are forever; and is prayer
+only for the days of the body?</p>
+<p>It was well for me that none of the doubts that are so often
+expressed had found any lodgment in my brain; if I had not believed
+that I had a right to pray for him, and that my prayers might help
+him, I cannot understand how I could have lived through those
+nights and days of thought.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI."></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+<h3>APRS&Eacute; PERDRE, PERD ON BIEN.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>What to those who understand<br>
+Are to-day's enjoyments narrow,<br>
+Which to-morrow go again,<br>
+Which are shared with evil men,<br>
+And of which no man in his dying<br>
+Taketh aught for softer lying?</blockquote>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>It was now early spring: the days were lengthening and were
+growing soft. Lent (late that year) was nearly over. I had begun to
+think much about the summer, and to wonder if I were to pass it in
+the city. There was one thing that the winter had developed in me,
+and that was, a sort of affection for my uncle. I had learned that
+I owed him a duty, and had tried to find ways of fulfilling it; had
+taken a little interest in the house, and had tried to make him
+more comfortable. Also I had prayed very constantly for him, and
+perhaps there is no way more certain of establishing an affection,
+or at least a charity for another, than that.</p>
+<p>In return, he had been a little more human to me than formerly,
+had shown some interest in my health, and continued appreciation of
+the fact that I was in the house. Once he had talked to me, for
+perhaps half an hour, about my mother, for which I was unspeakably
+grateful. Several times he had given me a good deal of money, which
+I had cared much less about. Latterly he had permitted me to go to
+church alone, which had seemed to me must be owing to Richard's
+intervention.</p>
+<p>Richard had been almost as much as formerly at the house: my
+uncle was becoming more and more dependent on him. For myself, I
+did not see as much of him as the year before. We were always
+together at the table, of course. But the evenings that Richard was
+with my uncle, I thought it unnecessary for me to stay down-stairs.
+Besides, now, they almost always had writing or business affairs to
+occupy them.</p>
+<p>It was natural that I should go away, and no one seemed to
+notice it. Richard still brought me books, still arranged things
+for me with my uncle (as in the matter of going to church alone),
+but we had no more talks together by ourselves, and he never asked
+me to go anywhere with him. At Christmas he sent me beautiful
+flowers, and a picture for my room. Sophie I rarely saw, and only
+longed never to see Benny was permitted to come and spend a day
+with me, at great intervals, and I enjoyed him more than his mother
+or his uncle.</p>
+<p>One day my uncle went down to his office in his usual health; at
+three o'clock he was brought home senseless, and only lived till
+midnight, dying without recovering speech or consciousness. It was
+a sudden seizure, but what everybody had expected; everybody was
+shocked for the moment, and then wondered that they were. It was
+very appalling to me; I was so unhappy, I almost believed I loved
+him, and I certainly mourned for him with simplicity and
+affection.</p>
+<p>The preparations for the funeral were so frightful, and all the
+thoughts it brought so unnerving, that I was almost ill. A great
+deal came upon me, in trying to manage the wailing servants, and in
+helping Richard in arrangements.</p>
+<p>It was the day after the funeral; I was tired, out, and had lain
+down on the sofa in the dining-room, partly because I hated to be
+alone up-stairs, and partly because it was not far from lunch-time,
+and I felt too weary to take any needless steps. I don't think ever
+in my life before I had lain down on that sofa, or had spent two
+hours except, at the table, in that room. It was a most cheerless
+room, and no one ever thought of sitting down in it, except at
+mealtime. I closed the shutters and darkened it to suit my eyes,
+which ached, and I think must have fallen asleep.</p>
+<p>The parlor was the room which adjoined the dining-room (only two
+large rooms on one floor, as they used to build), and separated
+from it by heavy mahogany columns and sliding-doors. These doors
+were half-way open, and I was roused by voices in the parlor. As
+soon as I recovered myself from the sudden waking, I recognized
+Sophie's and then Richard's. I wondered what Richard was doing
+up-town at that hour, and so Sophie did too, for she asked him very
+plainly.</p>
+<p>"I thought I ought to come to see Pauline," she said, "but I did
+not suppose I should find you here in the middle of the day."</p>
+<p>"There is something that I've got to see Pauline about at once,"
+he said, "and so I was obliged to come up-town."</p>
+<p>"Nothing has happened?" she said interrogatively.</p>
+<p>"No," he answered, evasively.</p>
+<p>But she went on: "I suppose it's something in relation to the
+will; I hope she's well provided for, poor thing."</p>
+<p>"Sophie," said her brother, with a change of tone, "You'll have
+to hear it some time, and perhaps you may as well hear it now. It
+is that that I have come up-town about; there has been some strange
+mistake made; there is no will."</p>
+<p>"No will!" echoed Sophie, "Why, you told me once--"</p>
+<p>"That he had left her everything. So he told me twice last year;
+so I have always believed to be the case. Since the day he died,
+the most faithful search has been made; there is not a corner of
+his office, of his library, of his room, that I have not hunted
+through. He was so methodical in business matters, so exact in the
+care of his papers, that I had little hope, after I had gone
+through his desk. I cannot understand it. It is altogether dark to
+me."</p>
+<p>"What can have made him change his mind about it, Richard? Can
+he have heard anything about last summer?"</p>
+<p>"Not from me, Sophie. But I have sometimes thought he knew, from
+allusions that he has made to her mother's marriage, more than once
+this winter."</p>
+<p>"He was very angry about that, at the time, I suppose?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, I imagine so. The man she married was poor, and a
+foreigner: two things he hated. I never heard there was anything
+against him but his poverty."</p>
+<p>"How can he have heard about Mr. Langenau?" said Sophie,
+musingly.</p>
+<p>"I think Pauline must have told him," said Richard.</p>
+<p>"Pauline? never. She is much too clever; she never told him. You
+may be quite sure of <i>that</i>."</p>
+<p>"Pauline clever! Poor Pauline!" said Richard, with a short,
+sarcastic laugh, which had the effect of making Sophie angry.</p>
+<p>"I am willing," she said, "that she should be as stupid and as
+good as you can wish--. To whom does the money go?" she added, as
+if she had not patience for the other subject.</p>
+<p>"To a brother, with whom he had a quarrel, and whom he had not
+seen for over sixteen years."</p>
+<p>"Incredible!"</p>
+<p>"But there had been some sort of a reconciliation, at least an
+exchange of letters, within these three months past."</p>
+<p>"Ah!"</p>
+<p>"And it is in consequence of hearing from him, and being pressed
+by his lawyer for an immediate settlement of the estate, that I
+have come up to tell Pauline, and to prepare her for her changed
+prospects."</p>
+<p>"And what do you propose to advise?" asked Sophie, with a
+chilling voice.</p>
+<p>"Heaven knows, Sophie," answered her brother, with a heavy sigh.
+"I see nothing ahead for the poor girl, but loneliness and trial.
+She is utterly unfit to struggle with the world. And she has not
+even a shelter for her head."</p>
+<p>"Richard," interrupted his sister, with intensity of feeling in
+her voice, "I see what you are trying to persuade yourself: do not
+tell me, after what has passed, you still feel that you are bound
+to her--"</p>
+<p>"<i>Bound!</i>" exclaimed Richard, with a vehemence most strange
+in him, as, pacing the room, he stood still before his sister. His
+back was toward me. She was so absorbed she did not see me as I
+darted past the folding-doors into the hall. As I flew panting up
+to my own room, I remember one feeling above all others, the first
+feeling of affection toward the house that I had ever had. It was
+mine no longer, my home never again; I had no right to stay in it a
+moment: my own room was not mine any more--the room where I had
+learned to pray, and to try to lead a good life--the room where I
+had lain when I was so near to death--the room where Sister
+Madeline had led me to such peaceful, quiet thoughts. I had but one
+wish now, not to see Richard, to escape Sophie, to get away forever
+from this house to which I had no right. I pulled down my hat and
+my street things, and dressed so quickly, that I had slipped down
+the stairs, and out into the street, before they had ceased talking
+in the parlor. I heard their voices, very low, as I passed through
+the hall. I fully meant never to come back to the house again--not
+to be turned out.</p>
+<p>My heart swelled as the door closed behind me. It was dreadful
+not to have a home. I was so unused to being in the street alone,
+that I felt frightened when I reached the cars and stopped
+them.</p>
+<p>I was going to Sister Madeline. She would take me, and keep me,
+and teach me where to live, and how. I was a little confused, and
+got out at the wrong street, and had to walk several blocks before
+I reached the house.</p>
+<p>The servant at the door met me with an answer that made me
+wonder whether there were anything else to happen to me on that
+day.</p>
+<p>Sister Madeline had been called away--had gone on a long
+journey--something about the illness of her brother; and I must not
+come inside the door, for a contagious disease was raging, and the
+orders were strict that no one be admitted. I had walked so fast,
+and in such excitement of feeling, that I was weak and faint when I
+turned to go down the steps. Where should I go? I walked on slowly
+now, and undecided, for I had no aim.</p>
+<p>The clergyman to whom I had gone for direction in matters
+spiritual, was ill--for two weeks had given up even Lenten duties.
+Anything--but I could not go home, or rather where home had been. I
+walked and walked till I was almost fainting, and found myself in
+the Park. There the lovely indications of spring, and the quiet,
+and the fresh air, soothed me, and I sat down under some trees near
+the water, and rested myself. But the same giddy whirl of thoughts
+came back, the same incompetency to deal with such strange facts,
+and the same confusion. I do not know how long I wandered about;
+but I was faint and weary and hungry, and frightened too, for
+people were beginning to look at me.</p>
+<p>It began to force itself upon me that I must go back to
+Varick-street after all, and take a fresh start. Then I began to
+think how I should get back, on which side must I go to find the
+cars--where was I, literally. Then I sat down to wait, till I
+should see some policeman, or some kind-looking person, near me, to
+whom I could apply for this very necessary information. In the
+meantime I took out my purse to see if I had the proper change.
+Verily, not that, nor any change at all! My heart actually stood
+still. Yes, it was very true: I had given away, right and left,
+during this Lent: caring nothing for money, and being very sure of
+more when this was gone. I was literally penniless. I had not even
+the money to ride home in the cars.</p>
+<p>Till a person has felt this sensation, he has not had one of the
+most remarkable experiences of life. To know where you can get
+money, to feel that there is some <i>dernier ressort</i> however
+hateful to you, is one thing; but to <i>know</i> that you have not
+a cent--not a prospect of getting one--not a hope of earning
+one--no means of living--this is suffocation. This is the stopping
+of that breath that keeps the world alive.</p>
+<p>The bench on which I happened to be sitting was one of those
+pretty, little, covered seats, which jut out into the lake. I
+looked down into the water as I sat with my empty purse in my lap,
+and remembered vaguely the many narratives I had seen in the
+newspapers about unaccounted-for and unknown suicides. I could see
+how it might be inevitable--a sort of pressure, a fatality that
+might not be resisted. Even cowardice might be overcome when that
+pressure was put on.</p>
+<p>It is a very amazing thing to feel that you have no money, nor
+any means of getting even eightpence: it chokes you: you feel as if
+the wheel had made its last revolution, and there was no power to
+make it turn again. It is not any question of pride, or of
+independence, when it comes suddenly; it is a feeling of the
+inevitable; you do not turn to others. You feel your individual
+failure, and you stand alone.</p>
+<p>For myself, this was my reflection: I had not even a shelter for
+my head; Richard had said so. I had not a cent of money, and I had
+no means of earning any. The uncle who was coming to take
+possession of the house and furniture, was one whom I had been
+taught to distrust and dread. He would, perhaps, not even let me go
+into my room again, and would turn me out to-morrow, if he came: my
+clothes--were <i>they</i> even mine, or would they be given to me,
+if they were? This uncle had reproached Uncle Leonard once for what
+he had done for me. I had even an idea that it was about my
+mother's marriage that the quarrel had occurred. And hard as I had
+regarded Uncle Leonard, he had been the soft-hearted one of the
+brothers, who had sheltered the little girl (after he had thrown
+off the mother, and broken her poor heart).</p>
+<p>The house in Varick-street would be broken up. What would become
+of the cook, and Ann Coddle? It would be easier for them to live
+than for me.</p>
+<p>They could get work to do, for they knew how to work, and people
+would employ them. I--I could do nothing, I had been taught to do
+nothing. I had never been directed how to hem a handkerchief. I had
+tried to dust my room one day, and the effort had tired me
+dreadfully, and did not look very well, as a result. I could not
+teach. I had been educated in a slipshod way, no one directing
+anything about it--just what it occurred to the person who had
+charge of me to put before me.</p>
+<p>I had intended to throw myself upon Sister Madeline. But what
+then? What could she have done for me? I had asked her months
+before if I could not be a sister, and had been discouraged both by
+her and by my director. I believe they thought I was too young and
+too pretty, and, in fact, had no vocation. No doubt they thought I
+might soon look upon things differently, when my trouble was a
+little older.</p>
+<p>And Richard--I did not give Richard many thoughts that day, for
+my heart was sore, when I remembered all his words. He had always
+thought that I was to be rich; perhaps that had made him so long
+patient with me. He had said I was not clever; he had seemed to be
+very sorry for me. He might well be. Sophie had asked him if he
+were still bound to me. I had not heard all his answer, but he had
+spoken in a tone of scorn. I did not want to think about him.</p>
+<p>There was no whither to turn myself for help. And the clergyman,
+who had been more than kind to me, who had seemed to help me with
+words and counsel out of heaven,--he was cut off from my succor,
+and I stood alone--I, who was so dependent, so naturally timid, and
+so easily mistaken.</p>
+<p>It was a dreary hour of my life, that hour that I sat looking
+over at the water of the pretty placid lake. I don't like to recall
+it. Some one passed by me, gave an exclamation of surprise, and
+came back hastily. It was Richard. He seemed so glad, and so
+relieved to see me--and to me it was like Heaven opening;
+notwithstanding my vindictive thoughts about him, I could have
+sprung into his arms; I felt protected, safe, the moment he was by
+me. I tried to speak, and then began to cry.</p>
+<p>"I've been looking for you these last two hours," he said,
+sitting down beside me. "I came up-town to see you, and found you
+had gone out. I thought you would not be likely to go anywhere but
+to see Sister Madeline, and there the servant told me you had come
+this way. I could not find you here, and went back to
+Varick-street, then was frightened at hearing you had not come
+back, and returned again to look for you. What made you stay so
+long? Something has happened. Tell me what you are crying for."</p>
+<p>I had no talent for acting, and not much discretion when I was
+excited; and he found out very soon that I knew what had befallen
+me. (I think he believed that Sophie had told me of it.)</p>
+<p>"Were you very much surprised?" he said. "Had you supposed that
+you would be his heiress?"</p>
+<p>"Why, no. I had not thought anything about it. I am afraid I
+have not thought much about anything this winter. I must have been
+very ungrateful, as well as childish, for I never have felt as if
+it were fortunate that I had a home, and as much money as I wanted.
+I did not care anything about being rich, you know--ever."</p>
+<p>"No, I know you did not. I was sure you would have been
+satisfied with a very moderate provision."</p>
+<p>"Oh, Richard," I cried, clasping my hands together, "if he had
+left me a little--just a little--just a few hundred dollars, when
+he had so much, to have kept me from having to work, when I don't
+know how to work, and am such a child."</p>
+<p>"Work!" he exclaimed, looking down at me as if I were something
+so exquisite and so precious, that the very thought was
+profanation. "Work! no, Pauline, you shall not have to work."</p>
+<p>"But what can I do?" I said, "I have nothing--and you know it;
+not a shelter; not the money to pay for my breakfast to-morrow
+morning. Not a person to whom I have a right to go for help; not a
+human being who is bound to care for me. Oh, I don't care what
+becomes of me; I wish that it were time for me to die."</p>
+<p>Richard got up, and paced up and down the little platform with
+an absorbed look.</p>
+<p>"It was so strange," I went on, "when he seemed this winter to
+take a little notice of me, and to want to have me near him. I
+really almost thought he cared for me. And when I was so ill last
+Fall, don't you remember how often he used to come up to my
+room?"</p>
+<p>"I remember--yes. It is all very strange."</p>
+<p>"And some days early in the winter, when I could scarcely speak
+at table, I was so unhappy, he would look at me so long, and seem
+to think. And then would be very kind and gentle afterward, and do
+something to show he liked me--give me money, you know, as he
+always did."</p>
+<p>"Tell me, Pauline: did he ever ask you anything about last
+summer, or did you ever tell him?"</p>
+<p>"No, Richard, I could never have spoken to him about it; and he
+never asked me. But I know he saw that I was not happy."</p>
+<p>"Pauline," said Richard, after a pause, and as if forcing
+himself to speak, "there is no use in disguising from you what your
+position is: you know it yourself, enough of it, at least, to make
+you understand why I speak now. I don't know of any way out of it,
+but one; and I feel as if it were ungenerous to press that on you
+now, and, Heaven knows, I would not do it if I could think of
+anything else to offer to you. You know, Pauline, that if you will
+marry me, you will have everything that you need, as much as if
+your uncle had left you everything."</p>
+<p>He did not look at me, but paced up and down the platform, and
+spoke with a thick, husky voice.</p>
+<p>"You know it's been the object of my life, ever since I knew
+you, but I don't want that to influence you. I know it is too soon,
+a great deal too soon. And I would not have done it, if I could
+have seen anything else to do, or if you could have done without
+me."</p>
+<p>I must have been deadly pale, for when at last he looked at me,
+he started.</p>
+<p>"I don't know how it is," he said, with a groan, "I always have
+to give you pain, when, Heaven knows, I'd give my life to spare you
+every suffering. I can't see any other way to take care of you than
+the way I tell you of, and yet, I have no doubt you think me cruel,
+and selfish, to ask you to do it now. It does seem so, and yet it
+is not. If you knew how much it has cost me to speak, you would
+believe it."</p>
+<p>"I do believe it," I said, trying to command my voice. "I think
+you have always been too good and kind to me. But I can't tell you
+how this makes me feel. Oh, Richard, isn't there any, any other
+way?"</p>
+<p>"Perhaps there may be," he said, with a bitter and disappointed
+look, "but I do not know of it."</p>
+<p>"Oh, Richard, do not be angry with me. Think how hard it is for
+me always to be disappointing you. I have a great deal of
+trouble!"</p>
+<p>"Yes, Pauline, I know you have," he said, sitting down by me,
+and taking my hand in a repentant way. "You see I'm selfish, and
+only looked at my own disappointment just that minute. I thought I
+had not any hope that you might not mind the idea of marrying me;
+but you see, after all, I had. I believe I must have fancied that
+you were getting over your trouble: you have seemed so much
+brighter lately. But now I know the truth; and now I know that what
+I do is simply sacrifice and duty. A man must be a fool who looks
+for pleasure in marrying a woman who has no love for him. And I say
+now, in the face of it all, marry me, Pauline, if you can bring
+yourself to do it. I am the only approach to a friend that you have
+in the world. As your husband, I can care for you and protect you.
+You are young, your character is unformed, you are ignorant of the
+world. You have no home, no protection, literally none, and I am
+afraid to trust you. You need not be angry if I say so. I think
+I've earned the right to find some faults in you. I don't expect
+you to love me. I don't expect to be particularly happy; but there
+are a good many ways of serving God and doing one's duty; and if we
+try to serve him and to live for duty, it will all come out right
+at last. You will be a happier woman, Pauline, if you do it, than
+if you rebel against it, and try to find some other way, and put
+yourself in a subordinate place, or a place of dependence, and
+waste your life, and expose yourself to temptation. No, no,
+Pauline, I cannot see you do it. Heaven knows, I wish you had
+somebody else to direct you. But it has all come upon me, and I
+must do the best I can. I think any one else would advise the same,
+who had the same means of judging."</p>
+<p>"I will do just what you think best," I said, almost in a
+whisper, getting up.</p>
+<p>"That is right," he answered, in a husky voice, rising too, and
+putting my cloak about my shoulders, which had fallen off. "You
+will see it will be best."</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII."></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+<h3>A GREAT DEAL TOO SOON.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>But her sad eyes, still fastened on the ground,<br>
+Are governed with a goodly modesty,<br>
+That suffers not a look to glance away,<br>
+Which may let in a little thought unsound.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Spenser</i>.<br>
+<br>
+Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule science<br>
+Qui nous met en repos.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Malherbe</i>.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<p>Richard had obtained for me (with difficulty), from the lawyer
+of the new uncle who had arisen, the privilege of remaining in the
+house for another month, undisturbed in any way. At the end of
+those four weeks I was to be married to him, one day, quietly in
+church, and to go away. It was very hard to have to see Sophie, and
+be treated with ignominy, for doing what I did not want to do; it
+was very hard to make preparations to leave the only place I wanted
+to stay in now; it was very hard to be tranquil and even, while my
+heart was like lead. But I had begun to discover that that was the
+general order of things here below, and it did not amaze me as it
+had done at first. I was doing my duty, to the best of my
+discernment, and was not to be deterred by all the lead in the
+world.</p>
+<p>It was very well for Richard to say, he did it for sacrifice and
+for duty. I have no doubt at first he did it greatly for those two
+things: but he grew happier every day, I could see. He was very
+considerate of my sadness, and always acted on the basis on which
+our engagement was begun, never keeping my hand in his, or kissing
+me, or asking any of the trifling favors of a lover.</p>
+<p>He was grave and silent: but I could see the change in his face;
+I could see that he was more exacting of every moment that I spent
+away from him; he kept near me, and followed me with his eyes, and
+seemed never to be satisfied with his possession of me.</p>
+<p>He bought me the most beautiful jewels, (he had made great
+strides toward fortune in the last six months, and was a rich man
+now in earnest,) and though he never clasped them on my throat or
+wrist, nor even fitted a ring on my finger, I could feel his eyes
+upon me, hungering for a smile, a word of gratitude.</p>
+<p>And who would not have been grateful? But it was "too soon, a
+great deal too soon," as he had said himself. I was very grateful,
+but I would have been glad to die.</p>
+<p>I have wondered whether he saw it or not, I rather think not. I
+was very submissive and gentle, and tried to be bright, and I think
+he was so absorbed in the satisfaction of my promise, so intent
+upon his plans for making me happy, and for making me love him,
+that he made himself believe there was no heart of lead below the
+tranquillity he saw.</p>
+<p>It was the third week since my uncle's death. The next week was
+to come the marriage, on Wednesday, the 19th of May.</p>
+<p>"Marriages in May are not happy," said Ann Coddle.</p>
+<p>"I did not need you to tell me that," I thought.</p>
+<p>It was on Thursday, the 13th; Richard had come up a little
+earlier, in the evening. It grew to be a little earlier every
+evening.</p>
+<p>"By-and-by he will not go down-town at all, at this rate," I
+said to myself, when I heard his ring that night.</p>
+<p>I was sitting by the parlor-lamp, with the evening paper in my
+lap, of which I had not read a word. He came and sat down by the
+table, and we talked a little while. I tried to find things to talk
+about, and wondered if it always would be so. I felt as if some day
+I should give out entirely, and have to go through bankruptcy. (And
+take a fresh start.)</p>
+<p>He never seemed to feel the want of talking; I suppose he was
+quite satisfied with his thoughts, and with having me beside
+him.</p>
+<p>By-and-by, he said he should have to go up to the library, and
+look over the last of some books of my uncle's, and finish an
+inventory that he had begun. Could I not bring my work and sit
+there by him? I felt a little selfish, for we were already on the
+last week, and I said I thought I would sit in the parlor. I had to
+write a letter to Sister Madeline. I had not heard a word from her
+yet, though I had written twice.</p>
+<p>Why could not I write in the library?</p>
+<p>I always liked to be alone when I wrote letters: I could not
+think, when any one was in the room. Besides, trying to smile, he
+would be sure to talk.</p>
+<p>He looked disappointed, and lingered a good while before he went
+away. As he rose to go away he threw into my lap a little package,
+saying,</p>
+<p>"There is some white lace for you. Can't you use it on some of
+your clothes? I don't know anything about such things: maybe it
+isn't pretty enough, but I thought perhaps it would do for that
+lilac silk you talked of."</p>
+<p>I opened the package: it was exquisite, fit for a princess; and
+as I bent over it, I thought, how dead I must be, that it gave me
+no pleasure to know it was my own, for I had loved such baubles so,
+a year ago.</p>
+<p>"What a mass of it!" I exclaimed, unfolding yard on yard.</p>
+<p>"You must always wear lace," he said, throwing one end of it
+over my black dress around the shoulder. "I like you in it. I am
+tired of those stiff little linen collars."</p>
+<p>The lace had given me a little compunction about not spending
+the evening with him: but as I had said so, I could not draw back;
+so I compromised the matter by going up to the library with him, to
+see that he was comfortable, before I came down to write my
+letter.</p>
+<p>I brought the little student-lamp from my own room and lit it,
+and put it on the library-table, and brought him some fresh pens,
+and opened the inkstand for him, even pushed up the chair and put a
+little footstool by it. Though he was standing by the bookshelves,
+and seemed to be engrossed by them, I knew that he was watching me,
+filled with content and satisfaction.</p>
+<p>"Do you remember where that box of cigars was put?" he said,
+turning to me as I paused. That was to keep me longer; for they
+were on the shelf, half a yard from where he stood.</p>
+<p>I got the cigar-box and put it on the table.</p>
+<p>"Now you will want some matches, and this stand is almost
+empty." So I took it away with me to my room, and came back with it
+filled.</p>
+<p>"Is there anything else that I can do?" I said, pausing as I put
+it on the table.</p>
+<p>"No, Pauline. I believe not. Thank you."</p>
+<p>I think that moment Richard was nearer to happiness than he had
+ever been before. Poor fellow!</p>
+<p>I went down-stairs, feeling quite easy in mind, and sat down to
+my letter. That threw me back into the past, for to Sister Madeline
+I poured out my heart. An hour went by, and I had forgotten Richard
+and the library. I was recalled to the present by hearing some
+books fall on the floor (the library was over the parlor); and by
+hearing Richard's step heavily crossing the room. I started up,
+pushed my letter into my portfolio, and wiped away my tears, quite
+frightened that Richard should see me crying. To my surprise, he
+came hurriedly down the stairs, passed the parlor-door, opened the
+hall-door, and shutting it heavily after him, was gone, without a
+word to me. This startled me for a moment, it was so unusual. But
+my heart was not enough engaged to be wounded by the slight, and I
+very soon returned to my letter and my other thoughts.</p>
+<p>When I went up to bed, I stopped in the library, and found the
+lamp still burning, the pens unused, a cigar, which had been
+lighted, but unsmoked, lying on the table. A book was lying on the
+floor at the foot of the bookshelf, where I had left Richard
+standing. I picked it up. "This was the last book that Uncle
+Leonard ever read," I said to myself, turning its pages over. I
+remembered that he had it in his hand the last night of his life,
+when I bade him goodnight. I was not in the room the next day, till
+he was brought home in a dying state.</p>
+<p>Ann had put the books in order, and arranged them, after he went
+down-town in the morning.</p>
+<p>I wondered whether Richard knew that that was the last book he
+had been reading, and I put it by, to tell him of it in the morning
+when he came. But in the morning Richard did not come. Unusual
+again; and I was for an hour or two surprised. He always found some
+excuse for coming on his way down-town: and it was very odd that he
+should not want to explain his sudden going away last night. But,
+as before, my lack of love made the wound very slight, and in a
+little time I had forgotten all about it, and was only thinking
+that this was Friday--and that Wednesday was coming very near.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII."></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+<h3>A REVERSAL</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>All this is to be sanctified,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;This rupture with the past;<br>
+For thus we die before our deaths,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And so die well at last.<br>
+<br>
+<i>Faber</i>.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<p>Dinner-time came, and passed, and still Richard did not come. At
+eight o'clock Ann brought the tea, as usual, and it stood nearly an
+hour upon the table; and then I told her to take it away.</p>
+<p>By this time I had begun to feel uneasy. Something must have
+happened. It would necessarily be something uncomfortable, perhaps
+something that would frighten me, and give me another shock. And I
+dreaded that so; I had had so many. But perhaps, dreadful though it
+might be, it would bring me a release. Perhaps Richard was only
+angry with me, and <i>that</i> might bring me a release.</p>
+<p>At nine o'clock I heard a ring at the bell, and then his step in
+the hall. He was slower than usual in coming in; everything made me
+feel confused and apprehensive. When he opened the door and
+entered, I was trying to command myself, but I forgot all about
+myself when I saw <i>him</i>. His face was white, and he looked
+haggard and harassed, as if he had gone through a year of suffering
+since last night, when I left him with the lamp and cigar in the
+library.</p>
+<p>I started up and put out my hand. "What is it, Richard? You are
+in some trouble."</p>
+<p>He said no, and tried to speak in an ordinary tone, sitting down
+on the sofa by my chair.</p>
+<p>I was confused and thrown back by this, and tried to talk as if
+nothing had been said.</p>
+<p>"Will you have a cup of tea?" I asked; "Ann has just taken it
+away."</p>
+<p>He said absently, yes, and I rang for Ann to bring the tea, and
+then went to the table to pour it out.</p>
+<p>He sat with his face leaning on his hand on the arm of the sofa,
+and did not seem to notice me till I carried the cup to him, and
+offered it. Then he started, and looked up and took it, asking my
+pardon, and thanking me.</p>
+<p>"Are you not going to have one yourself?" he said, half
+rising.</p>
+<p>"No, I don't want any to-night. Tell me if yours is right."</p>
+<p>"Yes, it is very nice," he said absently, drinking some. Then
+rising suddenly, he put the cup on the mantleshelf, and said to me,
+"Send Ann away, I want to talk to you."</p>
+<p>I told Ann I would ring for her when I wanted her, and sat down
+by the lamp again, with many apprehensions.</p>
+<p>"You asked me if anything had happened, Pauline, didn't you?" he
+said.</p>
+<p>"No," I answered. "But I was sure that something had, from the
+way you looked when you came in."</p>
+<p>"It is something that--that changes things very much for you,
+Pauline," he resumed, with an effort, "and makes all our
+arrangements unnecessary--that is, unless you choose."</p>
+<p>I looked amazed and frightened, and he went on.</p>
+<p>"I made a discovery last night in the library. The will is
+found, Pauline."</p>
+<p>I started to my feet, with my hands pressed against my heart,
+waiting breathlessly for his next word.</p>
+<p>"Everything is left to you--and I have come to tell you, you are
+free--if you desire to be."</p>
+<p>"Oh, thank God! Thank God!" I cried; then covering my face with
+my hands, sank back into my seat, and burst into tears.</p>
+<p>He turned from me and walked to the other end of the room; each
+of us lived much in that little time.</p>
+<p>For myself, I had accepted my bondage so meekly, so dutifully,
+that I did not know the weight it had been upon me till it was
+suddenly taken off. I did not think of him--I could only think,
+there was no next Wednesday, and I could stay where I was. It was
+like the sudden cessation of dreadful and long-continued pain: it
+was Heaven. I was crying for joy. But at last the reaction came,
+and I had to think of him.</p>
+<p>"Oh, Richard," I cried, going toward him, (he was sitting by the
+window, and his hand concealed his eyes.) "I don't know what you
+think of me, I hope you can forgive me."</p>
+<p>He did not speak, and I felt a dreadful pang of
+self-reproach.</p>
+<p>"Richard," I said, crying, and taking hold of his hand, "I am
+ashamed of myself for being glad. I will marry you yet, if you want
+me to. I know how good you have been to me. I know I am ungrateful
+and abominable."</p>
+<p>Still he did not speak. His very lips were white, and his hand,
+when I touched it, did not meet mine or move.</p>
+<p>"You are angry with me," I cried, bursting into a flood of
+tears. "Oh, how you ought to hate me. Oh, I wish we had never seen
+each other. I wish I had been dead before I brought you all this
+trouble. Richard, do look at me--do speak to me. Don't you believe
+that I am sorry? Don't you know I will do anything you want me
+to?"</p>
+<p>He seemed to try to speak--moved a little, as a person in pain
+might do, but, bending his head a little lower on his hand, was
+silent still.</p>
+<p>"Richard," I said, after several moments' silence, speaking
+thoughtfully--"it has all come to me at last. I begin to see what
+you have been to me always, and how badly I have treated you. But
+it must have been because I was very young, and did not think. I am
+sure my heart was not so bad, and I mean to be different now. You
+know I have not had any one to teach me. Will you let me try and
+make you happy?"</p>
+<p>"No, Pauline," he said at last, speaking with effort. "It is all
+over now, and we will never talk of it again."</p>
+<p>I was silent for many minutes--standing before him with
+irresolution. "If it was right for me to marry you before," I said
+at last, "Why is it not right now, if I mean to do my duty?"</p>
+<p>"No, it is no longer right, if it ever was," he answered. "I
+will not take advantage of your sense of duty now, as I was going
+to take advantage of your necessity before. No, you are free, and
+it is all at an end."</p>
+<p>"You are unjust to yourself. You were not taking advantage of my
+necessity. You were saving me, and I am ashamed of myself when I
+think of everything. Oh, Richard, where did you learn to be so
+good!"</p>
+<p>A spasm of pain crossed his face, and he turned away from
+me.</p>
+<p>"If you give me up," I said timidly, "who will take care of
+me?"</p>
+<p>"There will be plenty now," he answered bitterly.</p>
+<p>"There wasn't anybody yesterday."</p>
+<p>"But there will be to-morrow. No, Pauline," he said, lifting his
+head and speaking in a firmer voice, "What I thought I was doing,
+till this showed me my heart, and how I had deceived myself, I will
+do now, even if it kills me. I thought I was acting for your good,
+and from a sense of duty: now that I know what is for your good,
+and what is my duty, I will go on in that, and nothing shall turn
+me from it, so help me Heaven."</p>
+<p>"At least you will forgive me," I said, with tears, "for all the
+things that I have made you suffer."</p>
+<p>"Yes," he said, with some emotion, "I shall forgive you sooner
+than I shall forgive myself. I cannot see that you have been to
+blame."</p>
+<p>"Ah," I cried, hiding my face with shame, when I thought of all
+my selfishness and indifference, and the return I had made him for
+his devoted love. "I know how I have been to blame; and I am going
+to pay you for your goodness and care by breaking your heart for
+you--by upsetting all your plans. Oh, Richard! You had better let
+it all go on! Think how everybody knows about it!"</p>
+<p>He shook his head. "I don't care a straw for that," he said. And
+I am sure he did not.</p>
+<p>"No," he said firmly, getting up, and walking up and down the
+room; "it is all over, and we must make the best of it. I shall
+still have everything to do for you under the will; and while you
+mustn't expect me to see you often, just for the present time, at
+least, you know I shall do everything as faithfully as if nothing
+had occurred. You must write to me whenever you think my judgment
+or advice would do you any good. And I shall be always looking
+after things that you don't understand, and taking care of your
+interests, whether you hear from me or not. You'll always be sure
+of that, whatever may occur."</p>
+<p>"Oh," I faltered, with a sudden frightened feeling of loneliness
+and loss, in the midst of my new freedom, "I can't feel as if it
+were all over."</p>
+<p>"I don't know how this terrible mistake about the will
+occurred," he went on, without noticing what I said: "it was only
+a--mercy that I found it when I did. It was between the leaves of a
+book, an old volume of Tacitus; I took it down to look at the title
+for the inventory, and it fell out."</p>
+<p>"That was the book he had in his hand when I saw him last, that
+night before he died."</p>
+<p>"Yes? Then after you went up-stairs I suppose he was thinking of
+you, and he took out the will to read it over, and maybe left it
+out, meaning to lock it up again in the morning."</p>
+<p>"And in the morning he was not well," I said, "and perhaps went
+away leaving it lying on the book; I remember, Ann said there were
+several papers lying on the table, when she arranged the room."</p>
+<p>"No doubt," said Richard, "she shut it up in the book it laid
+on, and put it on the shelf. But it is all one how it came about.
+The will is all correct and duly executed. One of the witnesses was
+a clerk, who returned yesterday from South America, where he had
+been gone for several months. The other is lying ill at his home in
+Westchester, but I have sent to-day and had his deposition taken.
+It is all in order, and there can be no dispute."</p>
+<p>I think at that moment I should have been glad if it had been
+found invalid. There was something so inevitable and final in
+Richard's plain and practical words.</p>
+<p>Evidently a great change had come in my life, and I could not
+help it if I would. I could not but feel the separation from the
+person upon whom I had leaned so long, and who had done everything
+for me, and I knew this separation was to be a final one; Richard's
+words left no doubt of that.</p>
+<p>"What you'd better do," he said, leaning by the mantelpiece, "is
+to tell the servants about this--this--change in your plans,
+to-morrow; unpack, and settle the house to stay here for the
+present. In the course of a couple of months it will be time enough
+to make up your mind about where you will live. I think, till the
+will is admitted and all that, you had better keep things as they
+are, and make no change."</p>
+<p>He had been so used to thinking for* me, that he could not give
+it up at once. "I will tell Sophie to-morrow," he went on. "It will
+not be necessary for you to see her if she should come before she
+hears of it from me." (Sophie had an engagement with me to go out
+on the following morning. He seemed to to have forgotten
+nothing.)</p>
+<p>"What will Sophie think of me?" I said, with my eyes on the
+floor. "Richard, it looks very bad for me; when I was poor, I was
+going to marry you, and now that I have money left me, I am going
+to break it off."</p>
+<p>"What difference does it make how it looks," he said, "when you
+know you have done right? I will tell Sophie the truth, that it was
+my doing both times, and that you only yielded to my judgment in
+the matter. Besides, if she judges you harshly, it need not make
+much matter to you. You will never again be thrown intimately with
+her, I suppose."</p>
+<p>"No, I suppose not," I said faintly. I was being turned out of
+my world very fast, and it was not very clear what I was going to
+get in exchange for it (except freedom).</p>
+<p>"I will send you up money to-morrow morning," he went on, "to
+pay the servants, and all that. The clerk I shall send it by, is
+the one that I shall put in charge of your matters. You can always
+draw on him for money, or ask him any questions, or call on him for
+any service, in case I should be away, or ill, or anything."</p>
+<p>"You are going away?" I said interrogatively.</p>
+<p>"It is possible, for a while--I don't know. I haven't made up my
+mind definitely about what I am going to do. But in case I
+<i>should</i> be away, I mean, you are to call on him."</p>
+<p>"I understand."</p>
+<p>"Anything he tells you, about signing papers, and such things,
+you may be sure is all right."</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"But don't do anything, without consulting me, for anybody else,
+remember."</p>
+<p>"I'll remember," I said absently and humbly. It was no wonder
+Richard felt I needed somebody to take care of me!</p>
+<p>"I believe there's nothing else I wanted to say to you," he said
+at last, moving from the mantelpiece where he had been standing;
+"at least, nothing that I can't write about, when it occurs to
+me."</p>
+<p>"Oh, Richard!" I said, beginning to cry again, as I knew that
+the moment of parting had come, "I don't understand you at all. I
+think you take it very calm."</p>
+<p>"Isn't that the way to take it?" he said, in a voice that was,
+certainly, very calm indeed.</p>
+<p>I looked up in his face: he was ten years older. I really was
+frightened at the change in him.</p>
+<p>"Oh!" I exclaimed, putting my face down in my hands, "I wasn't
+worth all I've made you suffer."</p>
+<p>"Maybe you weren't," he said simply, "But it wasn't either your
+fault or mine--and you couldn't help it--that I wanted you."</p>
+<p>He made a quick movement as he passed the table, and my
+work-basket fell at his feet, and a little jewel-box rolled across
+the floor. It was a ring he had brought me, only three days
+before.</p>
+<p>He stooped to pick it up, and I saw his features contract as if
+in pain, as he laid it back upon the table. And his voice was
+unsteady, as he said, not looking at me while he spoke, "I hope you
+won't send any of these things back. If there's anything you're
+willing to keep, because I gave it to you, I'd like it very much.
+The rest send to your church, or somewhere. I don't want to have to
+look at them again."</p>
+<p>By this time I was sobbing, and, sitting down by the table, had
+buried my face on my arms.</p>
+<p>"I'm sorry that it makes you feel so," he said, "but it can't be
+helped. Don't cry, I can't bear to see you cry. Good-bye, Pauline;
+God bless you."</p>
+<p>And he was gone. I did not realize it, and did not lift my head,
+till I heard the heavy sound of the outer door closing after
+him.</p>
+<p>Then I knew it was all over, and that things were changed for me
+indeed.</p>
+<p>"I cannot cry and get over it as you can," he had said.</p>
+<p>And if tears would have got me over it, I should have been cured
+that night.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV."></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+<h3>MY NEW WORLD.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>Few are the fragments left of follies past;<br>
+For worthless things are transient. Those that last<br>
+Have in them germs of an eternal spirit,<br>
+And out of good their permanence inherit.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>
+Bowring</i>.<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Nor they unblest,<br>
+Who underneath the world's bright vest<br>
+With sackcloth tame their aching breast,<br>
+The sharp-edged cross in jewels hide.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>
+Keble</i>.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<p>From eighteen to twenty-four--a long step; and it covers the
+ground that is generally the brightest and gayest in a woman's
+life, and the most decisive. With me it was, in a certain sense,
+bright and gay; but the deciding events of my life seemed to have
+been crowded into the year, the story of which has just been told.
+Of the six years that came after, there is not much to tell. My
+character went on forming itself, no doubt, and interiorly I was
+growing in one direction or the other; but in external matters,
+there is not much of interest.</p>
+<p>I had "no end of money," so it seemed to me, and to a good many
+other people, I should think, from the way that they paid me court.
+I don't see why it did not turn my head, except that I was what
+they call religious, and dreadfully afraid of doing wrong. I was
+not my own mistress exactly, either, for I had some one to direct
+my conscience, though that was the only direction that I ever had.
+I had not the smallest restriction as to money from Richard (to
+whom the estate was left in trust); and it had been found much to
+exceed his expectations, or those of anybody else.</p>
+<p>I had the whole world before me, where to go and what to choose;
+not very much stability of character, and the greatest ignorance; a
+considerable share of good looks, and the love of pleasure
+inseparable from youth and health; absolutely no authority, and any
+amount of flattery and temptation. I think it must be agreed, it
+was a happy thing for me that I was brought under the influence of
+Sister Madeline, and that through her I was made to feel most
+afraid of sin, and of myself; and that the life within, the growth
+in grace, and the keeping clear my conscience, was made to appear
+of more consequence than the life without, that was so full of
+pleasures and of snares.</p>
+<p>I often think now of the obedience with which I would give up a
+party, stay at home alone, and read a good book, because I had been
+advised to do it, or because it was a certain day; of the
+simplicity with which I would pat away a novel, when its interest
+was at the height, because it was the hour for me to read something
+different, or because it was Friday, or because I was to learn to
+give up doing what I wanted to.</p>
+<p>These things, trivial in themselves, and never bound upon my
+conscience, only offered as advice, had the effect of breaking up
+the constant influence of the world, giving me a little time for
+thought, and opportunity for self-denial. I cannot help thinking
+such things are very useful for young persons, and particularly
+those who have only ordinary force and resolution. At least, I
+think they were made a means of security to me. I was so in earnest
+to do right, that I often thought, in terror for myself, in the
+midst of alluring pleasures and delights, it was a pity they had
+not let me be a Sister when I wanted to at first. (I really think I
+had more vocation than they thought: I could have <i>given up</i>,
+to the end of life, without a murmur, if that is what is
+necessary.) As to the people who wanted to marry me, I did not care
+for any of them, and seemed to have much less coquetry than of old.
+They simply did not interest me, (of course, in a few years, I had
+outgrown the love that I had supposed to be so immortal.) It was
+very pleasant to be always attended to, and to have more constant
+homage than any other young woman whom I saw. But as to liking
+particularly any of the men themselves, it never occurred to me to
+think of it.</p>
+<p>I was placed by my fortunate circumstances rather above the
+intrigue, and detraction, and heart-burning, that attends the
+social struggle for life in ordinary cases. If I were envied, I did
+not know it, and I had small reason to envy anybody else, being
+quite the queen.</p>
+<p>I enjoyed above measure, the bright and pleasant things that I
+had at my command: the sunny rooms of my pretty house: the driving,
+the sailing, the dancing: all that charms a healthy young taste,
+and is innocent. I took journeys, with the ecstasy of youth and of
+good health. I never shall forget the pleasure of certain days and
+skies, and the enjoyment that I had in nature. In society, I had a
+little more weariness, as I grew older, and found a certain want of
+interest, as was inevitable. Society isn't all made up of clever
+people, and even clever people get to be tiresome in the course of
+time. But at twenty-four I was by no means <i>blas&eacute;</i>,
+only more addicted to books and journeys, and less enthusiastic
+about parties and croquet, though these I could enjoy a little
+yet.</p>
+<p>I had a pretty house (and re-furnished it very often, which
+always gave me pleasure). I had no care, for Richard had arranged
+that I should have a very excellent sort of person for duenna, who
+had a good deal of tact, and didn't bore me, and was shrewd enough
+to make things very smooth. I liked her very much, though I think
+now she was something of a hypocrite. But she had enough principle
+to make things very respectable, and I never took her for a friend.
+We had very pretty little dinners, and little evenings when anybody
+wanted them, though the house wasn't very large. My duenna (by name
+Throckmorton) liked journeys as well as I did, and never objected
+to going anywhere. Altogether we were very comfortable.</p>
+<p>The people whom I had known in that first year of my social
+existence, had drifted away from me a good deal in this new life.
+Sophie I could not help meeting sometimes, for she was still a gay
+woman, but I naturally belonged to a younger set, and did not go
+very long into general society. We still disliked each other with
+the cordiality of our first acquaintance, but I was very sorry for
+it, and had a great many repentances about it after every meeting.
+Kilian I met a good deal, but we rather avoided each other, at
+short range, though exceedingly good friends to the general
+observation.</p>
+<p>Mary Leighton I seldom saw; no doubt she was consumed with envy
+when she heard of me, for they were poor, and not able to keep up
+with gay life as would have pleased her. She still maintained her
+intimacy with Kilian, for he had not the resolution to break off a
+flirtation of which, I was sure, he must be very tired.</p>
+<p>Henrietta had married very well, two years after I saw her at
+R----, and was the staid, placid matron that she was always meant
+to be.</p>
+<p>Charlotte Benson was the clever woman still: a little
+stronger-minded, and no less good-looking than of old, and no more.
+People were beginning to say that she would not marry, though she
+was only twenty-six. She did not go much to parties, and was not in
+my set. She affected art and lectures, and excursions to mountains,
+and campings-out, and unconventionalities, and no doubt had a good
+time in her way. But it was not my way: and so we seldom met. When
+we did, she did not show much more respect for me than of old,
+which always had the effect of making me feel angry.</p>
+<p>And as for Richard, we could not have been much further apart,
+if he had lived "in England and I at Rotterdam." For a year, while
+he was settling up the estate, he was closely in the city. I did
+not see him more than once or twice, all business being transacted
+through his lawyer, and the clerk of whom he had spoken to me.
+After the business matters of the estate were all in order, he went
+away, intending, I believe, to stay a year or two. But he came back
+before many months were over, and settled down into the routine of
+business life, which now seemed to have become necessary to
+him.</p>
+<p>Travel was only a weariness to him in his state of mind; and
+work, and city-life, seemed the panacea. He did not live with
+Sophie, but took apartments, which he furnished plainly; and seemed
+settling down, according to his brother, into much of the sort of
+life that Uncle Leonard had led so many years in Varick-street.</p>
+<p>Sophie still went to R----, and I often heard of the pleasant
+parties there in summer. But Richard seldom went, and seemed to
+have lost his interest in the place, though I have no doubt he
+spent more money on it than before. I heard of many improvements
+every year.</p>
+<p>And Richard was now a man of wealth, so much so that people
+talked about him; and the newspapers said, in talking about
+real-estate, or investments, or institutions of charity--"When such
+men as Richard Vandermarck allow their names to appear, we may be
+sure," etc., etc. He was now the head of the firm, and one of the
+first business men of the city. He seemed a great deal older than
+he was; thirty-seven is young to occupy the place he held.</p>
+<p>Such a <i>parti</i> could not be let alone entirely. His course
+was certainly discouraging, and it needs tough hopes to live on
+nothing. But stranger things had happened; more obdurate men had
+yielded; and unappropriated loveliness hoped on. The story of an
+early attachment was afloat in connection with his name. I don't
+know whether I was made to play a part in it or not.</p>
+<p>I saw him, perhaps, twice a year, not oftener. His manner was
+always, to me, peculiarly grave and kind; to every one, practical
+and unpretending. I had many letters from him, particularly when I
+was away on journeys. He seemed always to want to know exactly
+where I was, and to feel a care of me, though his letters never
+went beyond business matters, and advice about things I did not
+understand.</p>
+<p>As my guardian, he could not have done less, nor was it
+necessary that he should do more; still I often wished it would
+occur to him to come and see me oftener, and give me an opportunity
+of showing him how much I had improved, and how different I had
+become. I had the greatest respect for his opinion; and he had
+grown, unconsciously to myself, to be a sort of oracle with me, and
+a sort of hero, too.</p>
+<p>I was apt to compare other men with him, and they fell very far
+short of his measure in my eyes. That may have been because I saw
+him much too seldom, and the other men much too often.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV."></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+<h3>BIEN PERDU, BIEN CONNU.</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>Keep, therefore, a true woman's eye,<br>
+And love me still, but know not why;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;So hast thou the same reason still<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; To doat upon me ever!</blockquote>
+<br>
+<p>"It's very nice to be at home again," I said to Mrs.
+Throckmorton, as I broke a great lump of coal in pieces, and
+watched the flames with pleasure.</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Mrs. Throckmorton, putting another piece of sugar in
+her coffee, for she was still at the table. "That is, if you call
+this home; I must confess it doesn't feel so to me altogether."</p>
+<p>"Well, it's our own dear, noisy, raging, racketing, bustling old
+city, if it isn't our own house, and I'm sure we're very
+comfortable."</p>
+<p>"Very," said Mrs. Throckmorton, who was always pleased.</p>
+<p>"Every time I hear the tinkle of a car-bell, or the roar of an
+omnibus, I feel a thrill of pleasure," I said; "I never was so glad
+to get anywhere before."</p>
+<p>"That's something new, isn't it?" said Mrs. Throckmorton,
+briefly.</p>
+<p>"I don't know; I think I am always glad to get back home."</p>
+<p>"And very glad to go away again too, my dear."</p>
+<p>"I don't think I shall travel any more," I returned. "The fact
+is, I am getting too old to care about it, I believe."</p>
+<p>Mrs. Throckmorton laughed, being considerably over forty, and
+still as fond of going about as ever.</p>
+<p>We were only <i>de retour</i> two days. We had started eighteen
+months ago, for at least three years in Europe, and I had found
+myself unaccountably tired of it at the end of a year and a half;
+and here we were.</p>
+<p>Our house was rented, but that I had not allowed to be any
+obstacle, though Mrs. Throckmorton, who was very well satisfied
+with the easy life abroad, had tried to make it so. I had secured
+apartments which were very pretty and complete. We had found them
+in order, and we had come there from the steamer. I was eminently
+happy at being where I wanted to be.</p>
+<p>"How odd it seems to be in town and have nobody know it," I
+said, thinking, with a little quiet satisfaction, how pleased
+several people I could name would be, if they only knew we were so
+near them.</p>
+<p>"Nobody but Mr. Vandermarck, I suppose," said Mrs.
+Throckmorton.</p>
+<p>"Not even he," I answered, "for he can't have got my letter yet;
+it was only mailed the day we started. It was only a chance, you
+know, our getting those staterooms, and we were in such a hurry. I
+was so much obliged to that dear, old German gentleman for dying.
+We shouldn't have been here if he hadn't."</p>
+<p>"Pauline, my dear!"</p>
+<p>"Well, I can't think, as he's probably in heaven, that he can
+have begrudged us his tickets to New York."</p>
+<p>"I should think not," said Mrs. Throckmorton, with a little
+sigh. For New York was not heaven to her, and she had spent a good
+deal of the day in looking up the necessary servants for our
+establishment, which, little as it was, required just double the
+number that had made us comfortable abroad.</p>
+<p>She had too much discretion to trouble me with her cares,
+however, so she said cheerfully, after a few moments, by way of
+diverting my mind and her own--</p>
+<p>"Well, I heard some news to-day."</p>
+<p>"Ah!"--(I had been unpacking all day; and Mrs. Throckmorton in
+the interval of servant-hunting had not been able to refrain from a
+visit or two, <i>en passant</i> to dear friends.)</p>
+<p>"Yes: Kilian Vandermarck was married yesterday."</p>
+<p>"Yesterday! how odd. And pray, who has he married? Not Mary
+Leighton, I should hope."</p>
+<p>"Leighton. Yes, that's the name. No money, and a little
+<i>pass&eacute;</i>. Everybody wonders."</p>
+<p>"Well, he deserves it. That is even-handed justice, I'm not
+sorry for him. He's been trifling all his days, and now he's got
+his punishment. It serves Sophie right, too. I know she can't
+endure her. She never thought there was the slightest danger. But
+I'm sorry for Richard, that he's got to have such a girl related to
+him."</p>
+<p>"Oh, well," said Mrs. Throckmorton, "I don't know whether
+that'll affect him very much, for they say he's going to be married
+too."</p>
+<p>"Richard!"</p>
+<p>"Yes; and to that Benson girl, you know."</p>
+<p>"Who told you?"</p>
+<p>"Mary Ann. She's heard it half a dozen times, she says. I
+believe it's rather an old affair. His sister made it up, I'm told.
+The young lady's been spending the summer with them, and this
+autumn it came out."</p>
+<p>"I don't believe it."</p>
+<p>"I'm sure I don't know; only that's the talk. It would be odd,
+though, if we'd just come home in time for the wedding. You'll have
+to give her something handsome, being your guardian, and all."</p>
+<p>I wouldn't give her anything, and she shouldn't marry Richard, I
+thought, as I leaned back in my chair and looked into the fire; a
+great silence having fallen on us since the delivery of that piece
+of news.</p>
+<p>I said I didn't believe it, and yet I'm afraid I did. It was so
+like a man to give in at last; at least, like any man but Richard.
+He had always liked Charlotte Benson, and known how clever she was,
+and Sophie had been so set upon it, (particularly since Richard had
+had so much money that he had given her a handsome settlement that
+nothing would affect.) And now that Kilian was married and would
+have the place, unless Richard wanted it, it was natural that
+Sophie should approve Richard having <i>his</i> wife there instead
+of Kilian having his; Kilian's being one that nobody particularly
+approved.</p>
+<p>Yes, it did sound very much like probability. I wasn't given to
+self-analysis; but I acknowledged to myself, that I was very much
+disappointed, and that if I had known that this was going to
+happen, I should have stayed in Europe.</p>
+<p>I had never felt as if there were any chance of Richard marrying
+any one; I had not said to myself, that his love for me still had
+an existence, nor had I any reason to believe it. But the truth had
+been, I had always felt that he belonged to me, and was my right,
+and I felt a bitter resentment toward this woman, who was supposed
+to have usurped my place. How <i>dared</i> Richard love anybody
+else! I was angry with him, and very much hurt, and very, very
+unhappy.</p>
+<p>Long after Mrs. Throckmorton went to her middle-aged repose, I
+sat up and went through imaginary scenes, and reviewed the
+situation a hundred times, and tried to convince myself of what I
+wanted to believe, and ended without any satisfaction.</p>
+<p>One thing was certain. If Richard was going to marry Charlotte
+Benson, he was not going to do it because he loved her. He might
+not be prevented from doing it because he loved me; but he did not
+love her. I could not say why exactly. But I knew she was not the
+kind of woman for him to think of loving, and I would not believe
+it till I heard it from himself, and I would hear it from himself
+at the earliest possible date. I did not like to be unhappy, and
+was very impatient to get rid of this, if it were not true, and to
+know the worst, at once, if it were.</p>
+<p>"My dear Throcky," I said to my companion, at the
+breakfast-table, "I think you'd better go and take dinner with your
+niece to-day. I've sent for Mr. Vandermarck to come and dine, and I
+thought perhaps you'd rather not be bored; we shall have business
+to talk about, and business is such a nuisance when you're not
+interested in it."</p>
+<p>"Very well, my dear," said Mrs. Throckmorton, with
+indestructible good-humor.</p>
+<p>"Or you might have a headache, if you'd rather, and I'll send
+your dinner up to you. I'll be sure Susan takes you everything
+that's nice."</p>
+<p>"Well, then, I think I'll have a headache; I'm afraid I'd rather
+have it than one of Mary Ann's poor dinners. (I'd be sure of one
+to-morrow if I went.)"</p>
+<p>"Paris things have spoiled you, I'm afraid," I said. "Only see
+that I have something nice for Richard, won't you?--How do you
+think the cook is going to do?" This was the first sign of interest
+I had given in the matter of <i>m&eacute;nage</i>; by which it will
+be seen I was still a little selfish, and not very wise. But
+Throckmorton was a person to cultivate my selfishness, and there
+had not been much to develop the wisdom of common life.</p>
+<p>She promised me a very pretty dinner, no matter at what trouble,
+and made me feel quite easy about her wounded feelings. One of the
+best features of Throckmorton was, she hadn't any feelings; you
+might treat her like a galley-slave, and she would show the least
+dejection. It was a temptation to have such a person in the
+house.</p>
+<p>I had sent a note to Richard which contained the following:</p>
+<blockquote>"DEAR RICHARD:<br>
+<br>
+"I am sure you will be surprised to know we have returned. But the
+fact is, I got very tired of Italy; and we were disappointed in the
+apartments we wanted in Berlin, and some of the people we expected
+to have with us had to give it up, and altogether it seemed dull,
+and we thought it would be just as pleasant to come home. We were
+able to get staterooms that just suited us, and it didn't seem
+worth while to lose them by waiting to send word. We had a very
+comfortable voyage, and I am glad to find myself at home, though
+Mrs. Throckmorton doesn't think the rooms are very nice. I want to
+know if you won't come to dinner. We dine at six. Send a line back
+by the boy. I want to ask you about some business matters.<br>
+<br>
+"Affectionately yours,<br>
+<br>
+"PAULINE."</blockquote>
+<p>And I had received for answer:</p>
+<blockquote>"MY DEAR PAULINE:<br>
+<br>
+"Of course I am astonished to think you are at home. I enclosed you
+several letters by the steamer yesterday, none of them of any very
+great importance, though, I think. I will come up at six.<br>
+<br>
+"Always yours,<br>
+<br>
+"RICHARD VANDERMARCK.<br>
+<br>
+"P.S. I am very glad you wanted to come home."</blockquote>
+<p>I read this letter over a great many times, but it did not
+enlighten me at all as to his intentions about marrying Charlotte
+Benson. It was very matter-of-fact, but that Richard's letters
+always were. Evidently he had thought the same of it himself, as he
+read it over, and had added the postscript. But that did not seem
+very enthusiastic. Altogether I was not happy, waiting for six
+o'clock to come.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr style="width: 35%;">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI."></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
+<h3>A DINNER</h3>
+<br>
+<blockquote>Time and chance are but a tide,<br>
+Slighted love is sair to bide.</blockquote>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>The dining-room and parlor of our little suite adjoined; the
+door was standing open between them, as I walked up and down the
+parlor, waiting nervously for Richard to arrive. The fire was
+bright, and the only light in the parlor was a soft, pretty lamp,
+which we had brought from Italy. There were flowers on the table,
+and in two or three vases, and the curtains were pretty, and there
+were several large mirrors. Outside, it was the twilight of a dark
+autumnal day; almost night already, and the lamps were lit. It
+lacked several minutes of six when Richard came. I felt very much
+agitated when he entered the room. It was a year and a half since I
+had seen him: besides, this piece of news! But he looked just the
+same as ever, and I had not the self-possession to note whether he
+seemed agitated at meeting me. I do not know exactly what we talked
+about for the first few moments, probably I was occupied in trying
+to excuse myself for coming home so suddenly, for I found Richard
+was not altogether pleased at not having been informed, and thought
+there must be something yet to tell. He was not used to feminine
+caprice, and I began to feel a good deal ashamed of myself. I had
+to remind myself, more than once, that I was not responsible to any
+one.</p>
+<p>"I just felt like it," was such a very weak explanation to offer
+to this grave business-man, for disarranging two years of
+carefully-laid plans.</p>
+<p>I found I was getting to be a little afraid of Richard: we had
+been so long apart, and he had grown so much older.</p>
+<p>"I hope, at least, you are not going to scold me for it," I said
+at last, with a little laugh, feeling that was my best way out of
+it. "I shall think you are not glad, to see me."</p>
+<p>"I am glad to see you," he said, gravely; "and as to scolding,
+it's so long since you've given me an opportunity, I should not
+know how to go to work."</p>
+<p>"Do you mean, because I've been away so long, or because I've
+been so good?"</p>
+<p>Susan, who had been watching her opportunity, now appeared in
+the dining-room door, and said that dinner was on the table.</p>
+<p>Richard asked for Mrs. Throckmorton when we sat down to dinner.
+I told him she was dining with her niece. (She had reconsidered the
+question of the headache, and had gone to hear more news.) The
+dinner was very nice, and very nicely served; but somehow, Richard
+did not seem to enjoy it very much, that is, not as I had been in
+the habit lately of seeing men enjoy their meals.</p>
+<p>"I am afraid you are getting like Uncle Leonard, and only care
+about Wall-street," I said. "I shouldn't wonder if you forgot to
+order your dinner half the time, and took the same thing for
+breakfast every morning in the year."</p>
+<p>"That's just exactly how it is," he said. "If Sophie did not
+come down to my quarters every week or two, and regulate affairs a
+little, I don't know where I should be, in the matter of my
+dinners."</p>
+<p>"How is Sophie?" I said.</p>
+<p>"Very well. I saw her yesterday. I went to put Charley in
+College for her."</p>
+<p>"I can't think of Charley as a young man."</p>
+<p>"Yes, Charley is a strapping fellow, within two inches of my
+height."</p>
+<p>"Impossible! And where is Benny?"</p>
+<p>"At school here in town. His mother will not let him go to
+boarding-school. He is a nice boy: I think there's more in him than
+Charley."</p>
+<p>"And I hear Kilian is married!"</p>
+<p>"Yes. Kilian is married--the very day you landed, too."</p>
+<p>"Well," I said, with a little dash of temper, "I'm very sorry
+for you all. I did not think Kilian was going to be so
+foolish."</p>
+<p>"He thinks he's very wise, though, all the same," said Richard,
+with a smile, which turned into a sigh before he had done
+speaking.</p>
+<p>"I do dislike her so," I exclaimed, warmly. "There isn't an
+honest or straightforward thing about her. She is weak, too; her
+only strength is her suppleness and cunning."</p>
+<p>"I know you never liked her," said Richard, gravely; "but I hope
+you'll try to think better of her now."</p>
+<p>"I hope I shall never have to see her," I answered, with angry
+warmth.</p>
+<p>Richard was silent, and I was very much ashamed of myself a
+moment after. I had meant him to see how much improved I was, and
+how well disciplined. This was a pretty exhibition! I had not
+spoken so of any one for a year, at least. I colored with
+mortification and penitence. Richard evidently saw it, and felt
+sorry for me, for he said, most kindly,</p>
+<p>"I can understand exactly how you feel, Pauline. This marriage
+is a great trial to me. I have done all I could to keep Kilian from
+throwing himself away, but I might as well have argued with the
+winds."</p>
+<p>"I don't care how much Kilian throws himself away," I said,
+impulsively. "He deserves it for keeping around her all these
+years. But I do mind that she is your sister, and that she will be
+mistress of the house at R----."</p>
+<p>There was an awful silence then. Heavens! what had I been
+thinking about to have said that! I had precipitated the
+<i>d&eacute;nouement</i>, and I had not meant to. I did not want to
+hear it that moment, if he were going to marry Charlotte Benson,
+nor did I want to hear it, if he were saving the old place for me.
+I felt as if I had given the blow that would bring the whole
+structure down, and I waited for the crash in frightened
+silence.</p>
+<p>In the meantime the business of the table went on. I ate half a
+chicken croquette, and Susan placed the salad before Richard, and
+another plate. He did not speak till he had put the salad on his
+plate; then he said, without looking at me, in a voice a good deal
+lower than was usual to him,</p>
+<p>"She is not to be mistress of that house. They will live in
+town."</p>
+<p>Then I felt cold and chilled to my very heart; it was well that
+he did not expect me to speak, for I could not have commanded my
+voice enough to have concealed my agitation. I knew very well from
+that moment that he was going to marry Charlotte Benson. Something
+that was said a little later was a confirmation.</p>
+<p>I had recovered myself enough to talk about ordinary things, and
+to keep strictly to them, too. Richard was talking of the great
+heat of the past summer. I had said it had been unparalleled in
+France; had he not found it very uncomfortable here in town?</p>
+<p>"I have been out of town so much, I can hardly say how it has
+been here," he answered. "I was all of August in the country; only
+coming to the city twice."</p>
+<p>My heart sank: that was just what they had said; he had been a
+great deal at home this summer, and she had been there all the
+time.</p>
+<p>The dinner was becoming terribly <i>ennuyant</i>, and I wished
+with all my heart Throckmorton had been contented with just half
+the courses. Richard did not seem to enjoy them, and I--I was so
+wretched I could scarcely say a word, much less eat a morsel. It
+had been a great mistake to invite him to take dinner; it was being
+too familiar, when he had put me at such a distance all these
+years: I wished for Mrs. Throckmorton with all my heart. Why had I
+sent her off? Richard was evidently so constrained, and it was in
+such bad taste to have asked him here; it could not help putting
+thoughts in both our minds, sitting alone at a table opposite each
+other, as we should have been sitting daily if that horrid will had
+not been found. He had dined with us just twice before, but that
+was at dinner-parties, when there had been ever so many people
+between us, and when I had not said six words to him during the
+whole evening.</p>
+<p>The only excuse I could offer, and that he could understand,
+would be that I wanted to talk business to him; I had said in my
+note that I wanted to consult him about something, and I must keep
+that in mind. I had wanted to ask him about a house I thought of
+buying, adjoining the Sisters' Hospital, to enlarge their work; but
+I was so wicked and worldly, I felt just then as if I did not care
+whether they had a house or not, or whether they did any work.
+However, I resolved to speak about it, when we had got away from
+the table, if we ever did.</p>
+<p>Susan kept bringing dish after dish.</p>
+<p>"Oh, we don't want any of that!" I exclaimed, at last,
+impatiently; "do take it away, and tell them to send in the
+coffee."</p>
+<p>I was resolved upon one thing: Richard should tell me of his
+engagement before he went away; it would be dishonorable and unkind
+if he did not, and I should make him do it. I was not quite sure
+that I had self-control enough not to show how it made me feel,
+when it came to hearing it all in so many words. But in very truth,
+I had not much pride as regarded him; I felt so sore-hearted and
+unhappy, I did not care much whether he knew it or suspected
+it.</p>
+<p>I could not help remembering how little concealment he had made
+of his love for me, even when he knew that all the heart I had was
+given to another. I would be very careful not to precipitate the
+disclosure, however, while we sat at table; it is so disagreeable
+to talk to any one on an agitating subject <i>vis-&agrave;-vis</i>
+across a little dinner-table, with a bright light overhead, and a
+servant walking around, able to stop and study you from any point
+she pleases.</p>
+<p>Coffee came at last, though even that, Susan was unwilling to
+look upon as the legitimate finale, and had her views about
+liqueur, instructed by Throckmorton. But I cut it short by getting
+up and saying, "I'm sure you'll be glad to go into the parlor; it
+gets warm so soon in these little rooms."</p>
+<p>The parlor was very cool and pleasant; a window had been open,
+and the air was fresh, and the flowers were delicious, and the lamp
+was softer and pleasanter than the gas. I went to break up the coal
+and make the fire blaze, and Richard to shut the window down.</p>
+<p>When I had pulled a chair up to the fire and seated myself, he
+stood leaning on the mantelpiece, on the other side from me. I felt
+sure he meant to go, the minute that he could get away--a committee
+meeting, no doubt, or some such nauseous fraud. But he should not
+go away until he had told me, that was certain.</p>
+<p>"What is it that you wanted to ask me about, Pauline?" he said,
+rather abruptly.</p>
+<p>My heart gave a great thump; how could he have known? Oh, it was
+the business that I had spoken of in my stupid note. Yes; and I
+began to explain to him what I wanted to do about the hospital.</p>
+<p>He looked infinitely relieved. I believe he had an idea it was
+something very different. My explanation could not have added much
+to his reverence for my business ability. I was very indefinite,
+and could not tell him whether it was hundreds or thousands that I
+meant.</p>
+<p>He said, with a smile, he thought it must be thousands, as city
+property was so very high. He was very kind, however, about the
+matter, and did not discourage me at all. He always seemed to
+approve of my desire to give away in charity, and, within bounds,
+always furthered such plans of doing good. He said he would look
+into it, and would write me word next week what his impression was;
+and then, I think, he meant to go away.</p>
+<p>Then I began talking on every subject I could think of, hoping
+some of the roads would lead to Rome. But none of them led there,
+and I was in despair.</p>
+<p>"Oh, don't you want to look at some photographs?" I said, at
+last, thinking I saw an opening for my wedge. I got the package,
+and he came to the table and looked at them, standing up. They were
+naturally of much more interest to me than to him, being of places
+and people with which I had so lately been familiar.</p>
+<p>But he looked at them very kindly, and asked a good many
+questions about them.</p>
+<p>"Look at this," I said, handing him an Antwerp peasant-woman in
+her hideous bonnet. "Isn't that ridiculously like Charlotte Benson?
+I bought it because it was so singular a resemblance."</p>
+<p>"It is like her," he said, thoughtfully, looking at it long.
+"The mouth is a little larger and the eyes further apart. But it is
+a most striking likeness. It might almost have been taken for
+her."</p>
+<p>"How is she, and when have you seen her?" I said, a little
+choked for breath.</p>
+<p>"She is very well. I saw her yesterday," he answered, still
+looking at the little picture.</p>
+<p>"Was she with Sophie this summer?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, for almost two months."</p>
+<p>"I hope she doesn't keep everybody in order as sharply as she
+used to?" I said, with a bitter little laugh.</p>
+<p>"I don't know," he said. "I think, perhaps, she is rather less
+decided than she used to be."</p>
+<p>"Oh, you call it decision, do you? Well, I'm glad I know what it
+is. I used to think it hadn't such a pretty name as that."</p>
+<p>Richard looked grave; it certainly was not a graceful way to
+lead up to congratulations.</p>
+<p>"But then, you always liked her," I said.</p>
+<p>"Yes, I always liked her," he answered, simply.</p>
+<p>"I'm afraid I'm not very amiable," I retorted, "for I never
+liked her: no better even than that fraudulent Mary Leighton,
+clever and sensible as she always was. There is such a thing as
+being too clever, and too sensible, and making yourself an offence
+to all less admirable people."</p>
+<p>Richard was entirely silent, and, I was sure, was disapproving
+of me very much.</p>
+<p>"Do you know what I heard yesterday?" I said, In a daring way.
+"And I hope you're going to tell me if it's true, to-night?"</p>
+<p>"What was it that you heard yesterday?" he asked, without much
+change of tone. He had laid down the photograph, and had gone back,
+and was leaning by the mantelpiece again.</p>
+<p>"Why, I heard that you were going to marry Charlotte Benson. Is
+it true?"</p>
+<p>I had pushed away the pile of photographs from me, and had
+looked up at him when I began, but my voice and courage rather
+failed before the end, and my eyes fell. There was a silence--a
+silence that seemed to stifle me.</p>
+<p>"Why do you ask me that question?" he said, at last, in a low
+voice. "Do you believe I am, yourself?"</p>
+<p>"No," I cried, springing up, and going over to his side. "No, I
+don't believe it. Tell me it isn't true, and promise me you won't
+ever, ever marry Charlotte Benson."</p>
+<p>The relief was so unspeakable that I didn't care what I said,
+and the joy I felt showed itself in my face and voice. I put out my
+hand to him when I said "promise me," but he did not take it, and
+turned his head away from me.</p>
+<p>"I shall not marry Charlotte Benson," he said; "but I cannot
+understand what difference it makes to you."</p>
+<p>It was now my turn to be silent, and I shrank back a step or two
+in great confusion.</p>
+<p>He raised his head, and looked steadily at me for a moment, and
+then said:</p>
+<p>"Pauline, you did a great many things, but I don't think you
+ever willingly deceived me. Did you?"</p>
+<p>I shook my head without looking lip.</p>
+<p>"Then be careful what you do now, and let the past alone," he
+said, and his voice was almost stern.</p>
+<p>I trembled, and turned pale.</p>
+<p>"Women sometimes play with dangerous weapons," he said; "I don't
+accuse you of meaning to give pain, but only of forgetting that
+some recollections are not to you what they are to me. I never want
+to interfere with any one's comfort or enjoyment; I only want to be
+let alone. I do very well, and am not unhappy. About marrying, now
+or ever, I should have thought you would have known. But let me
+tell you once for all: I haven't any thought of it, and shall not
+ever have. It is not that I am holding to any foolish hopes. It
+would be exactly the same if you were married, or had died. It
+simply isn't in my nature to feel the same way a second time.
+People are made differently, that is all. I'm very well contented,
+and you need never let it worry you."</p>
+<p>He was very pale now, and his eyes had an expression I had never
+seen in them before.</p>
+<p>"Richard," I said, faintly, "I never <i>have</i> deceived you:
+believe me now when I tell you, I am sorry from my heart for all
+that's past."</p>
+<p>"You told me so before, and I did forgive you. I forgave you
+fully, and have never had a thought that wasn't kind."</p>
+<p>"I know it," I said. "But you do not trust me--you don't ever
+come near me, or want to see me."</p>
+<p>"You do not know what you are talking of," he answered, turning
+from me. "I forgive you anything you may have done at any time to
+give me pain. I will do everything I can to serve you, in every way
+I can; only do not stir up the past, and let me forget the little
+of it that I can forget."</p>
+<p>I burst into tears, and put my hands before my face.</p>
+<p>"What is it?" he said, uneasily. "You need not be troubled about
+me."</p>
+<p>Seeing that I did not stop, he said again, "Tell me: is it that
+that troubles you?"</p>
+<p>I shook my head.</p>
+<p>"What is it, then? Something that I do not know about? Pauline,
+you are unhappy, and yet you've everything in the world to make you
+happy. I often think, there are not many women have as much."</p>
+<p>"The poorest of them are better off than I," I said, without
+raising my head.</p>
+<p>"Then you are ungrateful," he said, "for you have youth, and
+health, and money, and everybody likes you. You could choose from
+all the world."</p>
+<p>"No, I couldn't," I exclaimed, like a child; "and everybody
+doesn't like me,"--and then I cried again, for I was really in
+despair, and thought he meant to put me away, memory and all.</p>
+<p>"Well, if that's your trouble," he said, with a sigh, "I suppose
+I cannot help you; but I'm very sorry."</p>
+<p>"Yes, you <i>can</i> help me," I cried imploringly, forgetting
+all I ought to have remembered; "if you only would forgive me,
+really and in earnest, and be friends again--and let me try--" and
+I covered my face with my hands.</p>
+<p>"Pauline," he said, standing by my side, and his voice almost
+frightened me, it was so strong with feeling; "is this a piece of
+sentiment? Do you mean anything? Or am I to be trifled with
+again?"</p>
+<p>He took hold of my wrists with both his hands, with such force
+as to give me pain, and drew them from my face.</p>
+<p>"Look at me," he said, "and tell me what you mean; and decide
+now--forever and forever. For this is the last time that you will
+have a chance to say."</p>
+<p>"It's all very well," I said, trying to turn my face away from
+him. "It's all very well to talk about loving me yet, and being
+just the same; but this isn't the way you used to talk, and I think
+it's very hard--"</p>
+<p>"That isn't answering me," he said, holding me closer to
+him.</p>
+<p>"What shall I say," I whispered, hiding my face upon his arm.
+"Nothing will ever satisfy you."</p>
+<p>"Nothing ever <i>has</i> satisfied me," he said, "--before."</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr class="full" noshade>
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RICHARD VANDERMARCK***</p>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Richard Vandermarck, by Miriam Coles Harris
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Richard Vandermarck
+
+Author: Miriam Coles Harris
+
+Release Date: May 14, 2004  [eBook #12348]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RICHARD VANDERMARCK***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Curtis Weyant, Charlie Kirschner, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+RICHARD VANDERMARCK
+
+A Novel
+
+By MRS. SIDNEY S. HARRIS
+
+Author of "Rutledge," "St. Phillips," etc., etc.
+
+1871
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+To S.S.H.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+VARICK-STREET
+
+CHAPTER II.
+VERY GOOD LUCK
+
+CHAPTER III.
+KILIAN
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+MY COMPANIONS
+
+CHAPTER V.
+THE TUTOR
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+MATINAL
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+THREE WEEKS TOO LATE
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+SUNDAY
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+A DANCE
+
+CHAPTER X.
+EVERY DAY FROM SIX TO SEVEN.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+SOPHIE'S WORK
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+PRAEMONITUS, PRAEMUNITUS
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+THE WORLD GOES ON THE SAME
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+GUARDED
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+I SHALL HAVE SEEN HIM
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+AUGUST THIRTIETH
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+BESIDE HIM ONCE AGAIN
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+A JOURNEY
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+SISTER MADELINE
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+THE HOUR OF DAWN
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+APRES PERDRE, PERD ON BIEN
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+A GREAT DEAL TOO SOON
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+A REVERSAL
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+MY NEW WORLD
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+BIEN PERDU, BIEN CONNU
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+A DINNER
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+VARICK STREET.
+
+     O for one spot of living green,
+       One little spot where leaves can grow,--
+     To love unblamed, to walk unseen,
+       To dream above, to sleep below!
+
+     _Holmes_.
+
+
+     There are in this loud stunning tide,
+       Of human care and crime,
+     With whom the melodies abide
+       Of th' everlasting chime;
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     And to wise hearts this certain hope is given;
+     "No mist that man may raise, shall hide the eye of Heaven."
+
+     _Keble._
+
+
+I never knew exactly how the invitation came; I felt very much honored
+by it, though I think now, very likely the honor was felt to be upon the
+other side. I was exceedingly young, and exceedingly ignorant, not
+seventeen, and an orphan, living in the house of an uncle, an unmarried
+man of nearly seventy, wholly absorbed in business, and not much more
+interested in me than in his clerks and servants.
+
+I had come under his protection, a little girl of two years old, and had
+been in his house ever since. I had had as good care as a very ordinary
+class of servants could give me, and was supplied with some one to teach
+me, and had as much money to spend as was good for me--perhaps more; and
+I do not feel inclined to say my uncle did not do his duty, for I do not
+think he knew of anything further to do; and strictly speaking, I had no
+claim on him, for I was only a great-niece, and there were those living
+who were more nearly related to me, and who were abundantly able to
+provide for me, if they had been willing to do it.
+
+When I came in to the household, its wants were attended to by a cook
+and a man-servant, who had lived many years with my uncle. A third
+person was employed as my nurse, and a great deal of quarrelling was the
+result of her coming. I quite wonder my uncle did not put me away at
+board somewhere, rather than be disturbed. But in truth, I do not
+believe that the quarrelling disturbed him much, or that he paid much
+attention to the matter, and so the matter settled itself. My nurses
+were changed very often, by will of the cook and old Peter, and I never
+was happy enough to have one who had very high principle, or was more
+than ordinarily good-tempered.
+
+I don't know who selected my teachers; probably they applied for
+employment and were received. They were very business-like and
+unsuggestive people. I was of no more interest to them than a bale of
+goods, I believe. Indeed, I seemed likely to go a bale of goods through
+life; everything that was done for me was done for money, and with a
+view to the benefit of the person serving me. I was not sent to school,
+which was a very great pity; it was owing to the fact, no doubt, that
+somebody applied to my uncle to teach me at home, and so the system was
+inaugurated, and never received a second thought, and I went on being
+taught at home till I was seventeen.
+
+The "home" was as follows; a large dark house on the unsunny side of a
+dull street; furniture that had not been changed for forty years, walls
+that were seldom repainted, windows that were rarely opened. The
+neighborhood had been for many years unfashionable and undesirable, and,
+by the time I was grown up, nobody would have lived in it, who had cared
+to have a cheerful home, I might almost have said, a respectable one, I
+fancy ours was nearly the only house in the block occupied by its owner;
+the others, equally large, were rented for tenement houses, or
+boarding-houses, and perhaps for many things worse. It was probably
+owing to this fact, that my uncle gave orders, once for all, I was never
+to go into the street alone; and I believe, in my whole life, I had
+never taken a walk unaccompanied by a servant, or one of my teachers.
+
+A very dull life indeed. I wonder how I endured it. The rooms were so
+dismal, the windows so uneventful. If it had not been for a room in the
+garret where I had my playthings, and where the sun came all day long, I
+am sure I should have been a much worse and more unhappy child. As I
+grew older, I tried to adorn my room (my own respectable sleeping room,
+I mean), with engravings, and the little ornaments that I could buy. But
+it was a hopeless attempt. The walls were so high and so dingy, the
+little pictures were lost upon them; and the vases on the great black
+mantel-shelf looked so insignificant, I felt ashamed of them, and owned
+the unfitness of decorating such a room. No flowers would grow in those
+cold north windows--no bird would sing in sight of such a street. I gave
+it up with a sigh; and there was one good instinct lost.
+
+When I was about eleven, I fell foul of some good books. If it had not
+been for them, I truly do not see how I could have known that I was not
+to lie or steal, and that God was to be worshipped. Certainly, I had had
+hands slapped many times for taking things I had been forbidden to
+touch, and had had many a battle in consequence of "telling stories,"
+with the servants of the house, but I had always recognized the personal
+spite of the punishments, and they had not carried with them any
+moral lesson.
+
+I had sometimes gone to church; but the sermons in large city churches
+are not generally elementary, and I did not understand those that I
+heard at all. Occasionally I went with the nurse to Vespers, and that I
+thought delightful. I was enraptured with the pictures, the music, the
+rich clothes of the priests; if it had not been for the bad odor of the
+neighboring worshippers, I think I might have rushed into the bosom of
+the Church of Rome. But that offended sense restrained me. And so, as I
+said, if I had not obtained access to some books of holy and pure
+influence, and been starved by the dullness of the life around me into
+taking hold of them with eagerness, I should have led the life of a
+little heathen in the midst of light. Of course the books were not
+written for my especial case, nor were they books for children,--and so,
+much was supposed, and not expressed, and consequently the truth they
+imparted to me was but fragmentary. But it was truth, and the
+influence was holy.
+
+I was driven to books; I do not believe I had any more desire than most
+vivid, palpitating, fluttering young things of my sex, to pore over a
+dull black and white page; but this black and white gate opened to me
+golden fields of happiness, while I was perishing of hunger in a life of
+dreary fact.
+
+When I was about sixteen, however, an outside human influence, not
+written in black and white, came into the current of my existence. About
+that time, my uncle took into his firm, as junior partner, a young man
+who had long been a clerk in the house. After his promotion he often
+came home with my uncle to dinner. I think this was done, perhaps, with
+a view of civil treatment, on the first occasion; but afterward, it was
+continued because my uncle could not bear to leave business when he left
+the office, and because he could talk on the matters which were dearer
+to him than his dinner, with this junior, in whom he took unqualified
+delight. He often wrote letters in the evening, which my uncle dictated,
+and he sometimes did not go away till eleven o'clock at night. The first
+time he came, I did not notice him very much. It was not unusual for
+Uncle Leonard to be accompanied by some gentleman who talked business
+with him during dinner; and being naturally shy, and moreover, on this
+occasion, in the middle of a very interesting book, at once timid and
+indifferent, I slipped away from the table the moment that I could. But
+upon the third or fourth occasion of his being there, I became
+interested, finding often a pair of handsome eyes fixed on me, and being
+occasionally addressed and made a partner in the conversation. Uncle
+Leonard very rarely talked to me, and I think found me in the way when
+Richard Vandermarck made the talk extend to me.
+
+But this was the beginning of a very much improved era for me. I lost my
+shyness, and my fear of Uncle Leonard, and indeed, I think, my frantic
+thirst for books, and became quite a young lady. We were great friends;
+he brought me books, he told me about other people, he opened a thousand
+doors of interest and pleasure to me. I never can enumerate all I owed
+to him. My dull life was changed, and the house owed him gratitude.
+
+We began to have the gas lighted in the parlor, and even Uncle Leonard
+came in there sometimes and sat after dinner, before he went up into
+that dreary library above. I think he rather enjoyed hearing us talk
+gayly across his sombre board; he certainly became softer and more human
+toward me after Richard came to be so constantly a guest. He gave me
+more money to spend, (that was always the expression of his feelings,
+his language, so to speak;) he made various inquiries and improvements
+about the house. The dinners themselves were improved, for a horrible
+monotony had crept into the soups and sauces of forty years; and Uncle
+Leonard was no epicure; he seemed to have no more stomach than he had
+heart; brain and pocket made the man.
+
+I think unconsciously he was much influenced by Richard, whose business
+talent had charmed him, and to whom he looked for much that he knew he
+must soon lose. He was glad to make the house seem pleasant to him, and
+he was much gratified by his frequent coming. And Richard was peculiarly
+a man to like and to lean upon. Not in any way brilliant, and with no
+literary tastes, he was well educated enough, and very well informed; a
+thorough business man. I think he was ordinarily reserved, but our
+intercourse had been so unconventional, that I did not think him so at
+all. He was rather good-looking, tall and square-shouldered, with
+light-brown hair and fine dark-blue eyes; he had a great many points of
+advantage.
+
+One day, long after he had become almost a member of the household, he
+told me he wanted me to know his sister, and that she would come the
+next day to see me, if I would like it. I did like it, and waited for
+her with impatience. He had told me a great deal about her, and I was
+full of curiosity to see her. She was a little older than Richard, and
+the only sister; very pretty, and quite a person of consequence in
+society. She had made an unfortunate marriage, though of that Richard
+said very little to me; but with better luck than attends most
+unfortunately-married, women, she was released by her husband's early
+death, and was free to be happy again, with some pretty boys, a moderate
+fortune, and two brothers to look after her investments, and do her
+little errands for her. She considered herself fortunate; and was a
+widow of rare discretion, in that she was wedded to her unexpected
+independence, and never intended to be wedded to anything or anybody
+else. She was naturally cool and calculating, and was in no danger of
+being betrayed by her feelings into any other course of life than the
+one she had marked out as most expedient. If she was worldly, she was
+also useful, intelligent, and popular, and a paragon in her brother's
+partial eyes.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+VERY GOOD LUCK.
+
+     Mieux vaut une once de fortune qu'une livre de sagesse.
+
+
+At last (on the day on which Richard had advertised me she was coming,)
+the door was opened, and some one was taken to the parlor. Then old
+Peter rang a bell which stood on the hall table, and called out to Ann
+Coddle (once my nurse, now the seamstress, chambermaid, and general
+lightener of his toils), to tell Miss Pauline a lady wanted her.
+
+This bell was to save his old bones; he never went up-stairs, and he
+resented every visitor as an innovation. They were so few, his temper
+was not much tried. I was leaning over the stairs when the bell rang,
+and did not need a second message. Ann, who continued to feel a care for
+my personal appearance, followed me to the landing-place and gave my
+sash a last pull.
+
+When I found myself in the parlor I began to experience a little
+embarrassment. Mrs. Hollenbeck was so pretty and her dress was so
+dainty, the dingy, stiff, old parlor filled me with dismay. Fortunately,
+I did not think much of myself or my own dress. But after a little, she
+put me at ease, that is, drew me out and made me feel like talking
+to her.
+
+I admired her very much, but I did not feel any of the affection and
+quick cordiality with which Richard had inspired me. I could tell that
+she was curious about me, and was watching me attentively, and though
+she was so charming that I felt flattered by her interest, I was not
+pleased when I remembered my interview with her.
+
+"You are not at all like your brother," I said, glancing in her face
+with frankness.
+
+"No?" she said smilingly, and looking attentively at me with an
+expression which I did not understand.
+
+And then she drew me on to speak of all his features, which I did with
+the utmost candor, showing great knowledge of the subject.
+
+"And you," she said, "you do not look at all as I supposed. You are not
+nearly so young--Richard told me you were quite a child. I was not
+prepared for this grace; this young ladyhood--'cette taille de
+palmier,'" she added, with a little sweep of the hand.
+
+Somehow I was not pleased to feel that Richard had talked of me to her,
+though I liked it that he had talked of her to me. No doubt she saw it,
+for I was lamentably transparent. "Do you lead a quiet life, or have you
+many friends?" she said, as if she did not know exactly the kind of
+life I led, and as if she had not come for the express purpose of
+helping me out of it, at the instance of her kindly brother. Then, of
+course, I told her all about my dull days, and she pitied me, and said
+lightly it must not be, and I must see more of the world, and she, for
+her part, must know me better, etc., etc. And then she went away.
+
+In a few days, I went with Ann Coddle, in a carriage, to return the
+visit. The house was small, but in a beautiful, bright street, and the
+one window near the door was full of ferns and ivies. I did not get in,
+which was a disappointment to me, particularly as I had no printed card,
+and realized keenly all the ignominy of leaving one in writing. This was
+in April, and I saw no more of my new friend. Richard was away, on some
+business of the firm, and the days were very dull indeed.
+
+In May he came back, and resumed the dinners, and the evenings in the
+parlor, though not quite with the frequency of the past winter,--and I
+think there was the least shade of constraint in his manner. It was on
+one of these May days that he came and took me to the Park. It was a
+great occasion; I had never been so happy before in my life. I was in
+great doubt about taking Ann Coddle; never having been out of the house
+without a person of that description in attendance before. But Ann got
+a suspicion of my doubt and settled it, to go--of course. I think
+Richard was rather chagrined when she followed us out to get into the
+carriage; she was so dried-up and shrewish-looking, and wore such an
+Irish bonnet. But she preserved a discreet silence, and looked
+steadfastly out of the carriage window, so we soon forgot that she was
+there, though she was directly opposite to us. It was Saturday; the day
+was fresh and lovely, and there were crowds of people driving in the
+Park. Once we left the carriage with Ann Coddle in it, and went to hear
+the music. It was while we were sitting for a few moments under the
+vines to listen to it, and watch the gay groups of people around us,
+that a carriage passed within a dozen feet, and a lady leaned out and
+bowed with smiles.
+
+"Why, see--it is your sister!" I exclaimed, with the vivacity of a
+person of a very limited acquaintance.
+
+"Ah," he said, and raised his hat carelessly. But I saw he was not
+pleased; he pushed the end of his moustache into his mouth, and bit it,
+as he always did when out of humor, and very soon proposed we should go
+back and find the carriage. It was not long, however, before he
+recovered from this annoyance, as he had from the unexpected pleasure of
+Ann's company; and, I am sure, was as sorry as I when it was time to go
+home to dinner.
+
+He stayed and dined with us; another gentleman had come home with my
+uncle, who talked well and amused us very much. I was excited and in
+high spirits; altogether, it was a very happy day.
+
+It was more than a week after this, that the invitation came which
+turned the world upside down at once, and made me most extravagantly
+happy. It was from Mrs. Hollenbeck, and I was asked to spend part of
+June and all of July and August, with them at R----.
+
+At R---- was their old family home, a place of very little pretension,
+but to which they were much attached. When the father died, five years
+before, the two sons had bought the place, or rather had taken it as
+their share, turning over the more productive property to their sister.
+
+They had been very reluctant to close the house, and it was decided that
+Sophie should go there every summer, and take her servants from the
+city; the expenses of the place being borne by the two young men. They
+were very well able to do it, as both were successful in business, and
+keeping open the old home, with no diminution of the hospitality of
+their father's time, was perhaps the greatest pleasure that they had.
+It was an arrangement which suited Sophie admirably. It gave her the
+opportunity to entertain pleasantly and informally; it was a capital
+summer-home for her two boys; it was in the centre of an agreeable
+neighborhood; and above all, it gave her yearly-exhausted purse time to
+recuperate and swell again before the winter's drain. Of course she
+loved the place, too, but not with the simple affection that her two
+brothers did. The young men invited their friends there without
+restriction, as was to be supposed; and Sophie was a gay and agreeable
+hostess. No one could have made the house pleasanter than she did; and
+she left nothing undone to gratify her brothers' tastes and wishes, like
+a wise and prudent woman as she was.
+
+I did not know all this then, or my invitation might not have
+overwhelmed me with such gratitude to her. I reproached myself for not
+having loved her the first time I saw her.
+
+Three months! Three happy months in the country! I could hardly believe
+it possible such a thing had happened to me. I took the note to my uncle
+without much fear of his opposition, for he rarely opposed anything that
+I had the courage to ask him, except going in the street alone. (I
+believe my mother had made a runaway match, and I think he had faith in
+inherited traits; his one resolution regarding me must have been, not to
+give me a chance.) He read the note carefully, and then looked me over
+with more interest than usual, and told me I might go. Afterward he gave
+me a roll of bills, and told me to come to him for more money, if I
+needed it.
+
+I was much excited about my clothes. I could not think that anything was
+good enough to go to R----; and I am afraid I spent a good deal of my
+uncle's money. Ann Coddle and the cook thought that my dresses were
+magnificent, and old Peter groaned over the coming of the packages. I
+had indeed a wardrobe fit for a young princess, and in very good taste
+besides, because I was born with that. An inheritance, no doubt. And my
+uncle never complained at all about the bills. I seemed to have become,
+in some way, a person of considerable importance in the house. Ann
+Coddle no more fretted at me, but waited on me with alacrity. The cook
+ceased to bully me, and on the contrary, flattered me outrageously. I
+remembered the long years of bullying, and put no faith in her
+assurances. I did not know exactly why this change had happened, but
+supposed it might be the result of having become a young lady, and being
+invited to pay visits.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+KILIAN.
+
+     You are well made--have common sense,
+     And do not want for impudence.
+                          _Faust_.
+
+     _Tanto buen die val niente.
+
+     Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l'admire_.
+
+
+The packages finally ceased coming and the stiff old bell from being
+pulled; but only half an hour before the carriage drove to the door that
+was to take me to the boat. Ann Coddle was flying up and down the
+stairs, and calling messages over to Peter in a shrill voice. She was
+not designed by nature for a lady's maid, and was a very disagreeable
+person to have about one's room. She made me even more nervous than I
+should otherwise have been. I had never packed a trunk before, or had
+one packed, and might have thought it a very simple piece of business if
+Ann had not made such a mountain of it; packing every tray half a dozen
+times over, and going down-stairs three times about every article that
+was to come up from the laundry.
+
+Happily she was not to go with me any farther than the boat. Richard
+was away again on business--had been gone, indeed, since the day after
+we had driven in the Park: so I was to be put on board the boat, and
+left in charge of Kilian, his younger brother, who had called at my
+uncle's office, and made the arrangement with him. I had never seen
+Kilian, and the meeting filled me with apprehension; my uncle, however,
+sent up one of his clerks in the carriage to take me to the boat, and
+put me in charge of this young gentleman. This considerate action on the
+part of my uncle seemed to fill up the measure of my surprises.
+
+When we reached the boat, the clerk, a respectful youth, conducted me to
+the upper deck, and then left me with Ann, while he went down about
+the baggage.
+
+With all our precautions, we were rather late, for the last bell was
+ringing; Ann was in a fever of impatience, and I was quite uncertain
+what to do, the clerk not having returned, and Mr. Kilian Vandermarck
+not having yet appeared. Ann was so disagreeable, and so disturbing to
+all thinking, that I had more than once to tell her to be quiet. Matters
+seemed to have reached a crisis. The man at the gangway was shouting
+"all aboard;" the whistle was blowing; the bell was ringing; Ann was
+whimpering; when a belated-looking young man with a book and paper under
+his arm came up the stairs hurriedly and looked around with anxiety. As
+soon as his eye fell on us, he looked relieved, and walked directly up
+to me, and called me by name, interrogatively.
+
+"O yes," I said eagerly, "but do get this woman off the boat or we'll
+have to take her with us." "Oh, no danger," he said, "plenty of time,"
+and he took her toward the stairs, at the head of which she was met by
+the clerk, who touched his hat to me, handed the checks to Mr.
+Vandermarck, then hurried off with Ann. Mr. Vandermarck returned to me,
+but I was so engrossed looking over the side of the boat and watching
+for Ann and the clerk, that I took no notice of him.
+
+At last I saw Ann scramble on the wharf, just before the plank was drawn
+in; with a sigh of relief I turned away.
+
+"I want to apologize for being so late," he said.
+
+"Why, it is not any matter," I answered, "only I had not the least idea
+what to do."
+
+"You are not used to travelling alone, then, I suppose?"
+
+"Oh no," nor to travelling any way, for the matter of that, I added to
+myself; but not aloud, for I had a great fear that it should be known
+how very limited my experience was.
+
+"You must let me take your shawl and bag, and we will go and get a
+comfortable seat," he said in a few moments. We went forward and found
+comfortable chairs under an awning, and where there was a fine breeze.
+It was a warm afternoon, and the change from the heated and glaring
+wharf was delightful. Mr. Vandermarck threw himself back in his chair
+with an expression of relief, and took off his straw hat.
+
+"If you had been in Wall-street since ten o'clock this morning you would
+be prepared to enjoy this sail," he said.
+
+"Is Wall-street so very much more disagreeable than other places? I
+think my uncle regrets every moment that he spends away from it."
+
+"Ah, yes. Mr. Greer may; he has a good deal to make him like it; if I
+made as much money as he does every day there, I think it's possible I
+might like it too. But it is a different matter with a poor devil like
+me: if I get off without being cheated out of all I've got, it is as
+much as I can ask."
+
+"Well, perhaps when he was your age, Uncle Leonard did not ask more than
+that."
+
+"Not he; he began, long before he was as old as I am, to do what I can
+never learn to do, Miss d'Esiree--make money with one hand and save it
+with the other. Now, I'm ashamed to say, a great deal of money comes
+into my pockets, but it never stays there long enough to give me the
+feeling that I'm a rich man. One gets into a way of living that's
+destruction to all chances of a fortune."
+
+"But what's the good of a fortune if you don't enjoy it?" I said,
+thinking of the dreary house in Varick-street.
+
+"No good," he said. "It isn't in my nature to be satisfied with the
+knowledge that I've got enough to make me happy locked up somewhere in a
+safe: I must get it out, and strew it around in sight in the shape of
+horses, pictures, nice rooms, and good things to eat, before I can make
+up my mind that the money is good for anything. Now as to Richard, he is
+just the other way: old head on young shoulders, old pockets in young
+breeches (only there ar'nt any holes in them). He's a model of prudence,
+is my brother Richard. _Qui garde son diner, il a mieux a souper_. He'll
+be a rich man one of these fine days. I look to him to keep me out of
+jail. You know Richard very well, I believe?" he said, turning a sudden
+look on me, which would have been very disconcerting to an older person,
+or one more acquainted with the world.
+
+"O, very well indeed," I said with great simplicity. "You know he is
+such a favorite with my uncle, and he is a great deal at the house."
+
+"Well he may be a favorite, for he is built exactly on his model; at
+seventy, if I am not hung for debt before I reach it, I shall look to
+see him just a second Mr. Leonard Greer."
+
+I made a gesture of dissent. "I don't think he is in the least like
+Uncle Leonard, and I don't think he cares at all for money."
+
+"O, Miss Pauline, don't you believe him if he says he doesn't. I'm his
+younger brother, whom he has lectured and been hard on for these
+twenty-seven years, and I know more about it than anybody else."
+
+"Why, is Mr. Richard Vandermarck twenty-seven years old?" I said with
+much surprise.
+
+"Twenty-nine his next birthday, and I am twenty-seven. Why, did he pass
+himself off for younger? That's an excellent thing against him."
+
+"No; he did not pass himself off for anything in the matter of age. It
+was only my idea about him. I thought he was not more than twenty-five,
+perhaps even younger than that. But then I had nobody but Uncle Leonard
+to compare him with, and it isn't strange that I didn't get
+quite right."
+
+"It _is_ something of a step from Mr. Greer to Richard, I must say. Mr.
+Greer seems so much the oldest man in the world, and Richard--well,
+Richard isn't that, but he is a good deal older than he ought to be.
+But do you tell me, Miss Pauline, you havn't any younger fellows than
+Richard on your cards? Do they keep you as quiet as all that in
+Varick-street?"
+
+I knew by intuition this was impertinence, and no doubt I looked
+annoyed, and Mr. Vandermarck hastened to obliterate the impression by a
+very rapid movement upon the scenery, the beauties of the river, and
+many things as novel.
+
+The three hours of our sail passed away pleasantly. Mr. Vandermarck did
+not move from his seat; did not even read his paper, though I gave him
+an opportunity by turning over the leaves of my "Littel" on the
+occurrence of every pause.
+
+I felt that I knew him quite well before the journey was over, and I
+liked him exceedingly, almost as well as Richard. He was rather
+handsomer than Richard, not so tall, but more vivacious and more
+amusing, much more so. I began to think Richard rather dull when I
+contrasted him with his brother.
+
+When we reached the wharf, Mr. Vandermarck, after disposing of the
+baggage, gave his arm to me, and took me to an open wagon which was
+waiting for us. He put me in the seat beside him, and took the reins
+with a look of pleasure.
+
+"These are Tom and Jerry, Miss Pauline," he said, "about the
+pleasantest members of the family; at least they contribute more to my
+pleasure than any other members of it. I squandered about half my income
+on them a year or two ago, and have not repented yet; though, indeed,
+repentance isn't in my way. I shall hope for the happiness of giving you
+many drives with them, if I am permitted."
+
+"Nothing could make me happier, I am sure."
+
+"Richard hasn't any horses, though he can afford it much better than I
+can. He does his driving, when he is here, with the carriage-horses that
+we keep for Sophie--a dull old pair of brutes. He disapproves very much
+of Tom and Jerry; but you see it would never do to have two such wise
+heads in one family."
+
+"It would destroy the balance of power in the neighborhood."
+
+"Decidedly; as it is, we are a first-class power, owing to Sophie's
+cleverness and Richard's prudence; my prodigality is just needed to keep
+us from overrunning the county and proclaiming an empire at the next
+town meeting. How do you like Sophie, Miss d'Estree? I know you haven't
+seen much of her--but what you have? Isn't she clever, and isn't she a
+pretty woman to be nearly thirty-five?"
+
+I was feeling very grateful for my invitation, and so I said a great
+deal of my admiration for his sister.
+
+"Everybody likes her," he said, complacently. "I don't know a more
+popular person anywhere. She is the life of the neighborhood; people
+come to her for everything, if they want to get a new door-mat for the
+school-house, or if they want a new man nominated for the legislature. I
+think she's awfully bored, sometimes, but she keeps it to herself. But
+though the summer is her rest, she always does enough to tire out
+anybody else. Now, for instance, she is going to have three young ladies
+with her for the next two months (besides yourself, Miss d'Estree), whom
+she will have to be amusing all the time, and some friends of mine who
+will turn the house inside out. But Sophie never grumbles."
+
+"Tell me about them all," I said, consuming with a fever of curiosity.
+
+"O, I forgot you did not know them. Shall I begin with the young
+ladies?--(Sam, there's a stone in Jerry's off fore-foot; get down and
+look about it--Steady!--there, I knew it)--Excuse me, Miss d'Estree.
+Well,--the young ladies. There's one of our cousins, a grand, handsome,
+sombre, estimable girl, whom nobody ever flirts with, but whom somebody
+will marry. That's Henrietta Palmer. Then there is Charlotte
+Benson--not pretty, but stylish and so clever. She carries too many guns
+for most men; she is a capital girl in her way. Then there is Mary
+Leighton; she is small, blonde, lovely. I do not believe in her
+particularly, but we are great friends, and flirt a little, I am told. I
+quite wonder how you will like each other. I hope you will tell me your
+impressions. No doubt she will be rather your companion, for Henrietta
+and Charlotte Benson are desperately intimate, and have a room together.
+They are quite romantic and very superior. Pretty Miss Leighton isn't in
+their line exactly, and is rather left to her own reflections, I should
+think. But she makes up for it when the gentlemen appear; she isn't left
+with any time upon her hands, you may be sure. I don't know what it is
+about her; she never said a bright thing in her life, and a great, great
+many silly ones; but everybody wants to talk to her, and her silly words
+are precious to the man to whom she says them. Did you ever meet anybody
+like her?"
+
+"I? oh no. I never met anybody," I said, half-bitterly, beginning to be
+afraid of the people whom I so soon should meet; and then I began to
+talk about the road, and to inquire how far we had yet to drive, and to
+ask to have a shawl about my shoulders. It was not yet seven o'clock,
+but the country air was fresh and cool, and the rapid driving made
+it cooler.
+
+"We are almost there; and I hope, Miss d'Estree, that you won't feel as
+if you were going among strangers. You will not feel so long, at any
+rate. It is too bad Richard isn't here; you know him so much better than
+the rest of us. But before he comes back, I am sure you will feel as
+much at home as he. But here's the gate."
+
+There was a drive of perhaps an eighth of a mile from the gate to the
+house: the trees and hedge were thick, so that one saw little of the
+house from the road. The grounds were well kept; there was a nice lawn,
+in front of the house, and some very fine old trees. The house was low
+and irregular, but quite picturesque. It fronted the road; the rear
+looked toward the river, about quarter of a mile distant, and of which
+the view was lovely.
+
+There was a piazza in front, on which four ladies stood; one of them
+came forward, and came down the steps, and met me as I got out of the
+carriage. That, of course, was Mrs. Hollenbeck, She welcomed me very
+cordially, and led me up the steps of the piazza, where the young ladies
+stood. Terrible young ladies! I shook with fear of them. I felt as if I
+did not know anything, as if I did not look well, as if my clothes were
+hideous. I should not have been afraid of young or old men, nor of old
+women; but they were just my age, just my class, just my equals, or
+ought to have been, if I had had any other fate than Uncle Leonard and
+Varick-street. How they would criticize me! How soon they would find out
+I had never been anywhere before! I wished for Richard then with all my
+heart. Kilian had already deserted me, and was talking to Miss Leighton,
+who had come half-way down the steps to meet him, and who only gave me a
+glance and a very pretty smile and nod, when Mrs. Hollenbeck presented
+me to them. Miss Benson and Miss Palmer each gave me a hand, and looked
+me over horribly; and the tones of their voices, when they spoke to me,
+were so constrained and cold, and so different from the tones in which
+they addressed each other. I hated them.
+
+After a few moments of wretchedness, Sophie proposed to take me to my
+room. We went up the stairs, which were steep and old-fashioned, with a
+landing-place almost like a little room. My room was in a wing of the
+house, over the dining-room, and the windows looked out on the river. It
+was not large, but was very pretty. The windows were curtained, and the
+bed was dainty, and the little mantel was draped, and the ornaments and
+pictures were quaint and delightful to my taste.
+
+Sophie laid the shawls she had been carrying up for me upon the bed,
+and said she hoped I would find everything I needed, and would try to
+feel entirely at home, and not hesitate to ask for anything that would
+make me comfortable.
+
+Nothing could be kinder, but my affection and gratitude were fast dying
+out, and I was quite sure of one thing, namely, that I never should love
+Sophie if she spent her life in inviting me to pay her visits. She told
+me that tea would be ready in half an hour, and then left me. I sat down
+on the bed when she was gone, and wished myself back in Varick-street;
+and then cried, to think that I should be homesick for such a dreary
+home. But the appetites and affections common to humanity had not been
+left out of my heart, though I had been beggared all my life in regard
+to most of them. I could have loved a mother so--a sister--I could have
+had such happy feelings for a place that I could have felt was home.
+What matter, if I could not even remember the smile on my mother's lips;
+what matter, if no brother or sister had ever been born to me; if no
+house had ever been my rightful home? I was hungry for them all the
+same. And these first glimpses of the happy lives of others seemed to
+disaffect me more than ever with my own.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+MY COMPANIONS.
+
+     "Vous etes belle: ainsi donc la moitie
+      Du genre humain sera votre ennemie."
+
+                      _Voltaire_.
+
+                 "Oh, I think the cause
+     Of much was, they forgot no crowd
+     Makes up for parents in their shroud."
+
+                 _R. Browning_.
+
+
+The servant came to call me down to tea while I was still sitting with
+my face in my hands upon the bed. I started up, lit the candles on the
+dressing-table, arranged my hair, washed the tears off my face, and
+hurried down the stairs. They were waiting for me in the parlor, and no
+doubt were quite impatient, as they had already waited for the arrival
+of the evening train, and it was nearly eight o'clock. The evening train
+had brought Mr. Eugene Whitney, of whom I can only say, that he was a
+very insignificant young man indeed. We all moved into the dining-room;
+the others took the seats they were accustomed to. Mr. Whitney and I,
+being the only new-comers, were advised which seats belonged to us by a
+trim young maid-servant, and I, for one, was very glad to get into mine.
+Mr. Whitney was my neighbor on one hand, the youngest of the Hollenbeck
+boys on the other. These were our seats:
+
+          Kilian,
+
+Miss Leighton, Miss Henrietta Palmer,
+
+Miss Benson,   Mr. Eugene Whitney,
+
+Tutor,         Myself,
+
+Boy,           Boy,
+
+      Mrs. Hollenbeck.
+
+The seat opposite me was not filled when we sat down.
+
+"Where is Mr. Langenau, Charley?" said his mother.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know, mamma," said Charley, applying himself to
+marmalade.
+
+"Charley doesn't see much of his tutor out of hours, I think," said Miss
+Benson.
+
+"A good deal too much of him in 'em," murmured Charley, between a
+spoonful of marmalade and a drink of milk.
+
+"Benny's the boy that loves his book," said Kilian; "he's the joy of his
+tutor's heart, I know," at which there was a general laugh, and Benny,
+the younger, looked up with a merry smile.
+
+The Hollenbeck boys were not fond of study. They were healthy and
+pretty; quite the reverse of intellectual; very fair and rosy, without
+much resemblance to their mother or her brothers. It was evident the
+acquisition of knowledge was far from being the principal pursuit of
+their lives, and the tutor was looked upon as the natural enemy of
+Charley, at the least.
+
+"I don't see what you ever got him for, mamma," said Charley. "I'd study
+just as much without him."
+
+"And that wouldn't be pledging yourself to very much, would it, Charley
+dear?"
+
+"Wish he was back in Germany with his ugly books," cried Charley.
+
+But--hush!--there was a sudden lull, as the tutor entered and took his
+place by Charley. He was a well-made man, evidently about thirty. He was
+so decidedly a gentleman, in manners and appearance, that even these
+spoiled boys treated him respectfully, and the young ladies and
+gentlemen at the table were more stiff than offensive in their manner.
+But he was so evidently not one of them!
+
+It is very disagreeable to be among people who know each other very
+well, even if they try to know you very well and admit you to their
+friendship. But I had no assurance that any one was trying to do this
+for _me_, and I am afraid I showed very little inclination to be
+admitted to their friendship. I could not talk, and I did not want to be
+talked to. I was even afraid of the little boys, and thought all the
+time that Charley was watching me and making signs about me to his
+brother, when in reality he was only telegraphing about the marmalade.
+
+In the meantime, without any attention to my feelings, the business of
+the tea-table proceeded. Mrs. Hollenbeck poured out tea, and kept the
+little boys under a moderate control. Kilian cut up some birds before
+him, and tried to persuade the young ladies to eat some, but nobody had
+appetite enough but Mr. Whitney and himself. Charlotte Benson, who was
+clever and efficient and exceedingly at home, cut up a cake that was
+before her, and gave the boys some strawberries, and offered some to me.
+Miss Palmer simply looked very handsome, and eat a biscuit or two, and
+tried to talk to Mr. Whitney, who seemed to have a good appetite and
+very little conversation. Miss Leighton gave herself up to attentions to
+Kilian; she was saying silly little things to him in a little low tone
+all the time, and offering him different articles before her, and
+advising him what he ought to eat; all of which seemed most interesting
+and important in dumb-show till you heard what it was all about, and
+then you felt ashamed of them. At times, I think, Kilian felt somewhat
+ashamed too, and tried to talk a little to the others; but most of the
+time he seemed to like it very well, and did not ask anything better
+than the excellent woodcock on his plate, and the pretty young woman
+by his side.
+
+"By the way," said Sophie, when the meal was nearly over, "I had a
+letter from Richard to-day."
+
+"Ah!" said Kilian, with a momentary release from his admirer. "And when
+is he coming home?"
+
+I looked up with quick interest, and met Mrs. Hollenbeck's eyes, which
+seemed to be always on me. Then I turned mine down the table
+uncomfortably, and found Charlotte Benson looking at me too. I did not
+know what I had done to be looked at, but wished they would look at
+themselves and let me take my tea (or leave it alone) in peace.
+
+"Not for two weeks yet," said his sister; "not for two whole weeks."
+
+"How sorry I am," said Charlotte Benson.
+
+"I think we are all sorry," said Henrietta the tranquil.
+
+"Miss d'Estree confided to me that she'd be glad to see him," said
+Kilian, cutting up another woodcock and looking at his plate.
+
+"Indeed I shall," I said, with, a little sigh, not thinking so much
+about them as feeling most earnestly what a difference his coming would
+make, and how sure I should be of having at least one friend when he
+got here.
+
+"He seems to be having a delightful time," said his sister.
+
+"I am glad to hear that," I said, interested. "Generally he finds it
+such a bore. He doesn't seem to like to travel." I was rather startled
+at the sound of my own voice and the attention of my audience; but I had
+been betrayed into speaking, by my interest in the subject, and my
+surprise at hearing he was having such a pleasant time.
+
+"Ah!" she said, "don't you think he does? At any rate, he seems to be
+enjoying this journey, and to be in no hurry to come back. I looked for
+him last week."
+
+Warned by my last experience, I said nothing in answer; and after a
+moment Kilian said:
+
+"Well, if Richard's having a good time, you may be sure he's made some
+favorable negotiation, and comes home with good news for the firm.
+That's his idea of a good time, you know."
+
+"Ah!" said Sophie, gently, "that's his brother's idea of his idea. It
+isn't mine."
+
+Charlotte Benson seemed a little nettled at this, and exclaimed,
+
+"Mrs. Hollenbeck! you are making us all unhappy. You are leading us to
+suspect that the stern man of business is unbending. What's the
+influence at work? What makes this journey different from other
+journeys? Where does he tarry, oh, where?"
+
+"Nonsense!" said Sophie, with a little laugh. "You cannot say I have
+implied anything of the sort. Cannot Richard enjoy a journey without
+your censure or suspicion? You must be careful; he does not
+fancy teasing."
+
+"O, I shall not accuse him, you may be sure; that is, if he ever comes.
+Do you believe he really ever will?"
+
+"Not if he thinks you want him," said Kilian, amiably. "He has a great
+aversion to being made much of."
+
+"Yes, a family trait," interrupted Charlotte, at which everybody
+laughed, no one more cordially than Miss Leighton.
+
+"Leave off laughing at my Uncle Richard," said Benny, stoutly, with his
+cheeks quite flushed.
+
+"We have, dear, and are laughing at your Uncle Kilian. You don't object
+to that, I'm sure," and Charlotte Benson leaned forward and threw him a
+little kiss past the tutor, who wore a silent, abstracted look, in odd
+contrast with the animated expressions of the faces all around him.
+
+Benny did not like the joke at all, and got down from his chair and
+walked away without permission. We all followed him, going into the
+hall, and from thence to the piazza, as the night was fine. The tutor
+walked silently through the group in the hall to a seat where lay his
+book and hat, then passed through the doorway and disappeared
+from sight.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE TUTOR.
+
+     And now above them pours a wondrous voice,
+     (Such as Greek reapers heard in Sicily),
+     With wounding rapture in it, like love's arrows.
+
+     _George Eliot_.
+
+
+The next day, the first of my visit, was a very sultry one, and the rest
+of the party thought it was, no doubt, a very dull one.
+
+Kilian and Mr. Eugene Whitney went away in the early train, not to
+return, alas, till the evening of the following day. Miss Leighton was
+languid, and yawned incessantly, though she tried to appear interested
+in things, and was very attentive to me. Charlotte Benson and Henrietta
+laid strong-minded plans for the day, and carried them out faithfully.
+First, they played a game of croquet, under umbrellas, for the sun was
+blazing on the ground: that was for exercise; then, for mental
+discipline, they read history for an hour in the library; and then, for
+relaxation, under veils and sunhats, read Ruskin for two hours by
+the river.
+
+I cannot think Henrietta understood Ruskin, but I have no doubt she
+thought she did, and tried to share in her friend's enthusiasm. Sophie
+had a little headache, and spent much of the morning in her room. The
+boys were away with their tutor in the farm-house where they had their
+school-room, and the house seemed deserted and delightful. I wandered
+about at ease, chose my book, and sat for hours in the boat-house by the
+river, not reading Ruskin, nor even my poor little novel, but gazing and
+dreaming and wondering. It can be imagined what the country seemed to
+me, in beautiful summer weather, after the dreary years I had spent in a
+city-street.
+
+It is quite impossible to describe all that seemed starting into life
+within me, all at once--- so many new forces, so much new life.
+
+My home-sickness had passed away, and I was inclined to be very happy,
+particularly in the liberty that seemed to promise. Dinner was very
+quiet, and every one seemed dull, even Charlotte Benson, who ordinarily
+had life enough for all. The boys were there, but their tutor had gone
+away on a long walk and would not be back till evening. "_A la bonne
+heure_," cried Madame, with a little yawn; "freedom of the halls, and
+deshabille, for one afternoon."
+
+So we spent the afternoon with our doors open, and with books, or
+without books, on the bed.
+
+Nobody came into my room, except Mrs. Hollenbeck for a few moments,
+looking very pretty in a white peignoir, and rather sleepy at the same
+time; hoping I was comfortable and had found something to amuse me in
+the library.
+
+It seemed to be thought a great bore to dress, to judge from the
+exclamations of ennui which I heard in the hall, as six o'clock
+approached, and the young ladies wandered into each other's room and
+bewailed the necessity. I think Miss Leighton would have been very glad
+to have stayed on the bed, and tried to sleep away the hours that
+presented no amusement; but Charlotte Benson laughed at her so cruelly,
+that she began to dress at once, and said, she had not intended what she
+said, of course.
+
+I was the first to be ready, and went down to the piazza. The heat of
+the day was over and there was a soft, pleasant breeze. We were to have
+tea at seven o'clock, and while I sat there, the bell rang. The tutor
+came in from under the trees where he had been reading, looking rather
+pale after his long walk.
+
+He bowed slightly as he passed me, and waited at the other end of the
+piazza, reading as he stood, till the others came down to the
+dining-room. As we were seating ourselves he came in and took his place,
+with a bow to me and the others. Mrs. Hollenbeck asked him a little
+about his expedition, and paid him a little more attention than usual,
+being the only man.
+
+He had a most fortunate way of saying just the right thing and then
+being silent; never speaking unless addressed, and then conveying
+exactly the impression he desired. I think he must have appeared in a
+more interesting light that usual at this meal, for as we went out from
+the dining room Mary Leighton put her arm through mine and whispered
+"Poor fellow! How lonely he must be! Let's ask him to go and walk with
+us this evening."
+
+Before I could remonstrate or detach myself from her, she had twisted
+herself about, in a peculiarly supple and child-like manner that she
+had, and had made the suggestion to him.
+
+He was immeasurably surprised, no doubt, but he gave no sign of it.
+After a silence of two or three instants, during which, I think, he was
+occupied in trying to find a way to decline, he assented very sedately.
+
+Charlotte Benson and her friend, who were behind us, were enraged at
+this proceeding. During the week they had all been in the house
+together, they had never gone beyond speaking terms with the tutor, and
+this they had agreed was the best way to keep things, and it seemed to
+be his wish no less than theirs. Here was this saucy girl, in want of
+amusement, upsetting all their plans. They shortly declined to go to
+walk with us: and so Mary Leighton, Mr. Langenau, and I started alone
+toward the river.
+
+It must be confessed, Miss Leighton was not rewarded for her effort, for
+a stiffer and more uncomfortable companion could not be imagined. He
+entirely declined to respond to her coquetry, and she very soon found
+she must abandon this role; but she was nothing if not coquettish, and
+the conversation flagged uncomfortably. Before we reached home she was
+quite impatient, and ran up the steps, when we got there, as if it were
+a great relief. The tutor raised his hat when he left us at the door,
+turned back, and disappeared for the rest of the evening.
+
+The next morning, coming down-stairs half an hour before breakfast, I
+went into the library (a little room at the right of the front door),
+for a book I had left there. I threw myself into an easy-chair, and
+opened it, when I caught sight of the tutor, reading at the window. I
+half started to my feet, and then sank back again in confusion; for what
+was there to go away for?
+
+He rose and bowed, and resumed his seat and his book.
+
+The room was quite small, and we were very near each other. How I could
+possibly have missed seeing him as I entered, now surprised me. I longed
+to go away, but did not dare do anything that would seem rude. He
+appeared very much engrossed with his book, but I, for my part, could
+not read a word, and was only thinking how I could get away. Possibly he
+guessed at my embarrassment, for after about ten minutes he arose, and
+coming up to the table by which I sat, he took up a card, and placed it
+in his book for a mark, and shut it up, then made some remark to me
+about the day.
+
+The color was coming and going in my face.
+
+He must have felt sorry or curious, for he did not go directly away, and
+continued to talk of things that did not require me to answer him.
+
+I do not know what it was about his voice that was so different from the
+ordinary voices of people. There was a quality in it that I had never
+heard in any other. But perhaps it was in the ear that listened, as well
+as the voice that spoke. And apart from the tones, the words I never
+could forget. The most trivial things that he ever said to me, I can
+remember to this day.
+
+I believe that this was not of my imagination, but that others felt it
+in some degree as I did. It was this that made him such an invaluable
+teacher; he impressed upon those flesh-and-blood boys, in that one
+summer, more than they would have learned in whole years from ordinary
+persons. It was not very strange, then, that I was smitten with the
+strangest interest in all he said and did, and that his words made the
+deepest impression on me.
+
+No doubt it is pleasant to be listened to by one whose face tells you
+you are understood; and the tutor was not in a hurry to go away. He had
+got up from the window, I know, with the intention of going out of the
+room, but he continued standing, looking down at me and talking, for
+half an hour at least.
+
+The soft morning wind came in at the open door and window, with a scent
+of rose and honeysuckle: the pretty little room was full of the early
+sunshine in which there is no glare: I can see it all now, and I can
+hear, as ever, his low voice.
+
+He talked of the book I held in my hand, of the views on the river, of
+the pleasantness of country life. I fancy I did not say much, though I
+never am able to remember what I said when talking to him. Whatever I
+said was a mere involuntary accord with him. I never recollect to have
+felt that I did not agree with and admire every word he uttered.
+
+How different his manner from last night when he had talked with Mary
+Leighton; all the stiffness, the half-concealed repelling tone was
+gone. I had not heard him speak to any one, except perhaps once to
+Benny, as he spoke now. I was quite sure that he liked me, and that he
+did not class me with the others in the house. But when the
+breakfast-bell rang, he gave a slight start, and his voice changed; and
+such a frown came over his face! He looked at his watch, said something
+about the hour, and quickly left the room. I bent my head over my book
+and sat still, till I heard them all come down and go into the
+breakfast-room. I trusted they would not know he had been talking to me,
+and there was little danger, unless they guessed it from my cheeks being
+so aflame.
+
+At breakfast he was more silent than ever, and his brow had not quite
+got over that sudden frown. At dinner he was away again, as the
+day before.
+
+The day passed much as yesterday had done. About four o'clock there came
+a telegram from Kilian to his sister. He had been delayed, and Mr.
+Whitney would wait for him, and they would come the next evening by the
+boat. I think Mary Leighton could have cried if she had not been
+ashamed. Her pretty blue organdie was on the bed ready to put on. It
+went back into the wardrobe very quickly, and she came down to tea in a
+gray barege that was a little shabby.
+
+A rain had come on about six o'clock. At tea the candles were lit, and
+the windows closed. Every one looked moped and dull; the evening
+promised to be insufferable. Mrs. Hollenbeck saw the necessity of
+rousing herself and providing us some amusement. When Mr. Langenau
+entered, she met his bow with one of her best smiles: how the change
+must have struck him; for she had been very mechanical and polite to him
+before. Now she spoke to him with the charming manner that brought every
+one to her feet.
+
+And what was the cause of this sudden kindness? It is very easy for me
+to see now, though then I had not a suspicion. Alas! I am afraid that
+the cheeks aflame at breakfast-time were the immediate cause of the
+change. Mrs. Hollenbeck would not have made so marked a movement for an
+evening's entertainment: it seemed to suit her very well that I should
+talk to the tutor in the library before breakfast, and she meant to give
+me opportunities for talking to him in the parlor too.
+
+"A dreary evening, is it not?" she began. "What shall we all do?
+Charlotte, can't you think of something?"
+
+Charlotte, who had her own plans for a quiet evening by the lamp with a
+new book, of course could not think of anything.
+
+"Henrietta, at least you shall give us some music, and Mr. Langenau, I
+am sure you will be good enough to help us; I will send over to the
+school-room for that flute and those piles of music that I've seen upon
+a shelf, and you will be charitable enough to play for us."
+
+"I must beg you will not take that trouble."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Langenau, that is selfish now."
+
+Mrs. Hollenbeck did not press the subject then, but made herself
+thoroughly delightful during tea, and as we rose from the table renewed
+the request in a low tone to Mr. Langenau: and the result was, a little
+after eight o'clock he came into the parlor where we sat. A place was
+made for him at the table around which we were sitting, and Mrs.
+Hollenbeck began the process of putting him at his ease. There was no
+need. The tutor was quite as much at ease as any one, and, in a little
+while, imperceptibly became the person to whom we were all listening.
+
+Charlotte Benson at last gave up her book, and took her work-box
+instead. We were no longer moping and dull around the table. And bye and
+bye Henrietta, much alarmed, was sent to the piano, and her poor little
+music certainly sounded very meagre when Mr. Langenau touched the keys.
+
+I think he consented to play not to appear rude, but with the firm
+intention of not being the instrument of our entertainment, and not
+being made use of out of his own accepted calling. But happily for us,
+he soon forgot all about us, and played on, absorbed in himself and in
+his music. We listened breathlessly, the others quite as much engrossed
+as I, because they all knew much more of music than I did. Suddenly,
+after playing for a long while, he started from the piano, and came back
+to the table. He was evidently agitated. Before the others could say a
+word of thanks or wonder, I cried, in a fear of the cessation of what
+gave me such intense pleasure,
+
+"Oh, sing something; can't you sing?"
+
+"Yes, I can sing," he said, looking down at me with those dangerous
+eyes. "Will it give you pleasure if I sing for you?"
+
+He did not wait for an answer, but turned back to the piano.
+
+He had said "if I sing for you," and I knew that for me he was singing.
+I do not know what it was for others, but for me, it was the only true
+music that I had ever heard, the only music that I could have begged
+might never cease, but flood over all the present and the future,
+satisfying every sense. Other voices had roused and thrilled, this
+filled me. I asked no more, and could have died with that sound in
+my ears.
+
+"Why, Pauline! child! what is it?" cried Mrs. Hollenbeck, as the music
+ceased and Mr. Langenau. again came back to the circle round the table.
+Every one looked: I was choking with sobs.
+
+"Oh, don't, I don't want you to speak to me," I cried, putting away her
+hand and darting from the room. I was not ashamed of myself, even when I
+was alone in my room. The powerful magic lasted still, through the
+silence and darkness, till I was aroused by the voices of the others
+coming up to bed.
+
+Mrs. Hollenbeck knocked at my door with her bedroom candle in her hand,
+and, as she stood talking to me, the others strayed in to join her and
+to satisfy their curiosity.
+
+"You are very sensitive to music, are you not?" said Charlotte Benson,
+contemplatively. She had tried me on Mompssen, and the "Seven Lamps,"
+and found me wanting, and now perhaps hoped to find some other point
+less faulty.
+
+"I do not know," I said, honestly. "I seem to have been very sensitive
+to-night."
+
+"But you are not always?" asked Henrietta Palmer. "You do not always cry
+when people sing?"
+
+"Why, no," I said with great contempt. "But I never heard any one sing
+like that before."
+
+"He does sing well," said Mrs. Hollenbeck, thoughtfully.
+
+"Immense expression and a fine voice," added Charlotte Benson.
+
+"He has been educated for the stage, you may be sure," said Mary
+Leighton, with a little spite. "As Miss d'Estree says, I never heard
+anyone sing like that, out of the chorus of an opera."
+
+"Well, I think," returned Charlotte Benson, "if there were many voices
+like that in ordinary choruses, one would be glad to dispense with the
+solos and duets."
+
+"Oh, you would not find his voice so wonderful, if you heard it out of a
+parlor. It is very well, but it would not fill a concert hall, much less
+an opera house. No; you may be sure he has been educated for some of
+those German choruses; you know they are very fine musicians."
+
+"Well, I don't know that it is anything to us what he was educated for,"
+said Charlotte Benson, sharply. "He has given us a very delightful
+evening, and I, for one, am much obliged to him."
+
+"_Et moi aussi"_ murmured Henrietta, wreathing her large beautiful arms
+about her friend, and the two sauntered away.
+
+Mary Leighton, in general ill-humor, and still remembering the walk of
+the last evening, desired to fire a parting-shot, and exclaimed, as she
+went out, "Well, I think it is something to us; I like to have
+gentlemen about me."
+
+"You need not be uneasy," said Mrs. Hollenbeck, a little stiffly. "I
+think Mr. Langenau is a gentleman."
+
+But at this moment his step was heard in the hall below, and there was
+an end put to the conversation.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+MATINAL.
+
+     Last night, when some one spoke his name,
+     From my swift blood that went and came
+     A thousand little shafts of flame
+     Were shivered in my narrow frame.
+
+                   _Tennyson_.
+
+
+The next morning was brilliant and cool, the earth and heavens shining
+after the rain of the past night. I was dressed long, long before
+breakfast: it would be so tiresome to wait in my room till the bell
+rang; yet if I went down-stairs, would it not look as if I wanted to see
+Mr. Langenau again? I need not go to the library, of course, but I could
+scarcely avoid being seen from the library if I went out. But why
+suppose that he would be down again so early? It was very improbable,
+and so, affectionately deceived, I put on a hat and walking-jacket and
+stole down the stairs. I saw by the clock in the lower hall that it was
+half an hour earlier than I had come down the morning before; at which I
+was secretly chagrined, for now there was no danger, _alias_ hope, of
+seeing Mr. Langenau.
+
+But probably he had forgotten all about the foolish half-hour that had
+given me so much to think about. I glanced into the library, which was
+empty, and hurried out of the hall-door, secretly disappointed.
+
+I took the path that led over the hill to the river. It passed through
+the garden, under the long arbors of grapevines, over the hill, and
+through a grove of maples, ending at the river where the boat-house
+stood. The brightness of the morning was not lost on me, and before I
+reached the maple-grove I was buoyant and happy. At the entrance of the
+grove (which was traversed by several paths, the principal coming up
+directly from the river) I came suddenly upon the tutor, walking
+rapidly, with a pair of oars over his shoulder. He started, and for a
+moment we both stood still and did not speak. I could only think with
+confusion of my emotion when he sang.
+
+"You are always early," he said, with his slight, very slight, foreign
+accent, "earlier than yesterday by half an hour," he added, looking at
+his watch. My heart gave a great bound of pleasure. Then he had not
+forgotten! How he must have seen all this.
+
+He stood and talked with me for some moments, and then desperately I
+made a movement to go on. I do not believe, at least I am not sure, that
+at first he had any intention of going with me. But it was not in human
+nature to withstand the flattery of such emotion as his presence seemed
+always to inspire in me; and then, I have no doubt, he had a certain
+pleasure in talking to me outside of that; and then the morning was so
+lovely and he had so much of books.
+
+He proposed to show me a walk I had not taken. There was a little
+hesitation in his manner, but he was reassured by my look of pleasure,
+and throwing down the oars under a tree, he turned and walked beside me.
+No doubt he said to himself, "America! This paradise of girlhood;--there
+can be no objection." It was heavenly sweet, that walk--the birds, the
+sky, the dewiness and freshness of all nature and all life. It seemed
+the unstained beginning of all things to me.
+
+The woods were wet; we could not go through them, and so we went a
+longer way, along the river and back by the road.
+
+This time he did not do all the talking, but made me talk, and listened
+carefully to all I said; and I was so happy, talking was not any effort.
+
+At last he made some allusion to the music of last night; that he was so
+glad to see that I loved music as I did. "But I don't particularly," I
+said in confusion, with a great fear of being dishonest, "at least I
+never thought I did before, and I am so ignorant. I don't want you to
+think I know anything about it, for you would be disappointed." He was
+silent, and, I felt sure, because he was already disappointed; in fear
+of which I went on to say--
+
+"I never heard any one sing like that before; I am very sorry that it
+gave any one an impression that I had a knowledge of music, when I
+hadn't. I don't care about it generally, except in church, and I can't
+understand what made me feel so yesterday."
+
+"Perhaps it is because you were in the mood for it," he said. "It is
+often so, one time music gives us pleasure, another time it does not."
+
+"That may be so; but your voice, in speaking, even, seems to me
+different from any other. It is almost as good as music when you speak;
+only the music fills me with such feelings."
+
+"You must let me sing for you again," he said, rather low, as we walked
+slowly on.
+
+"Ah; if you only will," I answered, with a deep sigh of satisfaction.
+
+We walked on in silence till we reached the gate: he opened it for me
+and then said, "Now I must leave you, and go back for the oars."
+
+I was secretly glad of this; since the walk had reached its natural
+limit and its end must be accepted, it was a relief to approach the
+house alone and not be the subject of any observation.
+
+Breakfast had began: no one seemed to feel much interest in my entrance,
+though flaming with red roses and red cheeks.
+
+They were of the sex that do not notice such things naturally, with much
+interest or admiration. They had hardly "shaken off drowsy-hed," and had
+no pleasure in anything but their breakfast, and not much in that.
+
+"How do you manage to get yourself up and dressed at such inhuman
+hours?" said Mary Leighton, querulously.
+
+"You are a reproach to the household, and we will not suffer it," said
+Charlotte Benson.
+
+"I never could understand this thing of getting up before you are
+obliged to," added Henrietta plaintively.
+
+But Sophie seemed well satisfied, particularly when Mr. Langenau came in
+and I looked down into my cup of tea, instead of saying good-morning to
+him. He did not say very much, though there was a good deal of babble
+among the others, principally about his music.
+
+It was becoming the fashion to be very attentive to him. He was made to
+promise to play in the evening; to bring down his books of music for the
+benefit of Miss Henrietta, who wanted to practice, Heaven knows what of
+his. His advice was asked about styles of playing and modes of
+instruction; he was deferred to as an authority. But very little he
+seemed to care about it all, I thought.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THREE WEEKS TOO LATE.
+
+     _Qui va a la chasse perd sa place_.
+
+     _De la main a la bouche se perd souvent la soupe_.
+
+       Distance all value enhances!
+     When a man's busy, why, leisure
+     Strikes him as wonderful pleasure.
+     Faith! and at leisure once is he,
+     Straightway he wants to be busy.
+
+     _R. Browning_.
+
+
+Two weeks more passed: two weeks that seem to me so many years when I
+look back upon them. Many more walks, early and late, many evenings of
+music, many accidents of meeting. It is all like a dream. At seventeen
+it is so easy to dream! It does not take two weeks for a girl to fall in
+love and make her whole life different.
+
+It was Saturday evening, and Richard was expected; Richard and Kilian
+and Mr. Eugene Whitney. Ah, Richard was coming just three weeks
+too late.
+
+We were all waiting on the piazza for them, in pretty toilettes and
+excellent tempers. It was a lovely evening; the sunset was filling the
+sky with splendor, and Charlotte and Henrietta had gone to the corner of
+the piazza whence the river could be seen, and were murmuring fragments
+of verses to each other. They were not so much absorbed, however, but
+that they heard the first sound of the wheels inside the gate, and
+hurried back to join us by the steps.
+
+Mary Leighton looked absolutely lovely. The blue organdie had seen the
+day at last, and she was in such a flutter of delight at the coming of
+the gentlemen that she could scarcely be recognized as the pale, flimsy
+young person who had moped so unblushingly all the week.
+
+"They are all three there," she exclaimed with suppressed rapture, as
+the carriage turned the angle of the road that brought them into sight.
+Mrs. Hollenbeck, quite beaming with pleasure, ran down the steps (for
+Richard had been away almost two months), and Mary Leighton was at her
+side, of course. Charlotte Benson and Henrietta went half-way down the
+steps, and I stood on the piazza by the pillar near the door.
+
+I was a little excited by their coming, too, but not nearly as much so
+as I might have been three weeks ago. A subject of much greater interest
+occupied my mind that very moment, and related to the chances of the
+tutor's getting home in time for tea, from one of those long walks that
+were so tiresome. I felt as if I hardly needed Richard now. Still, dear
+old Richard! It was very nice to see him once again.
+
+The gentlemen all sprang out of the carriage, and a Babel of welcomes
+and questions and exclamations arose. Richard kissed his sister, and
+answered some of her many questions, then shook hands with the young
+ladies, but I could see that his eye was searching for me. I can't tell
+why, certainly not because I felt at all shy, I had stepped back, a
+little behind the pillar and the vines. In an instant he saw me, and
+came quickly up the steps, and stood by me and grasped my hand, and
+looked exactly as if he meant to kiss me. I hoped that nobody saw his
+look, and I drew back, a little frightened. Of course, I know that he
+had not the least intention of kissing me, but his look was so eager and
+so unusual,
+
+"It is two months, Pauline," he said; "and are you well?" And though I
+only said that I was well and was very glad to see him, I am sure his
+sister Sophie thought that it was something more, for she had followed
+him up the steps and stood in the doorway looking at us.
+
+The others came up there, and Kilian, as soon as he could get out of the
+meshes of the blue organdie, came to me, and tried to out-devotion
+Richard.
+
+That is the way with men. He had not taken any trouble to get away from
+Mary Leighton till Richard came.
+
+A young woman only needs one lover very much in earnest, to bring about
+her several others, not so much, perhaps, in earnest, but very amusing
+and instructive. Richard went away very quickly, for I am sure he did
+not like that sort of thing.
+
+It was soon necessary for Mr. Kilian to suspend his devotion and go to
+his room to get ready for tea.
+
+When we all assembled again, at the table, I found that he had placed
+himself beside me, next his sister, little Benny having gone to bed.
+
+"Of course, the head of the table belongs to Richard; I never interfere
+there, and as everybody else is placed, this is the only seat that I can
+take, following the rose and thorn principle."
+
+"But that principle is not followed strictly," cried Charlotte Benson,
+who sat by Mary Leighton. "Here are two roses and no thorn."
+
+"Ah! What a strange oversight," he exclaimed, seating himself
+nevertheless. "The only way to remedy it will be to put the tutor in
+your place, Miss Benson, and you come opposite Miss Pauline. Quick;
+before he comes and refuses to move his Teutonic bones an inch."
+Charlotte Benson changed her seat and the vacant one was left between
+her and Mary Leighton.
+
+This is the order of our seats, for that and many following happy nights
+and days:
+
+           Richard,
+Mary Leighton,      Henrietta,
+The Tutor,          Mr. Eugene Whitney,
+Charlotte Benson,   Myself,
+Charley,            Kilian,
+           Sophie.
+
+Mary Leighton looked furious and could hardly speak a word all through
+the meal. It was particularly hard upon her, as the tutor did not come,
+and the chair was empty, and a glaring insult to her all the time.
+
+Kilian had done his part so innocently and so simply that it was hard to
+suspect him of any intention to pique her and annoy Richard, but I am
+sure he did it with just those two intentions. He was as thorough a
+flirt as any woman, and withal very fond of change, and I think my pink
+grenadine quite dazzled him as I stood on the piazza. Then came the
+brotherly and quite natural desire to outshine Richard and put things
+out a little. I liked it all very much, and was charmed to be of so much
+consequence, for I saw all this quite plainly. I laughed and talked a
+good deal with Kilian; he was delightful to laugh and talk with. Even
+Eugene Whitney found me more worth his weak attention than the beautiful
+and placid Henrietta.
+
+The amusement was chiefly at our end of the table. But amidst it, I did
+not fail to glance often at the door and wonder, uncomfortably, why the
+tutor did not come.
+
+As we left the table and lingered for a few moments in the hall, Richard
+came up to me and said, as he prepared to light his cigar, "Will you not
+come out and walk up and down the path here with me while I smoke?"
+
+I began to make some excuse, for I wanted to do nothing just then but
+watch the stairway to see if Mr. Langenau did not come down even then
+and go into the dining-room.
+
+But I reflected how ungracious it would seem to refuse this, when he had
+just come home, and I followed him out into the path.
+
+There was no moon, but the stars were very bright, and the air was sweet
+with the flower-beds in the grass along the path we walked.
+
+The house looked gay and pleasant as we walked up and down before it,
+with its many lighted windows, and people with bright dresses moving
+about on the piazza. Richard lit his cigar, and said, after a silence
+of a few moments, with a sigh, "It is good to be at home again."
+
+"But you've had a pleasant journey?"
+
+"No; the most tiresome that I ever made, and this last detention wore my
+patience out. It seemed the longest fortnight. I could not bear to think
+of you all here, and I away in such a dismal hole."
+
+"I suppose Uncle Leonard had no pity on you, as long as there was a
+penny to be made by staying there."
+
+"No; I spent a great deal of money in telegraphing to him for orders to
+come home, but he would not give up."
+
+"And how is Uncle Leonard; did you go to Varick-street?"
+
+"No, indeed; I did not waste any time in town. I only reached there
+yesterday."
+
+"I wonder Uncle Leonard let you off so soon."
+
+"He growled a good deal, but I did not stay to listen."
+
+"That's always the best way."
+
+"And now, Pauline, tell me how you like the place."
+
+"Like it! Oh, Richard, I think it is a Paradise," and I clasped my hands
+in a young sort of ecstacy.
+
+He was silent, which was a sign that he was satisfied. I went on after
+a moment, "I don't wonder that you all love it. I never saw anything
+half so beautiful. The dear old house is prettier than any new one that
+could be built, and the trees are so grand! And oh, Richard, I think the
+garden lying on the hillside there in the beautiful warm sun, with such
+royal flowers and fruit, is worth all the grape-houses and
+conservatories in the neighborhood. Your sister took us to three or four
+of the neighboring places a week or two ago. But I like this a hundred
+times the best. I should think you would be sorry every moment that you
+have to spend away from it."
+
+"I hope one of these days to live here altogether," he said in a low
+tone.
+
+It was so difficult for Richard to be unreserved that it is very likely
+this was the first time in his life that he had ever expressed this, the
+brightest hope he had.
+
+I could fancy all these few words implied--a wife, children, a happy
+home in manhood where he had been a happy child.
+
+"It belongs to Kilian and me, but it is understood I have the right to
+it when I am ready for it."
+
+"And your sister--it does not belong at all to her?"
+
+"No, she only keeps house for us. It would make a great change for
+Sophie if either of us married. But then I know that it would give her
+pleasure, for I am sure that she would not be selfish."
+
+I was not so sure, but, of course, I did not say so. At this moment,
+while Richard smoked and I walked silently beside him, a dark figure
+struck directly across the path before us. The apparition was so sudden
+that I sprang and screamed, and caught Richard by the arm.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said the tutor, with a quick look of surprise at me
+and then at Richard, and bowing, strode on into the house.
+
+"That's the German Sophie has taken for the boys, is it?" said Richard,
+knitting his brows, and looking after him, with no great approbation. "I
+don't half like the idea of his being here: I told Sophie so at
+starting. A governess would do as well for two years yet. What kind of a
+person does he seem to be?"
+
+"I don't know--that is--I can't tell exactly. I don't know him well
+enough," I answered in confusion, which Richard did not see.
+
+"No, of course not. You would not be likely to see him except at the
+table. But it is awkward having him here,--so much of the week, no man
+about; and one never knows anything about these Germans."
+
+"I thought--your sister said--you knew all about him," I said, in rather
+a low voice.
+
+"As much as one needs to know about a mere teacher. But the person you
+have in your house all the time is different."
+
+"But he is a gentleman," I put in more firmly.
+
+"I hope he is. He had letters to some friends of ours. But what are
+letters? People give them when they're asked for them, and half the time
+know nothing of the person for whom they do the favor, besides his name
+and general standing. Hardly that, sometimes." Then, as if to put away a
+tiresome and unwelcome subject, he began again to talk about the place.
+
+But I had lost my interest in the subject, and thought only of returning
+to the house.
+
+"Don't," I said, playfully putting out my hand as he took out another
+cigar to light. "You have smoked enough to-night. Do you know, you smoke
+a great deal more than is good for you."
+
+"Well, I will not smoke any more to-night if you say so. Only don't go
+in the house."
+
+"Oh, yes, you know we only came out to smoke."
+
+He stood in front of the path that led to the piazza and said, in an
+affectionate, gentle way, "Stay and walk a little longer. I have not
+told you half how glad I am that you are here at last."
+
+"Oh, as for that, you've got a good many weeks to tell me in. Besides,
+it's getting chilly," and I gave a little shiver.
+
+"If you're cold, of course," he said, letting me pass and following me,
+and added, with a shade of anxiety, "Why didn't you tell me before? I
+never thought of it, and you have no shawl."
+
+I felt ashamed of myself as I led the way up the piazza steps.
+
+In the hall, which was quite light, they were all standing, and Mr.
+Langenau was in the group. They were petitioning him for music.
+
+"Oh, he has promised that he will sing," said Sophie; "but remember he
+has not had his tea. I have ordered it for you, Mr. Langenau; it will be
+ready in a moment."
+
+Mr. Langenau bowed and turned to go up the stairs. His eye met mine, as
+I came into the light, dazzled a little by it.
+
+He went up the stairs; the others after a few moments, went into the
+parlor. I sat down on a sofa beside Mrs. Hollenbeck. Richard was called
+away by a person on business. There was a shaded lamp on a bracket above
+the sofa where we sat; Mrs. Hollenbeck was reading some letters she had
+just received, and I took up the evening paper, reading over and over an
+advertisement of books. Presently the servant came to Mrs. Hollenbeck
+and said that Mr. Langenau's tea was ready. She was sent up to tell him
+so, and in a few moments he came down. When he reached the hall, Sophie
+looked up with her most lovely smile.
+
+"You must be famished, Mr. Langenau; pray go immediately to the
+dining-room. I am sorry not to make your tea myself, but I hear Benny
+waking and must go to him. Will you mind taking my place, Pauline, and
+pouring out tea for Mr. Langenau?"
+
+I was bending over the paper; my face turned suddenly from red to pale.
+I said something inaudible in reply, and got up and went into the
+dining-room, followed by the tutor.
+
+It was several minutes before I looked at him. The servants had not
+favored us with much light: there was a branch of wax candles in the
+middle of the table. Mr. Langenau's plate was placed just at one side of
+the tray, at which I had seated myself. He looked pale, even to his
+lips. I began to think of the terrible walks in which he seemed to hunt
+himself down, and to wonder what was the motive, though I had often
+wondered that before. He took the cup of tea I offered him without
+speaking. Neither of us spoke for several minutes, then I said, rather
+irresolutely, "I am sure you tire yourself by these long walks."
+
+"Do you think so? No: they rest me."
+
+No doubt I felt more coquettish, and had more confidence than usual,
+from the successes of that evening, and from the knowledge that Richard
+and Kilian and Eugene Whitney, even, were so delighted to talk to me;
+otherwise I could never have said what I said then, by a sudden impulse,
+and with a half-laughing voice, "Do not go away again so long; it makes
+it so dull and tiresome."
+
+He looked at me and said, "It does not seem to me you miss me very
+much." But such a gleam of those dark, dangerous eyes! I looked down,
+but my breath came quickly and my face must have shown the agitation
+that I felt.
+
+At this moment Richard, released from his engagement in the library,
+came through the hall and stopped at the dining-room door. He paused for
+a moment at the door, walked away again, then came back and into the
+room, with rather a quicker step than usual.
+
+"Pauline," he said, and I started visibly, "They seem to be waiting for
+you in the parlor for a game of cards."
+
+His voice indicated anything but satisfaction. I half rose, then sank
+back, and said, hesitatingly, "Can I pour you some more tea, Mr.
+Langenau?"
+
+"If it is not troubling you too much," he said in a voice that a
+moment's time had hardened into sharpness.
+
+Oh, the misery of that cup of tea, with Richard looking at me on one
+side flushed and angry, and Mr. Langenau on the other, pale and cynical.
+My hands shook so that I could not lift the teakettle, and Richard
+angrily leaned down and moved it for me. The alcohol in the lamp flamed
+up and scorched my arm.
+
+"Oh Richard, you have burned me," I cried, dropping the cup and wrapping
+my handkerchief around my arm. In an instant he was all softness and
+kindness, and, I have no doubt, repentance.
+
+"I am very sorry," he said; "Does it hurt you very much? Come with me,
+and I will get Sophie to put something on it."
+
+But Mr. Langenau did not move or show any interest in my sufferings. I
+was half-crying, but I sat still and tried with the other hand to
+replace the cup and fill it. Seeing that I did not make much headway,
+and that Richard had stepped back, Mr. Langenau said, "Allow me," and
+held the cup while I managed to pour the tea into it. He thanked me
+stiffly, and without looking at either of them I got up and went out of
+the room, Richard following me.
+
+"Will you wait here while I call Sophie to get something for you?" he
+said a little coldly.
+
+"No, I do not want anything; I wish you would not say anything more
+about it; it only hurt me for a moment."
+
+"Will you go into the parlor, then?"
+
+"No--yes, that is," I said, and capriciously went, alone, for he did not
+follow me.
+
+I was wanted for cards, but I would not play, and sat down by one of the
+windows, a little out of the light. This window opened upon the piazza.
+After a little while Richard, walking up and down the piazza, stopped by
+it, and said to me: "I hope you won't think it unreasonable in me to
+ask, Pauline; but how in the world did you happen to be making tea for
+that--that man in there?"
+
+"I happened to make tea for Mr. Langenau because your sister asked me
+to," I said angrily; "you had better speak to her about it."
+
+"You may be sure I shall," he said, walking away from the window.
+
+Presently the tutor came in from the hall by the door near the piano,
+and sat down by it without being asked, and began to play softly, as if
+not to interrupt the game of cards. I could not help thinking in what
+good taste this was, since he had promised not to wait for any more
+importunities. The game at cards soon languished, for Charlotte Benson
+really had an enthusiasm for music, and was not happy till she was at
+liberty to give her whole attention to it. As soon as the players were
+released, Kilian came over and sat beside me. He rather wearied me, for
+I wanted to listen to the music, but he was determined not to see that,
+and chattered so that more than once Charlotte Benson turned impatiently
+and begged us not to talk. Once Mr. Langenau himself turned and looked
+at us, but Kilian only paused, and then went on again.
+
+Mary Leighton had fled to the piano and was gazing at the keys in a rapt
+manner, hoping, no doubt, to rouse Kilian to jealousy of the tutor.
+
+"Please go away," I said at last, "this is making me seem rude."
+
+"Do not tell me," he exclaimed, "that you are helping Mary Leighton and
+Sophie to spoil this German fellow. I really did not look for it in
+you. I--"
+
+"I can't stay here and be talked to," I said, getting up in despair.
+
+"Then come on the piazza," he exclaimed, and we were there almost before
+I knew what I was doing.
+
+I suppose every one in the room saw us go out: I was in terror when I
+thought what an insult it would seem to Mr. Langenau. We walked about
+the piazza for some time; I am afraid Mr. Kilian found me rather dull,
+for I could only listen to what was going on inside. At last he was
+called away by a man from the stable, who brought some alarming account
+of his beloved Tom or Jerry. If I had been his bride at the altar, I am
+sure he would have left me; being only a new and very faintly-lighted
+flame, he hurried off with scarcely an apology.
+
+I sat down in a piazza-chair, just outside the window at which we had
+been sitting. I looked in at the window, but no one could see me, from
+the position of my chair.
+
+Presently Mr. Langenau left the piano, and Mary Leighton, talking to him
+with effusion, walked across the room beside him, and took her seat at
+this very window. He did not sit down, but stood before her with his hat
+in his hand, as if he only awaited a favorable pause to go away.
+
+"Ah, where did Pauline go?" she said, glancing around. "But I suppose we
+must excuse her, for to-night at least, as he has just come home. I
+imagine the engagement was no surprise to you?"
+
+"Of what engagement do you speak?" he said.
+
+"Why! Pauline and Richard Vandermarck; you know it is quite a settled
+thing. And very good for her, I think. He seems to me just the sort of
+man to keep her steady and--well, improve her character, you know. She
+seems such a heedless sort of girl. They say her mother ran away and
+made some horrid marriage, and, I believe, her uncle has had to keep her
+very strict. He is very much pleased, I am told, with marrying her to
+Richard, and she herself seems very much in love with him."
+
+All this time he had stood very still and looked at her, but his face
+had changed slowly as she spoke. I knew then that what she had said had
+not pleased him. She went on in her babbling, soft voice:
+
+"His sister Sophie isn't pleased, of course, so there is nothing said
+about it here. It _is_ rather hard for her, for the place belongs to
+Richard, and besides, Richard has been very generous to her always. And
+then to see him marry just such a sort of person--you know--so young--"
+
+"Yes--so young," said Mr. Langenau, between his teeth, "and of such
+charming innocence."
+
+"Oh, as to that," said Mary Leighton, piqued beyond prudence, "we all
+have our own views as to that."
+
+The largess due the bearer of good news was not by right the meed of
+Mary Leighton. He looked at her as if he hated her.
+
+"Mr. Richard Yandermarck is a fortunate man," he said. "She has rare
+beauty, if he has a taste for beauty."
+
+"Men sometimes tire of that; if indeed she has it. Her coloring is her
+strong point, and that may not last forever;" and Mary's voice was no
+longer silvery.
+
+"You think so?" he said. "I think her grace is her strong point, '_la
+grace encore plus belle que la beaute_,' and longer-lived beside. Few
+women move as she does, making it a pleasure to follow her with the
+eyes. And her height and suppleness: at twenty-five she will be regal."
+
+"Then, Mr. Langenau," she cried, with sudden spitefulness, "you _do_
+admire her very much yourself! Do you know, I thought perhaps you did.
+How you must envy Mr. Vandermarck!"
+
+A slight shrug of the shoulders and a slight low laugh; after which, he
+said, "No, I think not. I have not the courage that is necessary."
+
+"The courage! why, what do you mean by that?"
+
+"I mean that a man who ventures to love a woman in whom he cannot trust,
+has need for courage and for patience; perhaps Mr. Richard Vandermarck
+has them both abundantly. For me, I think the pretty Miss Pauline would
+be safer as an hour's amusement than as a life's companion."
+
+The words stabbed, killed me. With an ejaculation that could scarcely
+have escaped their ears, I sprang up and ran through the hall and up the
+stairs. Before I reached the landing-place, I knew that some one was
+behind me. I did not look or pause, but flew on through the hall till I
+reached my own door. My own door was just at the foot of the third-floor
+stairway. I glanced back, and saw that it was Mr. Langenau who was
+behind me. I pushed open my door and went half-way in the room; then
+with a vehement and sudden impulse came back into the hall and pulled it
+shut again and stood with my hand upon the latch, and waited for him to
+pass. In an instant more he was near me, but not as if he saw me; he
+could not reach the stairway without passing so near me that he must
+touch my dress. I waited till he was so near, and said, "Mr. Langenau."
+
+He raised his eyes steadily to mine and bowed low. I almost choked for
+one instant, and then I found voice and rushed on vehemently. "What she
+has told you is false; every word of it is false. I am not engaged to
+Richard Vandermarck; I never thought of such a thing till I came here,
+and found they talked about it. They ought to be ashamed, and I will go
+away to-morrow. And what she said about my mother is a wicked lie as
+well, at least in the way she meant it; and I shall hate her all my
+life. I have been motherless and lonely always, but God has cared for
+me, and I never knew before what evil thoughts and ways there were. I
+am not ashamed that I listened, though I didn't mean to stay at first.
+I'm glad I heard it all and know what kind of friends I have. And those
+last cruel words you said--I never will forgive you, never--never--never
+till I die."
+
+He had put his hand out toward me as if in conciliation, at least I
+understood it so. I pushed it passionately away, rushed into my room,
+bolted the door, and flung myself upon the bed with a frightful burst of
+sobs. I heard his hand upon the latch of the door, and he said my name
+several times in a low voice. Then he went slowly up the stairs. And I
+think his room must have been directly over mine, for, for hours I heard
+some one walking there; indeed, it was the last sound I heard, when,
+having cried all my tears and vowed all my vows, I fell asleep and
+forgot that I was wretched.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+SUNDAY.
+
+     _La notte e madre di pensieri_.
+
+     Now tell me how you are as to religion?
+     You are a clear good man--but I rather fear
+     You have not much of it.
+
+     _Faust_.
+
+
+It was all very well to talk about going away; but the matter looked
+very differently by daylight. It was Sunday; and I knew I could not go
+away for a day or two, and not even then without making a horrid sort of
+stir, for which I had not the courage in cold blood. Besides, I did not
+even know that I wanted to go if I could. Varick-street! Hateful,
+hateful thought. No, I could not go there. And though (by daylight) I
+still detested Mary Leighton, and felt ashamed about Richard, and
+remembered all Mr. Langenau's words (sweet as well as bitter),
+everything was let down a great many degrees; from the heights of
+passion into the plains of commonplace.
+
+My great excitement had worked its own cure, and I was so dull and weary
+that I did not even want to think of what had passed the night before.
+If I had a sentiment that retained any strength, it was that of shame
+and self-contempt. I could not think of myself in any way that did not
+make me blush. When, however, it came to the moment of facing every one,
+and going down to breakfast, I began to know I still had some
+other feelings.
+
+I was the last to go down. The bell had rung a very long while before I
+left my room. I took my seat at the table without looking at any one,
+though, of course, every one looked at me. My confused and rather
+general good-morning was returned with much precision by all. Somebody
+remarked that I did not look well. Somebody else remarked that was
+surely because I went to bed so early; that it never had been known to
+agree with any one. Some one else wanted to know why I had gone so
+early, and that I had been hunted for in all directions for a dance
+which had been a sudden inspiration.
+
+"But as you had gone away, and the musician could not be found, we had
+to give it up," said Charlotte Benson, "and we owe you both a grudge."
+
+"For my part, I am very sorry," said Mr. Langenau. "I had no thought
+that you meant to dance last night, or I should have stayed at the
+piano; I hope you will tell me the next time."
+
+"The next time will be to-morrow evening," said Mary Leighton. "Now,
+Mr. Langenau, you will not forget--or--or get excited about anything
+and go away?"
+
+I dared not look at Mr. Langenau's face, but I am sure I should not have
+seen anything pleasant if I had. I don't know what he answered, for I
+was so confused, I dropped a plate of berries which I was just taking
+from Kilian's hand, and made quite an uncomfortable commotion. The
+berries were very ripe, and they rolled in many directions on the
+table-cloth, and fell on my white dress.
+
+"Your pretty dress is ruined, I'm afraid," said Kilian, stooping down to
+save it.
+
+"I don't care about that, but I'm very sorry that I've stained the
+table-cloth," and I looked at Mrs. Hollenbeck as if I thought that she
+would scold me for it. But she quite reassured me. Indeed, I think she
+was so pleased with me, that she would not have minded seeing me ruin
+all the table-cloths that she had.
+
+"But it will make you late for church, for you'll have to change your
+dress," said Charlotte Benson, practically, glancing at the clock. I was
+very thankful for the suggestion, for I thought it would save me from
+the misery of trying to eat breakfast, but Kilian made such an outcry
+that I found I could not go without more comments than I liked.
+
+"You have no appetite either," said Mary Leighton. "I am ashamed to eat
+as much as I want, for here is Mr. Langenau beside me, who has only
+broken a roll in two and drank a cup of coffee."
+
+"I am not perhaps quite used to your American way of breakfasting," he
+returned quickly.
+
+"But you ate breakfasts when we first came," said the sweet girl gently.
+
+"Was not the weather cooler then?" he answered, "and I have missed my
+walk this morning."
+
+"Let me give you some more coffee, at any rate," said Sophie, with
+affectionate interest. Indeed, I think at that moment she absolutely
+loved him.
+
+In a few minutes I escaped from the table; when I came down from my room
+ready for church, I found that they were all just starting. (Richard, I
+suppose, would have waited for me.) The church was in the village, and
+not ten minutes' walk from the house. Kilian was carrying Mary
+Leighton's prayer-book, and was evidently intending to walk with her.
+
+Richard came up to me and said, "Sophie is waiting to know if you will
+let her drive you, or if you will walk."
+
+I had not yet been obliged to speak to Richard since I had heard what
+people said about us, and I felt uncomfortable.
+
+"Oh, let me drive if there is room," I said, without looking up. Sophie
+sat in her little carriage waiting for me. Richard put me in beside her,
+and then joined the others, while we drove away. Benny, in his white
+Sunday clothes, sat at our feet.
+
+"I think it is so much better for you to drive," said Mrs. Hollenbeck,
+"for the day is warm, and I did not think you looked at all well
+this morning."
+
+"No," I said faintly. And she was so kind, I longed to tell her
+everything. It is frightful at seventeen to have no one to tell your
+troubles to.
+
+At the gate Benny was just grumbling about getting out to open it, when
+Mr. Langenau appeared, and held it open for us. He was dressed in a
+flannel suit which he wore for walking. After he closed the gate, he
+came up beside the carriage, as Mrs. Hollenbeck very kindly invited him
+to do, by driving slowly.
+
+"Are you coming with us to church, Mr. Langenau?" asked Benny.
+
+"To church? No, Benny. I am afraid they would not let me in."
+
+"Why, yes, they would, if you had your good clothes on," said Benny.
+
+Mr. Langenau laughed, a little bitterly, and said he doubted, even then.
+"I am afraid I haven't got my good conscience on either, Benny."
+
+"But the minister would never know," said Benny.
+
+"That's very true; the ministers here don't know much about peoples'
+consciences, I should think."
+
+"Do ministers in any other places know any more?" asked Benny with
+interest.
+
+"Why, yes, Benny, in a good many countries where I've been, they do."
+
+"You are a Catholic, Mr. Langenau?" asked Mrs. Hollenbeck.
+
+"I once was; I have no longer any right to say it is my faith," he
+answered slowly.
+
+"What is it to be a Catholic?" inquired Benny, gazing at his tutor's
+face with wonder.
+
+"To be a Catholic, is to be in a safe prison; to have been a Catholic,
+is to be alone on a sea big and black with billows, Benny."
+
+"I think I'd like the prison best," said Benny, who was very much afraid
+of the water.
+
+"Ah, but if you couldn't get back to it, my boy."
+
+"Well, I think I'd try to get to land somewhere," Benny answered,
+stoutly.
+
+Mr. Langenau laughed, but rather gloomily, and we went on for a few
+moments in silence. The road was bordered with trees, and there was a
+beautiful shade. The horse was very glad to be permitted to go slow, not
+being of an ambitious nature.
+
+All this time I had been leaning back, holding my parasol very close
+over my face. Mr. Langenau happened to be on the side by me: once when
+the carriage had leaned suddenly, he had put his hand upon it, and had
+touched, without intending it, my arm.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he had said, and that was all he had said to me;
+and I had felt very grateful that Benny had been so inclined to talk. I
+trusted that nobody would speak to me, for my voice would never be
+steady and even again, I was sure, when he was by to listen to it.
+
+Now, however, he spoke to me: commonplace words, the same almost that
+every one in the house had addressed to me that morning, but how
+differently they sounded.
+
+"I am sorry that you are not well to-day, Miss d'Estree."
+
+Mrs. Hollenbeck at this moment began to find some fault with Benny's
+gloves, and leaning down, talked very obligingly and earnestly with him,
+while she fastened the gloves upon his hands.
+
+Mr. Langenau took the occasion, as it was intended he should take it,
+and said rather low, "You will not refuse to see me a few moments this
+evening, that I may explain something to you?"
+
+I think he was disappointed that I did not answer him, only turned away
+my head. But I don't know in truth what other answer he had any right to
+ask. He did not attempt to speak again, but as we turned into the
+village, said, "Good-morning, I must leave you. Good-bye, Benny, since I
+have neither clothes nor conscience fit for church."
+
+Sophie laughed, and said, at least she hoped he would be home for
+dinner. He did not promise, but raising his hat struck off into a little
+path by the roadside, that led up into the woods.
+
+"What a pity," said Mrs. Hollenbeck musingly, "that a man of such fine
+intellect should have such vague religious faith."
+
+Mr. Langenau was at home for dinner, but he did not see me at that meal,
+for my head ached so, and I felt so weary that when I came up-stairs
+after church, it seemed impossible to go down again. I should have been
+very glad to make the same excuse serve for the remainder of the day,
+but really the rest and a cup of tea had so restored me, that no excuse
+remained at six o'clock.
+
+All families have their little Sunday habits, I have found; the Sunday
+rule in this house was, to have tea at half-past six, and to walk by the
+river till after the sun had set; then to come home and have sacred
+music in the parlor. After tea, accordingly, we took our shawls on our
+arms (it still being very warm) and walked down toward the river.
+
+I kept beside Mrs. Hollenbeck and Benny, where only I felt safe.
+
+The criticism I had heard had given me such a shock, I did not feel that
+I ever could be careful enough of what I said and did. And I vaguely
+felt my mother's honor would be vindicated, if I showed myself always a
+modest and prudent woman.
+
+"It was so well that I heard them," I kept saying to myself, but I felt
+so much older and so much graver. My silence and constraint were no
+doubt differently interpreted. Richard did not come up to me, except to
+tell me I had better put my shawl on, as I sat on the steps of the
+boat-house, with Benny beside me. The others had walked further on and
+were sitting, some of them on the rocks, and some on the boat that had
+been drawn up, watching the sun go down.
+
+"Tell me a story," said Benny, resting his arms on my lap, "a story
+about when you were a little girl."
+
+"Oh, Benny, that wouldn't make a pretty story."
+
+"Oh, yes, it would: all about your mamma and the house you used to live
+in, and the children you used to go to see."
+
+"Dear Benny! I never lived in but one old, dismal house. I never went
+to play with any children. I could not make a story out of that."
+
+"But your mamma. O yes, I'm sure you could if you tried very hard."
+
+"Ah, Benny! that's the worst of all. For my mamma has been with God and
+the good angels in the sky, ever since I was a little baby, and I have
+had a dreary time without her here alone."
+
+"Then I think you might tell me about God and the good angels,"
+whispered Benny, getting closer to me.
+
+I wrapped my arms around him, and leaning my face down upon his yellow
+curls, told him a story of God and the good angels in the sky.
+
+Dear little Benny! I always loved him from that night. He cried over my
+story: that I suppose wins everybody's heart: and we went together,
+looking at the placid river and the pale blue firmament, very far into
+the paradise of faith. My tears dropped upon his upturned face; and when
+the stars came out, and we were told it was time to go back to the
+house, we went back hand in hand, firm friends for all life from that
+Sunday night.
+
+"There is Mr. Langenau," said Benny; "waiting for you, I should think."
+
+Mr. Langenau was waiting for me at the piazza steps. He fixed his eyes
+on mine as if waiting for my permission to speak again. But I fastened
+my eyes upon the ground, and holding Benny tightly by the hand, went on
+into the house.
+
+
+
+Chapter IX.
+
+A DANCE.
+
+     It is impossible to love and to be wise.
+
+          _Bacon_.
+
+     Niente piu tosto se secca che lagrime.
+
+
+"This is what we must do about it," said Kilian, as we sat around the
+breakfast-table. "If you are still in a humor for the dance to-night, I
+will order Tom and Jerry to be brought up at once, and Miss Pauline and
+I will go out and deliver all the invitations."
+
+"Of which there are about five," said Charlotte Benson. "You can spare
+Tom and Jerry and send a small boy."
+
+"But what if I had rather go myself?" he said, "and Miss Pauline needs
+the air. Now there are--let me see," and he began to count up the
+dancing inhabitants of the neighborhood.
+
+"Will you write notes or shall we leave a verbal message at each door?"
+
+"Oh leave a verbal message by all means," said Charlotte Benson, a
+little sharply. "It won't be quite _en regle_, as Miss d'Estree doesn't
+know the people, but so unconventional and fresh."
+
+"I do know them," I retorted, much annoyed, "conventionally at least:
+for they have all called upon me, though I didn't see them all. But I
+shall be very glad if you will take my place."
+
+"Oh, thank you; I wasn't moving an amendment for that end. We have made
+our arrangements for the morning, irrespective of the delivery
+of cards."
+
+"I shall have time to write the notes first, if Sophie would rather have
+notes sent," said Henrietta, who wrote a good hand and was very fond of
+writing people's notes for them.
+
+"Oh, thank you, dear; yes, perhaps it would be best, and save Pauline
+and Kilian trouble."
+
+So Henrietta went grandly away to write her little notes: a very large
+ship on a very small voyage.
+
+"And how about your music, Sophie," said Kilian, who was anxious to have
+all business matters settled relating to the evening.
+
+"Well, I suppose you had better go for the music-teacher from the
+village; he plays very well for dancing, and it is a mercy to me and to
+poor Henrietta, who would have to be pinned to the piano for the
+evening, if we didn't have him."
+
+"As to that, I thought we had a music-teacher of our own: can't your
+German be made of any practical account? Or is he only to be looked at
+and revered for his great powers?"
+
+"I didn't engage Mr. Langenau to play for us to dance," said Sophie.
+
+"Nor to lounge about the parlor every evening either," muttered Kilian,
+pushing away his cup of coffee.
+
+"Now, Mr. Kilian, pray don't let our admiration of the tutor drive you
+into any bitterness of feeling," cried Charlotte Benson, who had been
+treasuring up a store of little slights from Kilian. "You know he can't
+be blamed for it, poor man."
+
+Kilian was so much annoyed that he did not trust himself to answer, but
+rose from the table, and asked me if I would drive with him in half
+an hour.
+
+During the drive, he exclaimed angrily that Charlotte Benson had a
+tongue that would drive a man to suicide if he came in hearing of it
+daily. "Why, if she were as beautiful as a goddess, I could never love
+her. Depend upon it, she'll never get a husband, Miss Pauline."
+
+"Some men like to be scolded, I have heard," I said.
+
+"Well then, if you ever stumble upon one that does, just call me and
+I'll run and fetch him Charlotte Benson."
+
+The morning was lovely, and I had much pleasure in the drive, though I
+had not gone with any idea of enjoying it. It was very exhilarating to
+drive so fast as Kilian always drove; and Kilian himself always amused
+me and made me feel at ease. We were very companionable; and though I
+could not understand how young ladies could make a hero of him, and
+fancy that they loved him, I could quite understand how they should find
+him delightful and amusing.
+
+We delivered our notes, at more than one place, into the hands of those
+to whom they were addressed, and had many pleasant talks at the piazza
+steps with young ladies whom I had not known before. Then we went to the
+village and engaged the music-teacher, stopped at the "store" and left
+some orders, and drove to the Post-Office to see if there were letters.
+
+"Haven't we had a nice morning!" I exclaimed simply, as we drove up to
+the gate.
+
+"Capital," said Kilian. "I'm afraid it's been the best part of the day.
+I wish I had any assurance that the German would be half as pleasant. I
+beg your pardon, I don't mean your surly Teuton, but the dance that we
+propose to-night; I wish it had another name. Confound it! there he is
+ahead of us. (I don't mean the dance this time, you see.) I wish he'd
+turn back and open the gate for us. Holloa there!"
+
+Kilian would not have dared call out, if the boys had not been with
+their tutor. It was one o'clock, and they were coming from the
+farm-house back to dinner. At the call they all turned; Mr. Langenau
+stood still, and told Charles to go back and open the gate.
+
+Kilian frowned; he didn't like to see his nephew ordered to do anything
+by this unpleasant German. While we were waiting for the opening of the
+gate, the tutor walked on toward the house with Benny. As we passed
+them, Benny called out, "Stop, Uncle Kilian, stop, and take me in."
+Benny never was denied anything, so we stopped and Mr. Langenau lifted
+him up in front of us. He bowed without speaking, and Benny was the
+orator of the occasion.
+
+"You looked as if you were having such a nice time, I thought I'd like
+to come."
+
+"Well, we were," said Kilian, with a laugh, and then we drove on
+rapidly.
+
+At the tea-table Mr. Langenau said to Sophie as he rose to go away:
+"Mrs. Hollenbeck, if there is any service I can render you this evening
+at the piano, I shall be very glad if you will let me know."
+
+Mrs. Hollenbeck thanked him with cordiality, but told him of the
+provision that had been made.
+
+"But you will dance, Mr. Langenau," cried Mary Leighton, "we need
+dancing-men terribly, you know. Promise me you'll dance."
+
+"Oh," said Charlotte Benson, "he has promised me." Mr. Langenau bowed
+low; he got wonderfully through these awkward situations. As he left the
+room Kilian said in a tone loud enough for us, but not for him, to hear,
+"The Lowders have a nice young gardener; hadn't we better send to see if
+he can't come this evening?"
+
+"Kilian, that's going a little too far," said Richard in a displeased
+manner; "as long as the boys' tutor conducts himself like a gentleman,
+he deserves to be treated like a gentleman."
+
+"Ah, Paterfamilias, thank you. Yes, I'll think of it," and Kilian
+proposed that we should leave the table, as we all seemed to have
+appeased our appetites and nothing but civil war could come of staying
+any longer.
+
+It was understood we had not much time to dress: but when I came
+down-stairs, none of the others had appeared. Richard met me in the
+hall: he had been rather stern to me all day, but his manner quite
+softened as he stood beside me under the hall-lamp. That was the result
+of my lovely white mull, with its mint of Valenciennes.
+
+"You haven't any flowers," he said. Heavens! who'd have thought he'd
+ever have spoken in such a tone again, after the cup of tea I poured out
+for the tutor. "Let's go and see if we can't find some in these vases
+that are fit, for I suppose the garden's robbed."
+
+"Yes," I said, following him, quite pleased. For I could not bear to
+have him angry with me. I was really fond of him, dear, old Richard; and
+I looked so happy that I have no doubt he thought more of it than he
+ought. He pulled all the pretty vases in the parlor to pieces:
+(Charlotte and Henrietta and his sister had arranged them with such
+care!) and made me a bouquet of ferns, and tea-roses, and lovely, lovely
+heliotrope. I begged him to stop, but he went on till the flowers were
+all arranged and tied together, and no one came down-stairs till the
+spoilage was complete.
+
+All this time Mr. Langenau was in the library--restless, pretending to
+read a book. I saw him as we passed the door, but did not look again.
+Presently we heard the sound of wheels.
+
+"There," said Richard, feeling the weight of hospitality upon him,
+"Sophie isn't down. How like her!"
+
+But at the last moment, to save appearances, Sophie came down the
+stairs and went into the parlor: indolent, favored Sophie, who always
+came out right when things looked most against it.
+
+In a little while the empty rooms were peopled. Dress improved the young
+ladies of the house very much, and the young ladies who came were some
+of them quite pretty: The gentlemen seemed to me very tiresome and not
+at all good-looking. Richard was quite a king among them, with his
+square shoulders, and his tawny moustache, and his blue eyes.
+
+There were not quite gentlemen enough, and Mrs. Hollenbeck fluttered
+into the library to hunt up Mr. Langenau, and he presently came out with
+her. He was dressed with more care than usual, and suitably for evening:
+he had the _vive_ attentive manner that is such a contrast to most young
+men in this country: everybody looked at him and wondered who he was.
+The music-teacher was playing vigorously, and so, before the German was
+arranged, several impetuous souls flew away in waltzes up and down the
+room. The parlor was a very large room. It had originally been two
+rooms, but had been thrown into one, as some pillars and a slight arch
+testified. The ceiling was rather low, but the many windows which opened
+on the piazza, and the unusual size of the room, made it very pretty
+for a dance. Mary Leighton and the tutor were dancing; somebody was
+talking to me, but I only saw that.
+
+"How well he dances," I heard some one exclaim.
+
+I'm afraid it must have been Richard whom I forgot to answer just
+before: for I saw him twist his yellow moustache into his mouth and bite
+it; a bad sign with him.
+
+Kilian was to lead with Mary Leighton, and he came up to where we stood,
+and said to Richard, "I suppose you have Miss Pauline for your partner?"
+
+Now I had been very unhappy for some time, dreading the moment, but
+there was nothing for it but to tell the truth. So I said, "I hope you
+are not counting upon me for dancing? You know I cannot dance!"
+
+"Not dance!" cried Kilian, in amazement; "why, I never dreamed of that."
+
+"You don't like it, Pauline?" said Richard, looking at me.
+
+"Like it!" I said, impatiently. "Why, I don't know how; who did I ever
+have to dance with in Varick-street? Ann Coddle or old Peter? And Uncle
+Leonard never thought of such a thing as sending me to school."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me before, and we wouldn't have bothered about
+this stupid dance," said Kilian; but I think he didn't mean it, for he
+enjoyed dancing very much.
+
+Richard had to go away, for though he hated it, he was needed, as they
+had not gentlemen enough.
+
+The one or two persons who had been introduced to me, on going to join
+the dance, also expressed regret. Even Mrs. Hollenbeck came up, and said
+how sorry she was: she had supposed I danced.
+
+But they all went away, and I was left by one of the furthest windows
+with a tiresome old man, who didn't dance either, because his legs
+weren't strong enough, and who talked and talked till I asked him not
+to; which he didn't seem to like. But to have to talk, with the noise of
+the music, and the stir, of the dancing, and the whirl that is always
+going on in such a room, is penance. I told him it made my head ache,
+and besides I couldn't hear, and so at last he went away, and I was
+left alone.
+
+Sometimes in pauses of the dance Richard came up to me, and sometimes
+Kilian; but it had the effect of making me more uncomfortable, for it
+made everybody turn and look at me. Bye and bye I stole away and went on
+the piazza, and looked in where no one could see me. I could not go away
+entirely, for I was fascinated by the dance. I longed so to be dancing,
+and had such bitter feelings because I never had been taught. After I
+left the room, I could see Richard was uncomfortable; he looked often at
+the door, and was not very attentive to his partner. No one else seemed
+to miss me. Mr. Langenau talked constantly to Miss Lowder, with whom he
+had been dancing, and never looked once toward where I had been sitting.
+A long time after, when they had been dancing--hours it seemed to
+me--Miss Lowder seemed to feel faint or tired, and Mr. Langenau came out
+with her, and took her up-stairs to the dressing-room.
+
+Ashamed to be seen looking in at the window, I ran into the library and
+sat down. There was a student's lamp upon the table, but the room had no
+other light. I sat leaning back in a large chair by the table, with my
+bouquet in my lap, buttoning and unbuttoning absently my long white
+gloves. In a moment I heard Mr. Langenau come down-stairs alone: he had
+left Miss Lowder in the dressing-room to rest there: he came directly
+toward the library.
+
+He came half-way in the door, then paused. "May I speak to you?" he said
+slowly, fixing his eyes on mine. "I seem to be the only one who is
+forbidden, of those who have offended you and of those who have not."
+
+"No one has said what you have," I said very faintly.
+
+In an instant he was standing beside me, with one hand resting on the
+table.
+
+"Will you listen to me," he said, bending a little toward me and
+speaking in a quick, low voice, "I did say what you have a right to
+resent; but I said it in a moment when I was not master of my words. I
+had just heard something that made me doubt my senses: and my only
+thought was how to save myself, and not to show how I was staggered by
+it. I am a proud man, and it is hard to tell you this--but I cannot bear
+this coldness from you--and _I ask you to forgive me_"
+
+His eyes, his voice, had all their unconquerable influence upon me. I
+bent over Richard's poor flowers, and pulled them to pieces while I
+tried to speak. There was a silence, during which he must have heard the
+loud beating of my heart, I think: at last he spoke again in a lower
+voice, "Will you not be kind, and say that we are friends once more?"
+
+I said something that was inaudible to him, and he stooped a little
+nearer me to catch it. I made a great effort and commanded my voice and
+said, very low? but with an attempt to speak lightly, "You have not made
+it any better, but I will forget it."
+
+He caught my hand for one instant, then let it go as suddenly. And
+neither of us could speak.
+
+There is no position more false and trying than a woman's, when she is
+told in this way that a man loves her, and yet has not been told it;
+when she must seem not to see what she would be an idiot not to see;
+when he can say what he pleases and she must seem to hear only so much.
+I did no better and no worse than most women of my years would have
+done. At last the silence (which did not seem a silence to me, it was so
+full of new and conflicting thoughts,) was broken by the recommencement
+of the music in the other room. He had taken a book in his hands and was
+turning over its pages restlessly.
+
+"Why have you not danced?" he said at last, in a voice that still showed
+agitation.
+
+"I have not danced because I can't, because I never have been taught."
+
+"You? not taught? it seems incredible. But let me teach you. Will you?
+Teach you! you would dance by intention. And would love it--madly--as I
+did years ago. Come with me, will you?"
+
+"Oh, no," I said, half frightened, shrinking back, "I am not going to
+dance--ever."
+
+"Perhaps that is as well," he said in a low tone, meeting my eye for an
+instant, and telling me by that sudden brilliant gleam from his, that
+then he would be spared the pain of ever seeing me dancing with another.
+
+"But let me teach you something," he said after a moment. "Let me teach
+you German--will you?" He sank down in a chair by the table, and leaning
+forward, repeated his question eagerly.
+
+"Oh, yes, I should like it so much--if--."
+
+"If--if what? If it could be arranged without frightening and
+embarrassing you, you mean?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I wonder if you are not more afraid of being frightened and embarrassed
+than of any other earthly trial. There are worse things that come to us,
+Miss d'Estree. But I will arrange about the German, and you need have no
+terror. How will I arrange? No matter--when Mrs. Hollenbeck asks you to
+join a class in German, you will join it, will you not?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"You promise?"
+
+"Oh, anything."
+
+"Anything? take care. I may fill up a check for thousands, if you give a
+blank."
+
+"I didn't give a blank; anything about German's what I meant."
+
+"Ah, that's safer, but not half so generous. And yet you're one who
+might be generous, I think."
+
+"But tell me about the German class."
+
+"I've nothing to tell you about it," he answered, "only that you've
+promised to learn."
+
+"But where are we to say our lessons, and what books are we to Study?"
+
+"Would you like to say a lesson now and get one step in advance of all
+the others?"
+
+"O yes! I shall need at least as much grace as that."
+
+"Then say this after me: 'ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN, WAS SIE MICH
+LEHREN.' Begin. 'ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN'--"
+
+"'ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN'--but what does it mean?"
+
+"Oh, that is not important. Learn it first. Can you not trust me? 'ICH
+WILL ALLES LERNEN, WAS SIE MICH LEHREN.'"
+
+"'ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN'--ah, you look as if my pronunciation were
+not good."
+
+"I was not thinking of that; you pronounce very well. 'ICH WILL ALLES
+LERNEN--'"
+
+"ICH WILL ALLES LERNEN, WAS SIE MICH LEHREN:--there _now_, tell me
+what it means."
+
+"Not until you learn it; _encore une fois_."
+
+I said it after him again and again, but when I attempted it alone, I
+made invariably some error.
+
+"Let me write it for you," he said, and pulling a book from his pocket,
+tore out a leaf and wrote the sentence on it. "There--keep the paper and
+study it, and say it to me in the morning."
+
+I have the paper still; long years have passed: it is only a crumpled
+little yellow fragment; but the world would be poorer and emptier to me
+if it were destroyed.
+
+I had quite mastered the sentence, saying it after him word for word,
+and held the slip of paper in my hand, when I heard steps in the hall. I
+knew Richard's step very well, and gave a little start. Mr. Langenau
+frowned, and his manner changed, as I half rose from my seat, and as
+quickly sank back in it again.
+
+"Is it that you lack courage?" he said, looking at me keenly.
+
+"I don't know what I lack," I cried, bending down my head to hide my
+flushed face; "but I hate to be scolded and have scenes."
+
+"But who has a right to scold you and to make a scene?"
+
+"Nobody: only everybody does it all the same."
+
+"Everybody, I suppose, means Mr. Richard Vandermarck, who is frowning at
+you this moment from the hall."
+
+"And it means you--who are frowning at me this moment from your seat."
+
+All this time Richard had been standing in the hall; but now he walked
+slowly away. I felt sure he had given me up. The people began to come
+out of the parlor, and I felt ready to cry with vexation, when I thought
+that they would again be talking about me. It was true, I am afraid,
+that I lacked courage.
+
+"You want me to go away?" he said, fixing his eyes intently on me.
+
+"O yes, if you only would," I said naively.
+
+He looked so white and angry when he rose, that I sprang up and put out
+my hand to stop him, and said hurriedly, "I only meant--that is--I
+should think you would understand without my telling you. A woman cannot
+bear to have people talk about her, and know who she likes and who she
+doesn't. It kills me to have people talk about me. I'm not used to
+society--I don't know what is right--but I don't think--I am afraid--I
+ought not to have stayed in here and talked to you away from all the
+others. It's that that makes me so uncomfortable. That, and Richard too.
+For I know he doesn't like to have me pleased with any one. Do not go
+away angry with me. I don't see why you do not understand."
+
+My incoherent little speech had brought him to his senses.
+
+"I am not going away angry," he said in a low voice, "I will promise not
+to speak to you again to-night. Only remember that I have feelings as
+well as Mr. Richard Vandermarck."
+
+In a moment more I was alone. Richard did not come near me, nor seem to
+notice me, as he passed through the hall. Presently Mr. Eugene Whitney
+came in, and I was very glad to see him.
+
+"Won't you take me to walk on the piazza?" I asked, for everybody else
+was walking there. He was only too happy; and so the evening ended
+commonplace enough.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+EVERY DAY FROM SIX TO SEVEN.
+
+     She wanted years to understand
+     The grief that he did feel.
+
+     _Surrey_.
+
+     Love is not love
+     That alters where it alteration finds.
+
+
+This was how the German class was formed.
+
+The next day, as we were leaving the dinner-table, Mr. Langenau paused a
+few moments by Sophie, in the hall, and talked with her about the boys.
+
+"Charley gets on very well with his German," he observed, "but Benny
+doesn't make much progress. He is too young to study much, and acquires
+chiefly by the ear. If you only had a German maid, or if you could speak
+with him yourself, he would make much better progress."
+
+"Yes, I wish I had more knowledge of the language," she replied; "I read
+it very easily, but cannot speak with any fluency."
+
+"Why will you never speak it with me?" he said. "And if you will permit
+me, I shall be very glad to read with you an hour a day. I have much
+leisure, and it would be no task to me."
+
+"I should like it very much, and you are very kind. But it is so hard
+to find an hour unoccupied, particularly with so many people in the
+house, whom I ought to entertain."
+
+"That is very true, unless you can make it a source of entertainment to
+them. Miss Benson--is she not a German scholar? She might like to
+join you."
+
+Then, I think, the clever Sophie's mind was illuminated, and the tutor's
+little scheme was revealed to her clear eye; she embraced it with
+effusion. "An admirable idea," she said, "and the others, too, perhaps,
+would join us if you would not mind. It would be one hour a day at least
+secure from _ennui:_ I shall have great cause to thank you, if we can
+arrange it. For these girls get so tired of doing nothing; my mind is
+always on the strain to think of an amusement. Charlotte! Come here, I
+want to ask you something."
+
+Charlotte Benson came, and with her came Henrietta. I was sitting on the
+sofa between the parlor-doors, and could not help hearing the whole
+conversation, as they were standing immediately before me.
+
+"Mr. Langenau proposes to us to read an hour a day with him in German.
+What do you think about it?"
+
+"Charming," said Charlotte with enthusiasm. "I cannot think of anything
+that would give me greater pleasure. Henrietta and I have read in German
+together for two winters, and it will be enchanting to continue it with
+such a master as Mr. Langenau."
+
+Henrietta murmured her satisfaction, and then Charlotte rushed into
+plans for the course, leaving me in despair, supposing I had been
+forgotten. What place I was to find in such advanced society I could not
+well imagine.
+
+Mr. Langenau never turned his head in my direction, and talked with Miss
+Benson with so much earnestness about the books into which they were to
+plunge, that I could not convince myself that all this was undertaken
+solely that he might teach me German. In a little while they seemed to
+have settled it all to their satisfaction, and he had turned to go away.
+My heart was in my throat. Mrs. Hollenbeck had not forgotten me. She
+said something low to Mr. Langenau.
+
+"Ah, true!" he said. "But does she know anything of German?" Then
+turning to me he said, with one of his dazzling sudden glances, "Miss
+d'Estree, we are talking of making up a German class; do you understand
+the language?"
+
+"No," I said, meeting his eye for a moment, "I have only taken one
+lesson in my life," and then blushed scarlet at my own audacity.
+
+"Ah," said he, as if quite sorry for the disappointment, "I wish you
+were advanced enough to join us."
+
+Then Charlotte Benson, quite ignoring the interruption, began to ask him
+about a book that she wanted very much to find. Mr. Langenau had it in
+his room--a most happy accident, and there was a great deal said about
+it. I again was left in doubt of my fate. Again Sophie interposed. "We
+have forgotten Mary Leighton," she said, gently.
+
+"Does Miss Leighton know anything of German?"
+
+"Not a thing," said Henrietta.
+
+"What does she know anything of, but flirting?" said Charlotte with
+asperity, glancing out into the grounds where Kilian was murmuring
+softest folly to her under her pongee parasol.
+
+"Perhaps she'd like to learn," suggested Sophie. "She and Pauline might
+begin together; that is, if Mr. Langenau would not think it too much
+trouble to give them an occasional suggestion. And you, Charlotte, I am
+sure, could help them a great deal."
+
+Charlotte made no disguise of her disinclination to undertake to help
+them.
+
+Mr. Langenau expressed his willingness so unenthusiastically, that I
+think Mrs. Hollenbeck was staggered. I saw her glance anxiously at him,
+as if to know what really he might mean. She concluded to interpret
+according to the context, however, and went on.
+
+"But it will be so much better for all to undertake it, if one does.
+Suppose they try and see how it will work, either before or after
+our lesson."
+
+"_De tout mon coeur_," said Mr. Langenau, as if, however, his _coeur_
+had very little interest in the matter.
+
+"Well, about the hour?" said Charlotte, the woman of business; "we
+haven't settled that after all our talking."
+
+There was a great deal more, oh, a great deal more, and then it was
+settled that five in the afternoon should be considered the German
+hour--subject to alteration as circumstances should arise.
+
+Mrs. Hollenbeck very discreetly ordered that a beginning should not be
+made till the next day but one. "The gentlemen will all be here
+to-morrow, and there may be something else going on." I knew very well
+she was afraid of Richard, and thought he would not approve her zeal for
+our improvement.
+
+The first lesson was very dull work for me. It was agreed that Mary
+Leighton and I should take our lesson after the others, sitting beside
+them, however, for the benefit of such crumbs of information as might
+fall to us.
+
+Mr. Langenau took no special notice of me then, and very little that
+was flattering when Mary Leighton and I began our lesson proper. Mrs.
+Hollenbeck, Charlotte, and Henrietta took up their books and left, when
+the infant class was called. I do not think Mr. Langenau took great
+pains to make the study of the German tongue of interest to Miss
+Leighton. She was unspeakably bored, and never even learned the
+alphabet. She was very much unused to mental application, undoubtedly,
+and was annoyed at appearing dull. There was but one door open to her;
+to vote German a bore, and give up the class. She made her exit by that
+door on the occasion of the second lesson, and Mr. Langenau and I were
+left to pursue our studies undisturbed. The rendezvous was the piazza in
+fine weather, and the library when it was damp or cloudy. The fidelity
+with which the senior Germans gathered up their books and left, when
+their hour was over, was mainly due to the kind thoughtfulness of Mrs.
+Hollenbeck, who was always prompt, and always found some excuse for
+carrying away Charlotte and Henrietta with her when she went.
+
+It can be imagined what those hours were to me, those soft, golden
+afternoons. Sometimes we took our books and went out under the trees to
+some shaded seats, and sat there till the maid came out to call us in to
+tea. Happy, happy hours in dreamland! But what peril to me, and perhaps
+to him. It is vain to go over it all: it is enough that of all the happy
+days, that hour from six o'clock till tea-time was the happiest: and
+that with strange smoothness, day after day passed on without bringing
+interruption to it. At six the others went to ride or walk; I was never
+called, and did not even wonder at it.
+
+All this time Richard had been going every day to town and coming back
+by the evening train. It was pretty tiresome work, and he looked rather
+pale and worn; but I believe he could not stay away. I sometimes felt a
+little sorry when I saw how much he was out of spirits, but I was in
+such a happy realm myself, it did not depress me long: in truth, I
+forgot it when he was not actually before me, and sometimes even then.
+"I do not think you are listening to what I say," he said to me one
+night as he sat by me in the parlor. I blushed desperately, and tried to
+listen better. Ah! how often it happened after that. I blush again to
+think how much I pained him, and how silently he bore it all.
+
+The last days of July were very busy ones in the Wall-street office, and
+Richard did not give himself a holiday, till one Saturday, much to be
+remembered, the very last day of the month. I recall with penitence,
+the impatient feeling that I had when Richard told me he was going to
+take the day at home. I felt intuitively that it would spoil it all for
+me. After breakfast, we all played croquet, and then I shut myself into
+my room with my German books, and selfishly saw no one till dinner. At
+dinner I was excited and half frightened, as I always was when Mr.
+Langenau and Richard were both present, and both watching me; it was
+impossible to please either.
+
+Something was said about the afternoon, and Richard (who all this time
+knew nothing of the German class) said to me, evidently afraid of some
+other engagement being entered on, "I hope you will drive with me,
+Pauline, at five. I ordered the horses when I was down at the stables; I
+think the afternoon is going to be fine." It was rather a public way of
+asking one out of so many to go and take a drive; but in truth, Richard
+was too honest and straightforward to care who knew what he was in
+pursuit of, and too sore at heart and too indifferent an actor to
+conceal it if he had desired. But the invitation struck me with such
+consternation. At five o'clock! The flower and consummation of the day!
+The hour that I had been looking forward to, since seven the day before.
+I could not lose it. I would not go to drive. I hated Richard. I hated
+going to drive. I grew very brave, and was on the point of saying that
+I could not go, when I caught Sophie's eye. She made me a quick sign,
+which I dared not disobey. I blushed crimson, and did not lift my eyes
+again, but said in a low voice that I would go. Then my heart seemed to
+turn to lead, and all the glory and pleasure of the day was gone. It
+seemed to me of such vast importance, of such endless duration, this
+penance that I was to undergo. O lovers! Foolish, foolish men and women!
+I was like a child balked of its holiday; I wanted to cry--I longed to
+get away by myself. I did not dare to look at any one.
+
+Mr. Langenau excused himself, and left the table before the others went
+away. As we were leaving the table, Sophie, passing close by me, said
+quite low, "I would not say anything about the German class, Pauline.
+And it was a great deal better that you should go; you know Richard has
+not many holidays."
+
+"Yes, but you don't give up all your pleasures for him," I thought, but
+did not say.
+
+I went quickly to my room, and saw no one till I came down-stairs at
+five o'clock. I had on a veil, for my face was rather flushed, and my
+eyes somewhat the worse for crying. Richard was waiting for me at the
+foot of the stairs, and accompanied me silently to the wagon, which
+stood at the door. As we passed the parlor I could see, on the east
+piazza, Mr. Langenau and Charlotte already at their books. Both were so
+engrossed that they did not look up as we went through the hall. For
+that, Richard, poor fellow! had to suffer. I was too unreasonable to
+comprehend that Mr. Langenau's absorbed manner was a covering for his
+pique. It was enough torture to have to lose my lesson, without seeing
+him engrossed with some one else, whose fate was happier than mine.
+Perhaps, after all, he was fascinated by Charlotte Benson. She was
+bright, clever, and understood him so well. She admired him so much. She
+was, I was sure, half in love with him. (The day before I had concluded
+she liked Richard very much.) That was a very disagreeable drive. I
+complained of the heat. The sun hurt my eyes.
+
+"We can go back, if you desire it," said Richard, with a shade of
+sternness in his voice, stopping the horses suddenly, after two miles of
+what would have been ill-temper if we had been married, but was now
+perhaps only petulance.
+
+"I don't desire it," I said, quite frightened, "but I do wish we could
+go a little faster till we get into the shade."
+
+After that, there was naturally very little pleasure in conversation. I
+felt angry with Richard and ashamed of myself. For him, I am afraid his
+feelings were very bitter, and his silence the cover of a sore heart. We
+had started to take a certain drive; we both wished it over, I suppose,
+but both lacked courage to shorten it, or go home before we were
+expected. There was a brilliant sunset, but I am sure we did not see it:
+then the clouds gathered and the twilight came on, and we were
+nearly home.
+
+"Pauline," said Richard, hoarsely, not looking at me, and insensibly
+slackening the hold he had upon the reins; "will you let me say
+something to you? I want to give you some advice, if you will listen
+to me."
+
+"I don't want anybody to advise me," I said in alarm, "and I don't know
+what right you have to expect me to listen to you, Richard, unless it is
+that I am your guest; and I shouldn't think that was any reason why I
+should be made to listen to what isn't pleasant to me."
+
+The horses started forward, from the sudden emphasis of Richard's pull
+upon the reins; and that was all the answer that I had to my most
+unjustifiable words. Not a syllable was spoken after that; and in a few
+moments we were at the house. Richard silently handed me out; if I had
+been thinking about him I should have been frightened at the expression
+of his face, but I was not: I was only thinking--that we were at home,
+and that I was going to have the happiness of meeting Mr. Langenau.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+SOPHIE'S WORK.
+
+     A nature half transformed, with qualities
+     That oft betrayed each other, elements
+     Not blent, but struggling, breeding strange effects
+     Passing the reckoning of his friends or foes.
+
+     _George Eliot_.
+
+
+     High minds of native pride and force
+     Most deeply feel thy pangs, remorse!
+     Fear for their scourge, mean villains have,
+     Thou art the torturer of the brave.
+
+     _Scott_.
+
+
+This was what Sophie had done: she had invoked forces that she could not
+control, and she felt, as people are apt to feel when they watch their
+monster growing into strength, a little frightened and a little sorry.
+No doubt it had seemed to her a very small thing, to favor the folly of
+a girl of seventeen, fascinated by the voice and manner of a nameless
+stranger; it was a folly most manifest, but she had nothing to do with
+it, and was not responsible; a very small thing to allow, and to
+encourage what, doubtless, she flattered herself, her discouragement
+could not have subdued. It was very natural that she should not wish
+Richard to many any one; she was not more selfish than most sisters are.
+Most sisters do not like to give their brothers up. She would have to
+give up her home (one of her homes, that is,) as well. She did not think
+Richard's choice a wise one: she was not subject to the fascination of
+outline and coloring that had subjugated him, and she felt sincerely
+that she was the best judge. If Richard must marry (though in thinking
+of her own married life, she could not help wondering why he must), let
+him marry a woman who had fortune, or position, or talent. Of course
+there was a chance that this one might have money, but that would be
+according to the caprice of a selfish old man, who had never been known
+to show any affection for her.
+
+But money was not what Richard wanted: his sister knew much better what
+Richard wanted, than he knew himself. He wanted a clever woman, a woman
+who would keep him before the world and rouse him into a little ambition
+about what people thought of him. Sophie was disappointed and a little
+frightened when she found that Richard did not give up the outline and
+coloring pleasantly. She had thought he would be disillusionized, when
+he found he was thrown over for a German tutor, who could sing. She had
+not counted upon seeing him look ill and worn, and finding him stern and
+silent to her; to her, of whom he had always been so fond. She found he
+was taking the matter very seriously, and she almost wished that she had
+not meddled with the matter.
+
+And this German tutor--who could sing--well, it was strange, but he was
+the worst feature of her Frankenstein, and the one at which she felt
+most sorry and most frightened. Richard was very bad, to be sure, but he
+would no doubt get over it: and if it all came out well, she would be
+the gainer. As to "this girl for whom his heart was sick," she had no
+manner of patience with her or pity for her.
+
+"She must suffer: so do all;" she would undoubtedly have a hard future,
+no matter to which of these men who were so absurd about her, Fate
+finally accorded her: hard, if she married Richard without loving him
+(nobody knew better than Sophie how hard that sort of marriage was);
+hard, if she married the German, to suffer a lifetime of poverty and
+ill-temper and jealous fury. But about all that, Sophie did not care a
+straw. She knew how much women could live through, and it seemed to be
+their business to be wretched.
+
+But this man! And she could not gain anything by what he suffered, with
+his dangerous nature, his ungovernable jealousy, his possibly involved
+and unknown antecedents; what was to become of him, in case he could not
+have this girl of whom six weeks ago he had not heard? A pretty
+candidate to present to "mon oncle" of the Wall-street office, for the
+hand of the young lady trusted to their hospitality--a very pretty
+candidate--a German tutor--who could sing. If he took her, it was to be
+feared he would have to take her without more dowry than some very heavy
+imprecations. But could he take her, even thus? Sophie had some very
+strange misgivings. This man was desperately unhappy: was suffering
+frightfully: it made her heart ache to see the haggard lines deepening
+on his face, to see his colorless lips and restless eyes. She was sorry
+for him, as a woman is apt to be sorry for a fascinating man. And then
+she was frightened, for he was "no carpet knight so trim," to whom
+cognac, and cigars, and time would be a balm: this man was essentially
+dramatic, a dangerous character, an article with which she was
+unfamiliar. He was frantic about this silly girl: that was plain to see.
+Why then was he so wretched, seeing she was as irrationally in love
+with him?
+
+"If it only comes out right," she sighed distrustfully many times a day.
+She resolved never to interfere with anything again, but it came rather
+late, seeing she probably had done the greatest mischief that she ever
+would be permitted to have a hand in while she lived. She made up her
+mind not to think anything about it, but, unfortunately for that plan,
+she could not get out of sight of her work. If she had been a man, she
+would probably have gone to the Adirondacks. But being a woman she had
+to stay at home, and sit down among the tangled skeins which she had not
+skill to straighten.
+
+"If it only comes out right," she sighed again, the evening of that most
+uncomfortable drive, "If it only comes out right." But it did not look
+much like it.
+
+I had gone directly in to tea, and so had Richard. Richard's face
+silenced and depressed everybody at the table; and Mr. Langenau did
+not come.
+
+"There is going to be a terrible shower," said some one, and before the
+sentence was ended, there was a vivid flash of lightning that made the
+candles pale.
+
+"How rapidly it has come up," said Sophie. "Was the sky black when you
+came in, Richard?"
+
+"I do not know," said Richard, and nobody doubted that he told the
+truth.
+
+"It had begun to darken before we came up from the river." said
+Charlotte Benson. "The clouds were rising rapidly as we came in. It
+will be a fearful tempest."
+
+"Are the windows all shut?" said Sophie to the servant.
+
+"I should think so," exclaimed Kilian. "The heat is horrid."
+
+"Yes, it is suffocating," said Richard, getting up.
+
+As he went out of the dining-room, some one, I think Henrietta, said,
+"Well, I hope Mr. Langenau will get in safely; he was out on the river
+when we were on the hill."
+
+The storm was so sudden and so furious that everybody was concerned at
+hearing this; even Kilian made some exclamation of alarm.
+
+"Does he know anything about a boat?" he asked of Richard, who had
+paused in the doorway, hearing what was said.
+
+"I have no idea," said Richard, shortly, but he did not go away.
+
+"It isn't the sail-boat that he has, of course," said Kilian,
+thoughtfully. "He always goes out to row, I believe."
+
+"Why, no," said Charlotte Benson, "he's in the sail-boat; don't you
+remember saying, Henrietta, how bright the gleam of the sunset was on
+the sail, and all the water was so dark?"
+
+Kilian came to his feet very suddenly at these words.
+
+"That's a bad business," he said quickly to his brother. "I've no idea
+he can manage her in such a squall."
+
+Sophie gave a little scream, and Charlotte and Henrietta both grew very
+pale, as a frightful shock of thunder followed. The wind was furious,
+and the unfastened shutters in various parts of the house sounded like
+so many reports of pistols, and in an instant the whole force of the
+rain fell suddenly and at once upon the windows. Somewhere some glass
+was shattered, and all these sounds added to the sense of danger, and
+the darkness was so great and so sudden, that it was difficult to
+realize that half an hour before, the sunset could have whitened the
+sails of a boat upon the river.
+
+"I'm afraid it's too late to do much now," said Kilian, stopping in
+front of his brother in the doorway.
+
+"What's the use of talking in that way," returned Richard in a hoarse,
+low voice. "If you hav'nt more sense than to talk so before women, you
+can stay at home with them," he continued, striding across the hall, and
+picking up a lantern that stood in a corner near the door. Charlotte
+Benson caught up one of the candles from the table, and ran to him and
+lit the lamp within the lantern. Sophie threw a cloak over Kilian's
+shoulders, and Henrietta flew to carry a message to the kitchen. Richard
+pulled a bell that was a signal to the stable (the stable was very near
+the house), and in almost a moment's time two men, beside Kilian, were
+following him out into the tempest. We saw their lanterns flicker for an
+instant, and then they were swallowed up in the darkness. The fury of
+the storm increased every moment. The flashes of lightning were but a
+few seconds apart, and the roll of thunder was incessant. Every few
+moments, above this continued roar, would come an appalling crash which
+sounded just above our heads. The children were screaming with fear, the
+servants had come into the hall and seemed in a helpless sort of panic.
+Sophie was very pale and Mary Leighton clung hysterically to her.
+Charlotte Benson was the only one who seemed to be self-possessed enough
+to have done anything, if there had been anything to do. But there was
+not. All we could do was to try to behave ourselves with fortitude in
+view of the personal danger, and with composure in view of that of
+others. Presently there came a lull in the tempest, and we began to
+breathe freer; some one went to the door and opened it. A gust of cold
+wind swept through the hall and put out the lamp, at which the children
+and Mary Leighton renewed their cries of fright.
+
+The respite in the tempest was but temporary; before the lamp was relit
+and order restored, the storm had burst again upon us. This was, if
+anything, fiercer, but shorter lived. After fifteen or twenty minutes'
+rage, it subsided almost utterly, and we could hear it taking itself off
+across the heavens. I suppose the whole storm, from its beginning to its
+end, had not occupied more than three quarters of an hour, but it had
+seemed much longer.
+
+We were very glad to open the door and let the cool, damp air into the
+hall. The children were taken up-stairs, consoled with the promise that
+word should be sent to them when their uncles should return. The
+servants went feebly off to their domain; one was sent to sweep the
+piazza, for the rain had beaten in such torrents upon it that it was
+impossible to walk there, till it should be brushed away. Wrapped in
+their shawls, Henrietta and Charlotte Benson walked up and down the
+space that the servant swept, and watched and listened for a long
+half-hour. I took a cloak from the rack and, leaning against the
+door-post, stood and listened silently.
+
+From the direction of the river there was nothing to be heard. There was
+still distant thunder, but that was the only sound, that and the
+dripping of the rain off the leaves of the drenched trees. The wind was
+almost silent, and in the spaces of the broken clouds there were
+occasional faint stars. A fine, young tree, uprooted by the tempest, lay
+across the carriage-way before the house, its topmost branches resting
+on the steps of the piazza: the grass was strewed with leaves like
+autumn, and the paths were simply pools of water. Sophie, more than
+once, came to the door, and begged us to come in, for fear of the
+dampness and the cold, but no one heeded her suggestion. Even she
+herself came out very often, and looked and listened anxiously. Finally
+my ear caught a sound: I ran down the steps, and bent forward eagerly.
+There was some one coming along the garden-path that led up from the
+river. I could hear the water plashing as he walked, and he was coming
+rapidly. In a moment the others heard it too, and starting to the steps,
+stood still, and waited breathlessly. He had no lantern, for we could
+have seen that; he was almost at the steps before I could recognize him.
+It was Richard. I gave a smothered cry, and springing forward, held out
+my hands to stop him.
+
+"Tell me what has happened." He put aside my hands, and went past me
+without a second look.
+
+"There has nothing happened, but what he can tell you when he comes,"
+he said, as he strode past me up the steps, and on into the house. Then
+he was alive to tell me: the reaction was a little too strong for me,
+and I sat down on the steps to try and recover myself, for I was ill
+and giddy.
+
+In a few moments more, more steps sounded in the distance, this time
+slowly, several persons coming together. I started and ran up the steps,
+I don't exactly know why, and stood behind the others, who were crowding
+down, servants and all, to hear what was the news. Kilian came first,
+very drenched, and spattered, and subdued looking, then Mr. Langenau,
+leaning upon one of the men, very pale, but making an attempt to smile
+and speak reassuringly to Sophie, who met him with looks of great alarm.
+It evidently gave him dreadful pain to move, and when he reached the
+house he was quite faint. Charlotte Benson placed a chair, into which
+they supported him.
+
+"Run, Pauline, and get some brandy," said Sophie, putting a bunch of
+keys into my hand without looking at me.
+
+When I came back with the glass of brandy, he was conscious again, and
+looked at me and took the glass from my hand. The other man had been
+sent for the doctor from the village, who was expected every moment,
+and Mr. Langenau, who was now revived by stimulants, was quite
+reassuring, and attempted to laugh at us for being so much frightened.
+Then the young ladies' curiosity got the better of their terror, and
+they clamored for the history of the past two hours. This history was
+given them principally by Kilian. I cannot repeat it satisfactorily, for
+the reason that I don't know anything about jibs, and bowsprits, and
+masts, and centre-boards, and I did not understand it at the time; but I
+received enough out of the mass of evidence presented in that language,
+to be sure that there had been considerable danger, and that everybody
+had behaved well. In fact, Kilian's changed manner toward the tutor of
+itself was quite enough to show that he had behaved unexpectedly well.
+
+The unvarnished and unbowspritted and unjib-boomed tale was pretty much
+as follows: Mr. Langenau had found himself in the middle of the river,
+when the storm came on. I am afraid he could not have been thinking very
+much about the clouds, not to have noticed that a storm was rising;
+though every one agreed that they had never known anything like the
+rapidity of its coming up. Before he knew what he was about, a squall
+struck him, and he had great difficulty to right the boat. (Then
+followed a good deal about luffing and tacking and keeping her taut to
+windward; that is, I think that was where he wanted to keep her.) But
+whatever it was, he didn't succeed in doing it, and Kilian vouchsafed to
+say nobody could have done it. Then something split: I really cannot say
+whether it was the mast, or the bowsprit, or the centre-board, but
+whatever it was, it hurt Mr. Langenau so much that for a moment he was
+stunned. And then Kilian cannot see why he wasn't drowned. When he came
+to himself he was still holding the rudder in his hand.
+
+The other arm was useless from the falling of--this thing that
+split--upon it. And so the boat was floundering about in the gale till
+it got righted, and it was Mr. Langenau's presence of mind that saved
+him and the boat, for he never let go the rudder, and controlled her as
+far as he could, though he did not know where he was going, the
+blackness was so great, and the flashes did not show him the shore; and
+he was like one placed in the midst of a frightful sea wakened out of a
+dream, owing to the blow and the unconsciousness which followed.
+
+Then Richard came upon the stage as hero; he and one of the men had gone
+out in the only boat at hand, a very small one, toward the speck, which,
+by the flashes of lightning, he saw out upon the river. It was almost
+impossible to overhaul her, and it could not have been done at the rate
+she was going, of course; but then occurred that accident which rendered
+Mr. Langenau unconscious, and which brought things to a standstill for a
+moment. Kalian said we did not know anything about the storm up here at
+the house; that more than one tree had been struck within a few feet of
+him on the shore. The river was surging; the wind was furious; no one
+could imagine what it was who had not witnessed it, and he, for his
+part, never expected to see Richard come back to land. But Richard did
+come back, and brought back the disabled sail-boat and the injured man.
+That was the end of the story; which thrilled us all very much, as we
+knew the heroes, and had one of them before us, ghastly pale but
+uncomplaining.
+
+It seemed as if the doctor never would come! We were women, and we
+naturally looked to the coming of the doctor as the end of all the
+trouble. It was impossible to make the poor fellow comfortable. He could
+not lie down, he could not move without excruciating pain, and very
+frequently he grew quite faint. Charlotte Benson and Sophie administered
+stimulants; endeavored to ease his position with pillows and footstools;
+and did all the nameless soothing acts that efficient and good nurses
+alone understand; while I, paralyzed and mute, stood aside, scarcely
+able to bear the sight of his sufferings. I am sorry to say, I don't
+think he cared at all to have me by him. He was in such pain that he
+cared only for the attendance of those who could alleviate it in a
+measure; and the strong firm hand and the skilled touch were more to him
+than the presence of one who had nothing but excited and unavailing
+sympathy to offer. It was rather a stern fact walking into my
+dreamland, this.
+
+By and bye Kilian went away to take off his wet clothes, and he did not
+come back again, but sent down a message to his sister that he was very
+tired and should go to bed, but if he were wanted for anything he could
+be called. This was not heroic of Kilian, but, after the manner of men,
+he was apt to keep away from the sight of disagreeable things.
+
+After all, he could not do much good, but it was something to feel there
+was a man to call upon, besides Patrick, who was stupid; and I saw
+Charlotte Benson's lip curl when Kilian's message was brought down.
+
+Richard was in his room: we all thought he had done enough for one
+night, and had a right to rest.
+
+At last, after the most weary waiting, wheels were heard, and the doctor
+drove up to the door. The servants had begun to look very sleepy. Mary
+Leighton had slipped away to her room, and Sophie had told Henrietta
+and me to go, for we were really of no earthly use. We did not take her
+advice as a compliment, and did not go. Henrietta opened the door for
+the doctor, which was doing something though not much, as two of the
+maids stood prepared to do it if she did not.
+
+The doctor was a reassuring, quiet man, and became a pillar of strength
+at once. After talking a few moments with Mr. Langenau, and pulling and
+twisting him rather ruthlessly, he walked a little away with Sophie, and
+told her he wanted him got at once to his room, and he should need the
+assistance of one of the gentlemen. Would not Patrick do? Besides
+Patrick. Mr. Langenau's shoulder was dislocated, badly, and it must be
+set at once. It was a painful operation and he needed help. I was within
+hearing of this, and I was in great alarm. Sophie looked so too, and I
+don't think she liked disagreeable things any better than her brother,
+but she was a woman, and could not shirk them as he could.
+
+"Pauline," she said, finding me at her side as she turned, "run up and
+tell Richard that he must come down, quick. Tell him how it is, and that
+he must make haste."
+
+I ran up the stairs breathlessly, but feeling all the time that it was
+rather hard that I must be sent to Richard with this message. Sophie did
+not want to ask him to come down herself, and she thought me the most
+likely ambassador to bring him, but it was not a congenial embassy.
+Perhaps, however, she only asked me because I happened to be nearest
+her, and she was rather upset by what the doctor said.
+
+I knocked at Richard's door.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Oh, they want you to come down-stairs a minute. There's something to be
+done," panting and rather incoherent.
+
+"What is to be done?"
+
+"The Doctor's here, and he says he must have help."
+
+"Where's Kilian?"
+
+"Gone to bed."
+
+Some suppressed ejaculation, and he pushed back his chair, and rose, and
+came across the room: at least it sounded so, and I ran down the stairs
+again. He followed me in a moment. The Doctor came forward and talked to
+him a little while, and then Richard called Patrick, and told Sophie to
+see that Mr. Langenau's room was ready.
+
+"How can he get up two pairs of stairs," said Charlotte Benson, "when
+he cannot move an inch without such suffering?"
+
+"That's very true," the Doctor said. "I doubt if he could bear it. You
+have no room below?"
+
+"Put a bed in the library," said Charlotte Benson, and in ten minutes it
+was done; the servants no longer sleepy when they had any definite order
+to fulfill.
+
+"In the meantime," said Richard to his sister, "send those two to bed,"
+pointing out Henrietta and me.
+
+"I've told them to go, but they won't," said Sophie, somewhat sharply.
+
+Henrietta walked off, rather injured, but I would not go.
+
+Mr. Langenau had another faint attack, and I was quite certain he would
+die. Charlotte was making him breathe _sal volatile_ and Sophie ran to
+rub his hands. The Doctor was busy at the light about something.
+
+"The room is all ready," said the servant.
+
+"Very well; now Mr. Richard, if you please," the Doctor said.
+
+"Pauline," said Richard, coming to me as I stood at the foot of the
+balusters, "You can't do any good. You'd better go up-stairs."
+
+"Oh, Richard," I cried, "I think you're very cruel; I think you might
+let me stay."
+
+I suppose my wretchedness, and youthfulness, and folly softened him
+again, and he said, very gently, "I don't mean to be unkind, but it is
+best for you to go. You need not be so frightened: there isn't
+any danger."
+
+I moved slowly to obey him, but turned back and caught his hand and
+whispered, "You won't let them hurt him, Richard?" and then ran up the
+stairs. No doubt Richard thought I went to my own room; but I spent the
+next hour on the landing-place, looking down into the hall.
+
+It was rather a serious matter, getting Mr. Langenau even into the
+library, and it was well they had not attempted his own room. Patrick
+was called, and with his assistance and Richard's, he began to move
+across the hall. But half-way to the library-door, he fainted dead away,
+and Richard carried him and laid him on the bed, Patrick being worse
+than useless, having lost his head, and the Doctor being a small man,
+and only strong in science.
+
+Pretty soon the library-door closed, and Sophie and Charlotte were
+excluded. They walked about the hall, talking in low tones, and looking
+anxious. Later, there came groaning from within the closed door, and
+Charlotte Benson wrung her hands and listened. The groans continued for
+a long while: the misery of hearing them! After a while they ceased:
+then Richard opened the door, hastily, it seemed, and called "Sophie."
+
+Sophie ran forward, and the door closed again. There was a long silence,
+time enough for those who were outside to imagine all manner of horrid
+possibilities. Then the Doctor and Richard came out.
+
+"How is he, Doctor?" said Charlotte Benson, bravely, going to meet them,
+while I hung trembling over the landing-place.
+
+"Oh better, better, very comfortable," said the Doctor, in his calm
+professional tone.
+
+I could not help thinking those groans had not denoted a very high state
+of comfort; but maybe the Doctor knew best how people with dislocated
+shoulders and broken ribs are apt to express their sentiments of
+satisfaction.
+
+I listened with more than interest to their plans for the night: the
+Doctor was going away at once; two of the servants and Patrick were to
+relieve each other in sitting by him, while Richard was to throw himself
+on the sofa in the hall, to be at hand if anything were needed.
+
+"Which means, that you are to be awake all night," said Charlotte
+Benson. "You have more need of rest than we. Let Sophie and me take
+your place."
+
+Richard looked gratefully and kindly at her, but refused. The Doctor
+assured them again that there was no reason for anxiety; that Richard
+would probably be undisturbed all night; that he himself would come
+early in the morning. Then Richard came toward the stairs, and I escaped
+to my own room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+PRAEMONITUS, PRAEMUNITUS.
+
+     The fiend whose lantern lights the mead,
+       Were better mate than I!
+
+     _Scott_.
+
+     Fools, when they cannot see their way,
+     At once grow desperate,
+     Have no resource--have nothing to propose--
+     But fix a dull eye of dismay
+     Upon the final close.
+     Success to the stout heart, say I,
+     That sees its fate, and can defy!
+
+     _Faust_.
+
+
+Two weeks later, and things had not stood still; they rarely do, when
+there is so much at hand, and ripe for mischief; seventeen does not take
+up the practice of wisdom voluntarily. I do not think I was very
+different from other girls of seventeen, and I cannot blame myself very
+much that I spent all these days in a dream of bliss and folly; how
+could it have been otherwise, situated exactly as we were? This is the
+way our days were passed. Mr. Langenau was better, but still not able to
+leave his room. He was the hero, as a matter of course, and little
+besides his sufferings, his condition, and his prospects, was talked of
+at the table; which had the effect of making Kilian stay away two nights
+out of three, and of alienating Richard altogether. Richard went to town
+on Monday morning after the accident occurred, and it was now Friday of
+the following week, and he had not come back.
+
+It was a little dull for Mary Leighton and for Henrietta, perhaps;
+possibly for Charlotte Benson, but she did not seem to mind it much; and
+I had never found R---- so enchanting as that fortnight. Charlotte
+Benson liked to be Florence Nightingale in little, it was very plain;
+and naturally nothing made me so happy as to be permitted to minister to
+the wants of the (it must be confessed) frequently unreasonable
+sufferer. For the first few days, while he was confined to his bed, of
+course Charlotte and I were obliged to content ourselves with the
+sending of messages, the arranging of bouquets, the concocting of soups
+and jellies, and all the other coddling processes at our command. But
+when Mr. Langenau was able to sit up, Sophie (at the instance of
+Charlotte Benson, for she seemed to have renounced diplomacy herself,)
+arranged that the bed should be taken away during the daytime, and
+brought back again at night, and that Mr. Langenau should lie on the
+sofa through the day. This made it possible for us to be in the room,
+even without Sophie, though we began to think her presence necessary.
+That scruple was soon done away with, for it laid too great a tax on
+her, and restricted our attentions very much. The result was, we passed
+nearly the whole day beside him; Mary Leighton and Henrietta very often
+of the party, and Sophie occasionally looking in upon us. Sometimes when
+Charlotte Benson, as ranking officer, decreed that the patient needed
+rest, we took our books and work and went to the piazza, outside the
+window of his room.
+
+He would have been very tired of us, if he had not been very much in
+love with one of us. As it was, it must have been a kind of fool's
+paradise in which he lived, five pretty women fluttering about him,
+offering the prettiest homage, and one of them the woman for whom,
+wisely or foolishly, rightly or wrongly, he had conceived so violent
+a passion.
+
+As soon as he was out of pain and began to recover the tone of his
+nerves at all, I saw that he wanted me beside him more than ever, and
+that Charlotte Benson, with all her skill and cleverness, was as nothing
+to him in comparison. No doubt he dissembled this with care; and was
+very graceful and very grateful and infinitely interesting. His moods
+were very varying, however; sometimes he seemed struggling with the most
+unconquerable depression, then we were all so sorry for him; sometimes
+he was excited and brilliant; then we were all thrilled with admiration.
+And not unfrequently he was irritable and quite morose and sullen. And
+then we pitied, and admired, and feared him _a la fois_. I am sure no
+man more fitted to command the love and admiration of women ever lived.
+
+Charlotte Benson with great self-devotion had insisted upon teaching the
+children for two hours every day, so that Mr. Langenau might not be
+annoyed at the thought that they were losing time, and that Sophie might
+not be inconvenienced. It was the least that she could do, she reasoned,
+after the many lessons that Mr. Langenau had given us, with so much
+kindness, and without accepting a return. Henrietta volunteered for the
+service, also, and from eleven to one every day the boys were caught and
+caged, and made to drink at the fountain of learning; or rather to
+approach that fountain, of which forty Charlottes and Henriettas could
+not have made them drink.
+
+At that time Charlotte always decreed that Mr. Langenau should lie on
+the sofa and go to sleep. The windows were darkened, and the room was
+cleared of visitors. On this Friday morning, nearly two weeks after the
+accident, as I was following Sophie from the room (Charlotte having gone
+with Henrietta to capture the children), Mr. Langenau called after me
+rather imperiously, "Miss d'Estree--Miss Pauline--"
+
+It had been a stormy session, and I turned back with misgivings. Sophie
+shrugged her shoulders and went away toward the dining-room.
+
+"What are you going away for, may I ask?" he said, as I appeared before
+him humbly.
+
+"Why, you know you ought to lie down and to rest," I tried to say with
+discretion, but it was all one what I said: it would have irritated him
+just the same.
+
+"I am rather tired of this surveillance," he exclaimed. "It is almost
+time I should be permitted to express a wish about the disposition of
+myself. As I do not happen to want to go to sleep, I beg I may be
+allowed the pleasure of your society for a little while."
+
+"I don't think it would give you much pleasure, and you know you don't
+feel as well to-day."
+
+"Again, may I be permitted to judge how I feel myself?"
+
+"Oh, yes, of course, but--"
+
+"But what, Miss d'Estree?--No doubt you want to go yourself--I am sorry
+I thought of detaining you (with a gesture of dismissal). I beg you to
+excuse me, A sick man is apt to be unreasonable."
+
+"Oh, as to that, you know entirely well I do not want to go. You are
+unreasonable, indeed, when you talk as you do now. I only went away for
+your benefit."
+
+"_Qui s'excuse, s'accuse_."
+
+"But I am not excusing myself; and if you put it so I will go away at
+once."
+
+"_Si vous voulez_--"
+
+"But I don't '_voulez_'--Oh, how disagreeable you can be."
+
+"You will stay?"
+
+"Pauline!" called Sophie from across the hall.
+
+"There!" I exclaimed, interpreting it as the voice of conscience. I left
+my work-basket and book upon the table, and went out of the room.
+
+"You called me?" I said, following her into the parlor, where, shutting
+the door, she motioned me to a seat beside her. She had a slip of paper
+and an envelope in her hand, and seemed a little ill at ease.
+
+"I've just had a telegram from Richard," she said. "He's coming home
+to-night by the eleven o'clock train. It's so odd altogether. I don't
+know why he's coming. But you may as well read his message yourself,"
+she said with a forced manner, handing me the paper. It was as follows:
+
+Send carriage for me to eleven-thirty train to-night. Remember my
+injunctions, our last conversation, and your promises."
+
+"Well?" I said, looking up, bewildered and not violently interested, for
+I was secretly listening to the quick shutting of the library-door.
+
+"Why, you see," she returned, with a forced air of confidence that made
+me involuntarily shrink from her; I think she even laid her hand upon my
+sleeve, or made some gesture of familiarity which was unusual--
+
+"You see, that last conversation was--about you. Richard is annoyed
+at--at your intimacy with Mr. Langenau. You know just as well as I do
+how he feels, for no doubt he's spoken to you himself."
+
+"He never has," I said, quite shortly.
+
+"No?" and she looked rather chagrined. "Well--but at all events you know
+how he feels. Girls ar'nt slow generally to find out about those things.
+And he is really very unhappy about it, very. I wish, Pauline, you'd
+give it up, child. It's gone quite far enough; now don't you think so
+yourself? Mr. Langenau isn't the sort of man to be serious about, you
+know. It's all very well, just for a summer's amusement. But, you know,
+you mustn't go too far. I'm sure, dear, you're not angry with me: now
+you understand just what I mean, don't you?"
+
+No: not angry, certainly not angry. She went on, still with the
+impertinent touch upon my arm: "Richard made me promise that I would
+look after you, and not permit things to go too far. And you
+see--well--I'll tell you in confidence what I think his coming to-night
+means, and his message and all. I think--that is, I am afraid--he's
+found out something against Mr. Langenau since he's been away. I know he
+never has felt confidence in him. But I've always thought, perhaps that
+was because he was--well--a little jealous and suspicious. You know men
+are so apt to be suspicious; and I was sure, when he went away that last
+Monday morning, that he would not leave a stone unturned in finding out
+everything about him. It is that that's kept him, I am sure. Don't let
+that make you feel hardly toward Richard," she went on, noticing perhaps
+my look; "you know it's only natural, and besides, it's right. How would
+he answer to your uncle?"
+
+"It is I who should answer to my uncle," I returned, under my breath.
+
+"Yes, but you are in our house, in our care. You know, my dear child,
+you are very young and very inexperienced; you don't know how very
+careful people have to be."
+
+"Why don't you talk that way to Charlotte and Henrietta and Mary
+Leighton? Have I done anything so very different from them?" I answered,
+with a blaze of spirit.
+
+"No, dear," she said, with a little laugh, "only there are one or two
+men very much in love with you, and that makes everything so different."
+
+I blushed scarlet, and was silenced instantly, as she intended.
+
+"Now, maybe I am mistaken about his having discovered something," she
+went on, "but I can't make anything else out of Richard's message. He is
+not one to send off such a despatch without a reason. Evidently he is
+very uneasy; and I thought it was best to be perfectly frank with you,
+dear, and I know you'll do me the justice to say I have been, if Richard
+ever says anything to you about it. You mustn't blame me, you know, for
+the way he feels. I wish the whole thing was at an end," she said, with
+the first touch of sincerity. "And now promise me one thing," with
+another caressing movement of the hand, "Promise me, you won't go into
+the library again till Richard comes, and we hear what he has to say.
+Just for my sake, you know, my dear, for you see he would blame me if I
+did not keep a strict surveillance. You won't mind doing that, I'm
+sure, for me?"
+
+"I shall not promise anything," I returned, getting up, "but I am not
+likely to go near the library after what you've said."
+
+"That's a good child," she said, evidently much relieved, and thinking
+that the affair was very near its end. I opened the door, and she added:
+"Now go up-stairs, and rest yourself, for you look as if you had a
+headache, and don't think of anything that's disagreeable." That was a
+good prescription, but I did not take it.
+
+Of course, I did not go near the library; that was understood. After
+dinner, the servant brought in Mr. Langenau's tray untouched, and
+Charlotte Benson started up, and ran in to see what was the matter.
+Sophie went too, looking a little troubled. I think they were both
+snubbed: for ten minutes after, when I met Charlotte in the hall, she
+had an unusual flush upon her cheek, and Sophie I found standing at one
+of the parlor-windows, biting her lip, and tapping impatiently upon the
+carpet. Evidently the affair was not as near its placid end as she had
+hoped. She started a little when she saw me, and tried to look
+unruffled.
+
+"How sultry it is this afternoon!" she said. "Are you going up to your
+room to take a rest? stop in my room on your way, I want to show you
+those embroideries that I was telling Charlotte Benson of last night."
+
+"I did not hear you, and I do not know anything about them," I said,
+feeling not at all affectionate.
+
+"No? Oh, I forgot: it was while you and Henrietta were sitting in the
+library, and Charlotte and I were walking up and down the piazza while
+it rained. Why, they are some heavenly sets that I got this spring from
+Paris--Marshall picked them up one day at the _Bon Marche_--and verily
+they are _bon marche_. I never saw anything so cheap, and I was telling
+Charlotte that some of you might just as well have part of them, for I
+never could use the half. Come up and look them over."
+
+Now I loved "heavenly sets" as well as most women, but dress was not the
+bait for me at that moment. So I said my head ached and I could not look
+at them then, if she'd excuse me; and I went silently away to my room,
+not caring at all if she were pleased or not. I disliked and distrusted
+her more and more every moment, and she seemed to me so mean: for I knew
+all her worry came from the apprehension of what she might have to fear
+from Richard, not the thought of the suffering that he or that any one
+else endured.
+
+It was a long afternoon, but it reached its end, after the manner of
+all afternoons on record, even those of Marianna. When I came
+down-stairs they were all at tea and Kilian had arrived. A more
+enlivening atmosphere prevailed, and the invalid was not discussed. A
+drive was being canvassed. There was an early moon, and Kilian proposed
+driving Tom and Jerry before the open wagon, which would carry four,
+through the valley-road, to be back by half-past nine or ten o'clock.
+
+"But what am I to do," cried Kilian, "when there are five angels, and I
+have only room for three?"
+
+"Why, two will have to stay at home, according to my arithmetic," said
+Charlotte, good-naturedly, "and I've no doubt I shall be remainder."
+
+"If you stay, I shall stay with you," said Henrietta, dropping the
+metaphor, for metaphors, even the mildest, were beyond her reach
+of mind.
+
+Everybody wanted to stay, and everybody tried to be quite firm; but as
+no one's firmness but mine was based on inclination, the result was that
+Sophie and I were "remainder," and Mary Leighton, Charlotte, and
+Henrietta drove away with Kilian quite jauntily, at half-past seven
+o'clock. But before she went, Charlotte, who was really good-natured
+with all her sharpness and self-will, went into the library to speak to
+Mr. Langenau, and to show she did not resent the noonday slight,
+whatever that had been. But presently she came back looking rather
+anxious, and said to Sophie, ignoring me (whom she always did ignore if
+possible),
+
+"Do go and see what you can do for Mr. Langenau. He is really very far
+from well. His tea stands there, and he hasn't taken anything to eat. He
+looks feverish and excited, and I truly think he ought to see the
+Doctor. You know he promised the Doctor to stay in his room, and keep
+still all the rest of the week. But I am sure he means to come out
+to-morrow, and he even talks of going down to town. It will kill him if
+he does; I'm sure he's doing badly, and I wish you'd go and see to him."
+
+"Does he know Richard is coming up to-night?" asked Sophie, _sotto
+voce_, but with affected carelessness.
+
+"I do not know; oh yes, he does, I mentioned it to him at dinner-time, I
+remember now."
+
+"Well, I'll see if I can do anything for him; now go, they're waiting
+for you. Have a pleasant time."
+
+After they were gone, Sophie went into the library, but she did not stay
+very long. She came and sat beside me on the river-balcony, and talked a
+little, desultorily and absent-mindedly.
+
+Presently there was a call for "mamma," a hubbub and a hurry--soon
+explained. Charley, who had been running wild for the last two weeks,
+without tutor or uncle to control him, had just fallen from the mow, and
+hurt himself somewhat, and frightened himself much more. The whole house
+was in a ferment. He was taken to mamma's room, for he was a great baby
+when anything was the matter with him, and would not let mamma move an
+inch away from him. After assisting to the best of my ability in making
+him comfortable, and seeing myself only in the way, I went down-stairs
+again, and took my seat upon the balcony that overlooked the river.
+
+The young moon was shining faintly, and the air was soft and balmy. The
+house was very still; the servants, I think, were all in a distant part
+of the house, or out enjoying the moonlight and the idleness of evening.
+Sophie was nailed to Charley's bed up-stairs, trying to soothe him;
+Benny was sinking to sleep in his little crib. It seemed like an
+enchanted palace, and when I heard a step crossing the parlor, it made
+me start with a vague feeling of alarm. The parlor-window by me, which
+opened to the floor, was not closed, and in another moment some one came
+out and stood beside me. It was Mr. Langenau. I started up and
+exclaimed, "Mr. Langenau, how imprudent! Oh, go back at once."
+
+He seemed weak, and his hand shook as he leaned against the casement,
+but his eyes were glittering with a feverish excitement. He did not
+answer. I went on: "The Doctor forbade your coming out for several days
+yet--and the exertion and the night-air--oh, I beg you to go back."
+
+"Alone?" he said in a low voice.
+
+"No, oh no, I will go with you. Anything, only do not stay here a moment
+longer; come." And taking his hand (and how burning hot it was!) and
+drawing it through my arm, I started toward the hall. He had to lean on
+me, for the unusual exertion seemed to have annihilated all his
+strength. When we reached the library, I led him to a chair--a large and
+low and easy one, and he sank down in it.
+
+"You are not going away?" he asked, as he gasped for breath, "For there
+is something that must be said to-night."
+
+"No, I will not go," I answered, frightened to see him so, and agitated
+by a thousand feelings. "I will light the lamp, and read to you. Let me
+move your chair back from the window."
+
+"No, you must not light the lamp; I like the moonlight better. Bring
+your chair and sit here by me--here." He leaned and half-pulled toward
+him the companion to the chair on which he sat, a low, soft, easy one.
+
+I sat down in it, sitting so I nearly faced him. The moon was shining
+in at the one wide window: I can remember exactly the pattern that the
+vine-leaves made as the moonlight fell through them on the carpet at our
+feet. I had a bunch of verbena-leaves fastened in my dress, and I never
+smell verbena-leaves at any time or place without seeing before me that
+moon-traced pattern and that wide-open window.
+
+"Pauline," he said, in that low, thrilling voice, leaning a little
+toward me, "I have a great deal to say to you to-night. I have a great
+wrong to ask pardon for--a great sorrow to tell you of. I shall never
+call you Pauline again as I call you to-night. I shall never look into
+your eyes again, I shall never touch your hand. For we must part,
+Pauline; and this hour, which heaven has given me, is the last that we
+shall spend together on the earth."
+
+I truly thought that his fever had produced delirium, and, trying to
+conceal my alarm, I said, with an attempt to quiet him, "Oh, do not say
+such things; we shall see each other a great, great many times, I hope,
+and have many more hours together."
+
+"No, Pauline, you do not know so well as I of what I speak. This is no
+delirium; would to heaven, it were, and I might wake up from it. No, the
+parting must be said to-night, and I must be the one to speak it. We
+may spend days, perhaps, under the same roof--we may even sit at the
+same table once again; but, I repeat, from this day I may never look
+into your eyes again, I may never touch your hand. Pauline, can you
+forgive me? I know that you can love. Merciful Heaven! who so well as I,
+who have held your stainless heart in my stained hand these many dreamy
+weeks; and Justice has not struck me dead. Yes, Pauline, I know you've
+loved me; but remember this one thing, in all your bitter thoughts of me
+hereafter: remember this, you have not loved me as I have loved you. You
+have not given up earth and heaven both for me as I have done for you.
+For you? No, not for you, but for the shadow of you, for the thought of
+you, for these short weeks of you. And then, an eternity of absence, and
+of remorse, and of oblivion--ah, if it might be oblivion for you! If I
+could blot out of your life this short, blighting summer; if I could put
+you back to where you were that fresh, sweet morning that I walked with
+you beside the river! I loved you from that day, Pauline, and I drugged
+my conscience, and refused to heed that I was doing you a wrong in
+teaching you to love me. Pauline, I have to tell you a sad story: you
+will have to go back with me very far; you will have to hear of sins of
+which you never dreamed in your dear innocence. I would spare you if I
+could, but you must know, for you must forgive me. And when you have
+heard, you may cease to love, but I think you will forgive. Listen."
+
+Why should I repeat that terrible disclosure? why harrow my soul with
+going back over that dark path? Let me try to forget that such sins,
+such wrongs, such revenges, ever stained a human life. I was so young,
+so innocent, so ignorant. It was a strange misfortune that I should have
+had to know that which aged and changed me so. But he was right in
+saying that I had to know it. My life was bound involuntarily to his by
+my love, and what concerned him was my fate. Alas! He was in no other
+way bound to me than by my love: nor ever could be.
+
+I don't know whether I was prepared for it or not: I knew that something
+terrible and final was to come, and I felt the awe that attends the
+thoughts that words are final and time limited. But when I heard the
+fatal truth--that another woman lived to whom he was irrevocably
+bound--I heard it as in a dream, and did not move or speak. I think I
+felt for a moment as if I were dead, as if I had passed out of the ranks
+of the living into the abodes of the silent, and benumbed, and
+pulseless. There was such a horrible awe, and chill, and check through
+all my young and rapid blood. It was like death by freezing. It is not
+so pleasant as they say, believe me. But no pain: that came afterward,
+when I came to life, when I felt the touch of his hand on mine, and
+ceased to hear his cruel words.
+
+I had shrunk back from him in my chair, and sat, I suppose, like a
+person in a trance, with my hands in my lap, and my eyes fixed on him
+with bewilderment. But when he ceased to speak--and, leaning forward on
+one knee, clasped my hands in his, and drew me toward him, then indeed I
+knew I was not dead. Oh, the agony of those few moments--I tried to
+rise, to go away from him. But he held me with such strength--all his
+weakness was gone now. He folded his arms around my waist and held me as
+in a vise. Then suddenly leaning his head down upon my arms, he kissed
+my hands, my arms, my dress, with a moan of bitter anguish.
+
+"Not mine," he murmured. "Never mine but in my dreams. O wretched
+dreams, that drive me mad. Pauline, they will tell us that we must not
+dream--we must not weep, we must be stocks and stones. We must wear this
+weight of living death till that good Lord that makes such laws shall
+send us death in mercy. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years of suffering:
+that might almost satisfy Him, one would think. Pauline! you and I are
+to say good-bye to-night. Good-bye! People talk of it as a cruel word.
+Think of it: if it were but for a year, a year with hope at the end of
+it to keep our hearts alive, it would be terrible, and we should need be
+brave. The tears that lovers shed over a year apart; the days that have
+got to come and go, how weary. The nights--the nights that sleep flies
+off from, and that memory reigns over. Count them--over three hundred
+come in every year. One, you think while it is passing, is enough to
+kill you: one such night of restless torture, and how many shall we
+multiply our three hundred by? We are young, Pauline. You are a child, a
+very child. I am in the very flush and strength of manhood. There is
+half a century of suffering in me yet: this frame, this brain, will
+stand the wear of the hard years to come but too, too well. There is no
+hope of death. There is no hope in life. That star has set. Good God!
+And that makes hell--why should I wait for it--it cannot be worse there
+than here. Don't listen to me--it will not be as hard for you--you are
+so young--you have no sins to torture you--only a little love to conquer
+and forget. You will marry a man who lives for you, and who is patient
+and will wait till this is over. Ah, no: by Heaven! I can't quite stand
+it yet. Pauline, you never loved him, did you--never blushed for
+him--never listened for his coming with your lips apart and your heart
+fluttering, as I have seen you listen when you thought that I was
+coming? No, I know you never loved him: I know you have loved me
+alone--me--who ought to have forbidden you. Forgive--forgive--forgive
+me."
+
+A passion of tears had come to my relief, and I shook from head to foot
+with sobs. I cannot feel ashamed when I remember that he held me for one
+moment in his arms. He had been to me till that shock, strength, truth,
+justice: _the man I loved_. How could I in one instant know him by his
+sin alone, and undo all my trust? I knew only this, that it was for the
+last time, and that my heart was broken.
+
+I forgave him--that was an idle form; in my great love I never felt that
+there was anything to be forgiven, except the wrong that fate had done
+me, in making my love so hopeless. He told me to forget him; that seemed
+to me as idle; but all his words were precious, and all my soul was in
+his hand. When, at that moment, the sound of wheels upon the gravel
+came, and the sound of laughter and of voices, I sprang up; he caught me
+in his arms and held me closely. Another moment, the parting was over,
+and I was kneeling by my bed up-stairs, weeping, sobbing, hopeless.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE WORLD GOES ON THE SAME.
+
+     Into my chamber brightly
+       Came the early sun's good-morrow;
+     On my restless bed, unsightly,
+      I sat up in my sorrow.
+
+     _Faust._
+
+
+It is an amazing thing, the strength and power of pride. Pride, and the
+law of self-respect and self-preservation in our being, is the force
+that holds us in our course. When we reflect upon it, how few of all the
+myriads fly out from it and are lost. That I ate my meals; that I
+dressed myself with care; that I took walks and drives: that I did not
+avoid my companions, and listened patiently to what they chose to say:
+these were the evidences of that centripetal law within that was keeping
+me from destruction. It would be difficult to imagine a person more
+unhappy. Undisciplined and unfortified by the knowledge that
+disappointment is an integral part of all lives, there had suddenly come
+upon me a disappointment the most total. It covered everything; there
+was not a flicker of hope or palliation. And I had no idea where to go
+to make myself another hope, or in what course lay palliation. As we
+have prepared ourselves or have been prepared, so is the issue of our
+temptations. My great temptation came upon me, foolish, ignorant,
+unprepared: the wonder would have been if I had resisted it to my
+own credit.
+
+The days went on as usual at R----, and I must hold my place among the
+careless daughters and not let them see my trouble. Careless daughters,
+indeed they were, and I shuddered at the thought of their cold eyes: no
+doubt their eyes, bright as well as cold, saw that something was amiss
+with me; with all my bravery, I could not keep the signs of wretchedness
+out of my pale face. But they never knew the story, and they could only
+guess at what made me wretched. It is amazing (again) what power there
+is in silence, and how much you can keep in your hands if you do not
+open them. People may surmise--may invent, but they cannot know your
+secret unless you tell it to them, and their imaginings take so many
+forms, the multitude of things that they create blot out all definite
+design. Thus every one at R---- had a different theory about my loss of
+spirits and the relapse of Mr. Langenau, but no one ever knew what
+passed that night.
+
+Richard came. He was closeted with Sophie until after midnight, but I
+do not think he told her anything that she desired to know. I think he
+only tried to find out from her what had passed (and she did not know
+that I had been in the library since she spoke to me). If Mr. Langenau
+had been well, I have no doubt that it was his design to have dismissed
+him on the following day, no matter at what hazard. How much he knew I
+cannot tell, but enough to have warranted him in doing that, perhaps. He
+probably would have put it in Mr. Langenau's power to have gone without
+any coloring put upon his going that would have affected his standing in
+the household. This was his design, no doubt; otherwise he would have
+told his sister all. His delicate consideration for me made him guard as
+sacred the fact that I had wasted my hope and love so cruelly.
+
+He was not going away again, I soon found; _qui va a la chasse perd sa
+place_. He had lost his place, but he would stay and guard me all the
+same; and the chase for gold seemed given up for good and all.
+
+Kilian was in constant surprise, and made out many catechisms, but he
+got little satisfaction.
+
+Richard was going to have a few weeks' "rest," unless something should
+occur to call him back to town.
+
+He sought no interview with me, was kind and silent, but his eye was
+never off me. I think he watched his opportunity for saying what he had
+to say to Mr. Langenau, but such an opportunity seemed destined not
+to come.
+
+Mr. Langenau was ill the day after Richard came home--quite ill enough
+to cause alarm. He had a high fever, and the Doctor even seemed uneasy,
+and prescribed the profoundest quiet. After a day or two, however, he
+improved, and all danger seemed averted.
+
+As soon as he was strong enough, he was to be removed to his own room
+above, for the sake of quiet, and to release the household from its
+enforced tranquillity.
+
+All these particulars I heard at table, or from morning groups on the
+piazza: with stony cheeks, and eyes that looked unflinchingly into all
+curious faces: so works the law of self-defence.
+
+All but Richard, I am sure, were staggered, but he read with his heart.
+
+I never blushed now, I never faltered, I never said a word I did not
+mean to say. It was a struggle for life: though I did not value the
+life, and should have found it hard to say why I did not give up and
+let them see that I was killed.
+
+But I kept wondering how I should sustain myself if I should be called
+upon to meet him once again.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+GUARDED.
+
+     Forever at her side, and yet forever lonely,
+     I shall unto the end have made life's journey, only
+     Daring to ask for naught, and having naught received.
+
+     _Felix Arvers_.
+
+     Duty to God is duty to her; I think
+     God, who created her, will save her too
+     Some new way, by one miracle the more
+     Without me. Then, prayer may avail, perhaps.
+
+     _R. Browning_.
+
+
+"Mr. Langenau is coming down to-day," said Charlotte Benson in a
+stage-whisper, as we took our places at the table, a week after this. "I
+met him in the hall about an hour ago, looking like a ghost, and he told
+me he was coming down to dinner."
+
+"_Vraiment_," said Sophie, looking a little disconcerted. "Well, he
+shall have Charley's place. Charley isn't coming."
+
+"I hope he's in a better temper than that last day we saw him," said
+Henrietta.
+
+"Poor fellow!" said Charlotte, "that was the day before the fever began.
+It was coming on: that was the reason of it all, no doubt. He looks
+ghastly enough now. You'll forgive all, the moment that you see him."
+
+Charlotte had forgiven him herself, though she had never resumed the
+role of Florence Nightingale. Since he had given up the library and
+removed to his own room, he had been quite lost to all, and nobody
+seemed to have gone near him, not even Sophie, who would have been glad
+to forget that he existed, without doubt.
+
+Richard's eyes were on me as Charlotte said "Hush!" and a step crossed
+the hall in the pause that ensued. Kilian, sitting next me, began to
+talk to me at that moment, the moment that Mr. Langenau entered the
+room. And I think I answered quite coherently: though two sets of words
+were going through my brain, the answer to his commonplace question, and
+the words that Mr. Langenau had said that night, "Pauline, I shall never
+look into your eyes again, I shall never touch your hand."
+
+It seemed to me an even chance which sentence saw the day; but as the
+walls did not fall down about me and no face looked amazement, I found I
+must have answered Kilian's question with propriety.
+
+There were many voices speaking at once; but there was such a ringing in
+my ears, I could not distinguish who spoke, or what was said: for a
+moment I was lost, if any one had taken advantage of it. But gradually
+I regained my senses: one after another they each took up their guard
+again: and I looked up. And met his eyes? No; but let mine rest upon his
+face. And then I found I had not measured my temptation, and that there
+was something to do besides defending myself from others' eyes. For
+there was to defend myself from my own heart. The passion of pity and
+tenderness that rushed over me as my eyes fell on his haggard face, so
+strong and yet so wan, swept away for the moment the defences against
+the public gaze. I could have fallen down at his feet before them all
+and told him that I loved him.
+
+A few moments more of the sound of commonplace words, and the repulsion
+of every-day faces and expressions, swept me back into the circle of
+conventionalities, and brought me under the force of that current that
+keeps us from high tragedy.
+
+All during the meal Mr. Langenau was grave and silent, speaking little
+and then with effort. He had overrated his strength, perhaps, for he
+went away before the end of the dinner, asking to be excused, in a tone
+almost inaudible. After he had gone, a good many commentaries were
+offered. Kilian seemed to express the sense of the assembly when he
+said: "The man looks shockingly, and he's not out of the woods yet."
+
+Sophie looked troubled: she had some compunctions for the neglect of the
+last few days, perhaps.
+
+"What does the Doctor say?" pursued her brother.
+
+"Nothing, I suppose--for he hasn't been here for a week, almost."
+
+"Well, then, you'd better send for him, if you don't want the fellow to
+die on your hands. He's not fit to be out of bed, and you'll have
+trouble if you don't look out."
+
+"As if I hadn't had trouble," returned his sister, almost peevishly.
+
+"Well, I beg your pardon, Sophie. But I fancied you and Miss Charlotte
+were in charge; and I thought about ten days ago, your patient was in a
+fair way to be killed with kindness, and it's a little of a surprise to
+me to find he's being let alone so very systematically."
+
+"Why, to tell you the truth," cried Charlotte Benson, "we were turned
+out of office without much ceremony, one fine day after dinner. I am
+quite willing to be forgiving; but I don't think you can ask me to put
+myself in the way of being snubbed again to that extent."
+
+"The ungrateful varlet! what did he complain of? Hadn't he been coddled
+enough to please him? Did he want four or five more women dancing
+attendance on him?"
+
+"Oh, it was not want of attention he complained of. In fact," said
+Charlotte, coloring, "It was that he didn't like quite so much, and
+wanted to be allowed more liberty."
+
+Kilian indulged in a good laugh, which wasn't quite fair, considering
+Charlotte's candor.
+
+"But the truth is," said Charlotte, uneasily, "that he was too ill, that
+day, to be responsible for what he said. He was just coming down with
+the fever, and, you know, people are always most unreasonable then."
+
+"I'm very glad I never gave him a chance to dispense with me," said Mary
+Leighton, with a view to making herself amiable in Kilian's eyes.
+
+"I think he dispensed with you early in the season," said Charlotte,
+sharply. "Oh, hast thou forgotten that walk that he took, upon your
+invitation? Ah, Miss Leighton, his look was quite dramatic. I know you
+never have forgiven him."
+
+"I haven't the least idea what you are talking of," returned Mary
+Leighton, with bewildered and child-like simplicity.
+
+"Ah, then it was not as unique an occurrence as I hoped," said
+Charlotte, viciously. "I imagined it would make more of an impression."
+
+"Charlotte," interrupted Sophie, shocked at this open impoliteness, "I
+hope you are forgiving enough to break it to him that he's got to see
+the Doctor; for if he comes unexpectedly and goes up to his room, he
+will be dramatic, and that is so unpleasant, as we know to our sorrow."
+
+"Indeed, I shan't tell him," cried Charlotte, "you can take your life in
+your hand, and try it if you please; but I cannot consent to risk
+myself. There's Mary Leighton, she bears no malice. Perhaps she'll go
+with you as support."
+
+"Ha, ha!" cried Kilian. "Richard, you and I may be called on to bring up
+the rear. There's the General's old sword in the hall, and I'll take the
+Joe Manton from the shelf in the library."
+
+"Richard looks as if he disapproved of us all very much," said Sophie,
+and in truth Richard did look just so. He did not even answer these
+suggestions, but began after a moment to talk to Henrietta on
+indifferent matters.
+
+It was on this afternoon that a new policy was inaugurated at R----. We
+were taught to feel that we had been quite aggrieved by the dullness of
+the past two weeks or more, and that we must be compensated by some
+refreshing novelties.
+
+Richard was at the head of the movement--Richard with his sober cares
+and weary look. But the incongruity struck no one; they were too glad to
+be amused. Even Sophie brightened up. Charlotte was ready to throw her
+energies into any active scheme, hospital or picnic, charity-school or
+kettle-drum.
+
+"To-morrow will be just the sort of day for it," said Richard, "cool and
+fine. And half the pleasure of a picnic is not having time to get tired
+of it beforehand."
+
+"That's very true," said Charlotte; "but I don't see how we're going to
+get everybody notified and everything in order for nine o'clock
+to-morrow morning."
+
+"Nothing easier," said Kilian; "we'll go, directly after tea, to the De
+Witts and Prentices, and send Thomas with a note to the Lowders. Sophie
+has done her part in shorter time than that, very often; and I don't
+believe we should be starved, if she only gave half an hour's notice to
+the cook."
+
+What is heavier than pleasure-seeking in which one has no pleasure? I
+shall never forget the misery of those plans and that bustle. I dared
+not absent myself, and I could scarcely carry out my part for very
+heavy-heartedness. It seemed to me that I could not bear it, if the hour
+came, and I should have to drive away with all that merry party, and
+leave poor Mr. Langenau for a long, long day alone.
+
+I felt sure something would occur to release me: it could not be that I
+should have to go. With the exaggeration of youth, it seemed to me an
+impossibility that I could endure anything so grievous. How I hated all
+the careless, thoughtless, happy household! Only Richard, enemy as he
+was to my happiness, seemed endurable to me. For Richard was not
+merry-making in his heart, and I was sure he was sorry for me all the
+time he was trying to oppose me.
+
+Mr. Langenau was again in the Doctor's care, who came that evening, and
+who said to Richard, in my hearing, he must be kept quiet; he didn't
+altogether like his symptoms.
+
+Richard had his hands full, with great matters and small. Sophie had
+washed hers of the invalid; there had been some sharpish words between
+the sister and brother on the matter, I imagine, and the result was,
+Richard was the only one who did or would do anything for his comfort
+and safety.
+
+That day, after appearing at dinner, he came no more. I watched with
+feverish anxiety every step, every sound; but he came not. I knew that
+the Doctor's admonitions would not have much weight, nor yet Richard's
+opinion. I had the feeling that if he would only speak to me, only look
+at me once, it would ease that horrible oppression and pain which I was
+suffering. The agony I was enduring was so intolerable, and its real
+relief so impossible, like a child I caught at some fancied palliation,
+and craved only that. What would one look, one word be--out of a
+lifetime of silence and separation.
+
+No matter: it was what I raged and died for, just one look, just one
+word more. He had said he would never look into my eyes again: that
+haunted me and made me superstitious. I would _make_ him look at me. I
+would seize his hand and kneel before him, and tell him I should die if
+he did not speak to me once more. Once more! Just once, out of years,
+out of forever. I had thrown duty, conscience, thought to the winds. I
+had but one fear--that we should be finally separated without that word
+spoken, that look exchanged. I said to myself again and again, I shall
+die, if I cannot speak to him again. Beyond that I did not look. What
+better I should be after that speaking I did not care. I only longed and
+looked for that as a relief from the insufferable agony of my fate. One
+cannot take in infinite wretchedness: it is our nature to make dates and
+periods to our sorrows in our imagination.
+
+And so that horrid afternoon and evening passed, amid the racket and
+babel of visitors and visiting. I followed almost blindly, and did as
+the others did. The next morning dawned bright and cold. What a day for
+summer! The sun was brilliant, but the wind came from over icebergs; it
+seemed like "winter painted green."
+
+We were to start at nine o'clock. I was ready early, waiting on the
+piazza for the aid to fate that was to keep me from the punishment of
+going. No human being had spoken his name that morning. How should I
+know whether he were still so ill or no.
+
+The hour for starting had arrived. Richard, who never kept long out of
+sight of me, was busy loading the wagon that was to accompany us, with
+baskets of things to eat, and with wines and fruits. Kilian was
+engrossed in arranging the seats and cushions in the two carriages which
+had just driven to the door.
+
+Mary Leighton was fluttering about the flower-bed at the left of the
+piazza, making herself lovely with geranium and roses. Sophie, in a
+beautiful costume, was pacifying Charley, who had had a difference with
+his uncle Kilian. Charlotte and Henrietta were busy in their small way
+over a little basket of preserves; and two or three of the neighboring
+gentlemen, who were to drive with us, were approaching the house by a
+side-entrance.
+
+In a moment or two we should be ready to be off. What should I do? I was
+frantic with the thought that he might be worse, he might go away. I
+was to be absent such a length of time. I must--I would see him before
+we went. What better moment than the present, when everybody was engaged
+in this fretting, foolish picnic. I would run up-stairs--call to him
+outside his door--make him speak to me.
+
+With a guilty look around, I started up, stole through the group on the
+piazza, and ran to the stairs. But alas, Richard had not failed to mark
+my movements, and before my foot had touched the stair his voice
+recalled me. I started with a guilty look, and trembled, but dared not
+meet his eye.
+
+"Pauline, are you going away? We are just ready start."
+
+If I had had any presence of mind I should have made an excuse, and gone
+to my own room for a moment, and taken my chance of getting to the floor
+above; but I suppose he would have forestalled me. I could not command a
+single word, but turned back and followed him. As we got into the
+carriage, the voices and the laughing really seemed to madden me.
+Driving away from the house, I never shall forget the sensation of
+growing heaviness at my heart; it seemed to be turning into lead. I
+glanced back at the closed windows of his room and wondered if he saw
+us, and if he thought that I was happy.
+
+The length of that day! The glare of that sun! The chill of that
+unnatural wind! Every moment seemed to me an hour. I can remember with
+such distinctness the whole day, each thing as it happened;
+conversations which seemed so senseless, preparations which seemed so
+endless. The taste of the things I tried to eat: the smell of the grass
+on which we sat, and the pine-trees above our heads: the sound of fire
+blazing under the teakettle, and the pained sensation of my eyes when
+the smoke blew across into our faces: the hateful vibration of Mary
+Leighton's laugh: all these things are unnaturally vivid to me at
+this day.
+
+I don't know what the condition of my brain must have been, to have
+received such an exaggerated impression of unimportant things.
+
+"What can I do for you, Miss Pauline?" said Kilian, throwing himself
+down on the grass at my feet. I could not sit down for very impatience,
+but was walking restlessly about, and was now standing for a moment by a
+great tree under which the table had been spread. It was four o'clock,
+and there was only vague talk of going home; the horses had not yet been
+brought up, the baskets were not a quarter packed. Every one was
+indolent, and a good deal tired; the gentlemen were smoking, and no one
+seemed in a hurry.
+
+When Kilian said, "What can I do for you. Miss Pauline?" I could not
+help saying, "Take me home."
+
+"Home!" cried Kilian. "Here is somebody talking about going home. Why,
+Miss Pauline, I am just beginning to enjoy myself! only look, it is but
+four o'clock."
+
+"Oh, let us stay and go home by moonlight," cried Mary Leighton, in a
+little rapture.
+
+"Would it not be heavenly!" said Henrietta.
+
+"How about tea?" said Charlotte. "We shall be hungry before moonlight,
+and there isn't anything left to eat."
+
+"How material!" cried Kilian, who had eaten an enormous dinner.
+
+"We shall all get cold," said Sophie, who loved to be comfortable, "and
+the children are beginning to be very cross."
+
+"Small blame to them," muttered a dissatisfied man in my ear, who had
+singled me out as a companion in discontent, and had pursued me with his
+contempt for pastoral entertainments, and for this entertainment
+in especial.
+
+"Well, let the people that want to stay, stay; but let us go home," I
+said, hastily.
+
+"That is so like you, Pauline," exclaimed Mary Leighton, in a voice that
+stung me like nettles.
+
+"It is very like common-sense," I said, "if that's like me."
+
+"Well, it isn't particularly."
+
+"Let dogs delight," said Kilian, "I have a compromise to offer. If we go
+home by the bridge we pass the little Brink hotel, where they give
+capital teas. We can stop there, rest, get tea, have a dance in the
+'ball-room,' sixteen by twenty, and go home by moonlight, filling the
+souls of Miss Leighton and Henrietta with bliss."
+
+A chorus of ecstasy followed this; Sophie herself was satisfied with the
+plan, and exulted in the prospect of washing her face, and lying down on
+a bed for half an hour, though only at a little country inn. Even this
+low form of civilized life was tempting, after seven hours spent in
+communion with nature on hard rocks.
+
+Great alacrity was shown in getting ready and in getting off. I could
+not speak to any one, not even the dissatisfied man, but walked away by
+myself and tried to let no one see what I was feeling. After all was
+ready, I got into the carriage beside one of the Miss Lowders, and the
+dissatisfied man sat opposite. He wore canvas shoes and a corduroy suit,
+and sleeve-buttons and studs that were all bugs and bees. I think I
+could make a drawing of the sleeve-button on the arm with which he held
+the umbrella over us; there were five different forms of insect-life
+represented on it, but I remember them all.
+
+"I'm afraid you haven't enjoyed yourself very much," said Miss Lowder,
+looking at me rather critically.
+
+"I? why--no, perhaps not; I don't generally enjoy myself very much."
+
+Somebody out on the front seat laughed very shrilly at this: of course
+it was Mary Leighton, who was sitting beside Kilian, who drove. I felt I
+would have liked to push her over among the horses, and drive on.
+
+"Isn't her voice like a steel file?" I said with great simplicity to my
+companions. The dissatisfied man, writhing uncomfortably on his seat,
+four inches too narrow for any one but a child of six, assented
+gloomily. Miss Lowder, who was twenty-eight years old and very well
+bred, looked disapproving, and changed the subject. Not much more was
+said after this. Miss Lowder had a neuralgic headache, developed by the
+cold wind and an undigested dinner eaten irregularly. She was too polite
+to mention her sufferings, but leaned back in the carriage and
+was silent.
+
+My vis-a-vis was at last relieved by the declining sun from his task,
+and so the umbrella-arm and its sleeve-button were removed from my range
+of vision.
+
+We counted the mile-posts, and we looked sometimes at our watches, and
+so the time wore away.
+
+Kilian and Mary Leighton were chattering incessantly, and did not pay
+much attention to us. Kilian drove pretty fast almost all the way, but
+sometimes forgot himself when Mary was too seductive, and let the horses
+creep along like snails.
+
+"There's our little tavern," cried Kilian at last, starting up the
+horses.
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry," murmured Mary Leighton, "we have had such a lovely
+drive."
+
+My vis-a-vis groaned and looked at me as this observation reached us. I
+laughed a little hysterically: I was so glad to be at the half-way
+house--and Mary Leighton's words were so absurd. When we got out of the
+carriage, the dissatisfied man stretched his long English limbs out, and
+lighting his cigar, began silently to pace the bricks in front of
+the house.
+
+Kilian took us into the little parlor (we were the first to arrive), and
+committed us to the care of a thin, tired-looking woman, and then went
+to see to the comfort of his horses.
+
+The tired woman, who looked as if she never had sat down since she grew
+up, took us to some rooms, where we were to rest till tea was ready. The
+rooms had been shut up all day, and the sun had been beating on them:
+they smelled of paint and dust and ill-brushed carpets. The water in the
+pitchers was warm and not very clear: the towels were very small and
+thin, the beds were hard, and the pillows very small, like the towels:
+they felt soft and warm and limp, like sick kittens. We threw open the
+windows and aired the rooms, and washed our faces and hands: and Miss
+Lowder lay down on the bed and put her head on a pile of four of the
+little pillows collected from the different rooms. Mary Leighton spent
+the time in re-arranging her hair, and I walked up and down the hall,
+too impatient to rest myself in any way.
+
+By-and-by the others came, and then there was a hubbub and a clatter,
+and poor Miss Lowder's head was overlooked in the melee; for these were
+all the rooms the house afforded for the entertainment of wayfarers, and
+as there were nine ladies in our party, it is not difficult to imagine
+the confusion that ensued.
+
+Benny and Charley also came to have their hair arranged, and it devolved
+on Charlotte and me to do it, as their mamma had thrown herself
+exhausted on one of the beds, and with the bolsters doubled up under her
+head, was trying to get some rest.
+
+It was fully half-past seven before the tea-bell rang. I seized Benny's
+hand, and we were the first on the ground. I don't know how I thought
+this would be useful in hurrying matters, for Benny's tea and mine were
+very soon taken, and were very insignificant fractions of the
+general business.
+
+There were kerosene lamps on the table, and everything was served in the
+plainest manner, but the cooking was really good, and it was evident
+that the tired woman had been on her feet all her life to some purpose.
+Almost every one was hungry, and the contrast to the cold meats, and the
+hard rocks, and the disjointed apparatus of the noonday meal, was very
+favorable.
+
+Richard had put me between himself and Benny, and he watched my
+undiminished supper with disapprobation: but I do not believe he ate
+much more himself. He put everything that he thought I might like,
+before me, silently: and I think the tired woman (who was waitress as
+well as cook), must have groaned over the frequent changing of my plate.
+
+"Do not take any more of that," he said, as I put out my hand for
+another cup of coffee.
+
+"Well, what shall I take?" I exclaimed peevishly. But indeed I did not
+mean to be peevish, nor did I know quite what I said, I was so
+miserable. Richard sighed as he turned away and answered some question
+of Sophie; who was quite revived.
+
+Charlotte and Henrietta each had an admirer, one of the Lowders, and a
+young Frenchman who had come with the Lowders.
+
+It had evidently been a very happy day with all the young ladies from
+the house. After tea the gentlemen must smoke, and after the smoking
+there was to be dancing. The preparations for the dancing created a good
+deal of amusement and consumed a great deal of time. Kilian and young
+Lowder went a mile and a half to get a man to play for them. When he
+came, he had to be instructed as to the style of music to be furnished,
+and the rasping and scraping of that miserable instrument put me beside
+myself with nervousness. Then the "ball-room" had to be aired and
+lighted; then the negro's music was found to be incompatible with modern
+movements; even a waltz was proved impossible, and nobody would consent
+to remember a quadrille but Richard. So they had to fall back upon
+Virginia reels, and everybody was made to dance.
+
+The dissatisfied man was at my side when the order was given. He turned
+to me languidly, and offered me his hand.
+
+"No," I exclaimed, biting my lips with impatience, and added, "You will
+excuse me, won't you?"
+
+He said, with grave philosophy, "I really think it will seem shorter
+than if we were looking on."
+
+I accepted this wise counsel, and went to dance with him. And what a
+dance it was! The blinking kerosene lamps at the sides of the room, the
+asparagus boughs overhead, the grinning negro on the little platform by
+the door: the amused faces looking in at the open windows: the romping,
+well-dressed, pretty women: the handsome men who were trying to act like
+clowns: the noise of laughing and the calling out of the figures: all
+this, I am sure, I never shall forget. And, strange to say, I somewhat
+enjoyed it after all. The coffee had stimulated me: the music was merry:
+I was reckless, and my companions were full of glee. Even the _ennuye_
+skipped up and down the room like a school-boy: I never shall forget
+Richard's happy and relieved expression, when I laughed aloud at
+somebody's amusing blunder.
+
+Then came the reaction, when the dancing was over, and we were getting
+ready to go home. It was a good deal after ten o'clock, and the night
+was cold. There were not quite shawls enough, no preparations having
+been made for staying out after dark. Richard went up to Sophie (I was
+standing out by the steps to be ready the moment the carriages should
+come), and I heard him negotiating with her for a shawl for me. She was
+quite impatient and peremptory, though _sotto voce_. The children needed
+both her extra ones, and there was an end of it.
+
+I did not care at all, and feeling warm with dancing, did not dread what
+I had not yet felt. I pulled my light cloak around me, and only longed
+for the carriage to arrive. But after we had started and were about
+forty rods from the door, quite out of the light of the little tavern,
+just within a grove of locust-trees (the moon was under clouds),
+Richard's voice called out to Kilian to stop, and coming up to the side
+of the carriage, said, "Put this around you, Pauline, you haven't got
+enough." He put something around my shoulders which felt very warm and
+comfortable: I believe I said, Thank you, though I am not at all sure,
+and Kilian drove on rapidly.
+
+By-and-by, when I began to feel a little chilly, I drew it together
+round my throat: the air was like November, and, August though it was,
+there was a white frost that night. I was frightened when I found what I
+had about my shoulders. It was Richard's coat. I called to Kilian to
+stop a moment, I wanted to speak to Richard. But when we stopped, the
+carriage in which he was to drive was just behind us--and some one in it
+said, Richard had walked. He had not come back after he ran out to speak
+to us--must have struck across the fields and gone ahead. And Richard
+walked home, five miles, that night! the only way to save himself from
+the deadly chill of the keen air, without his coat.
+
+When we drove into the gate, at home, I stooped eagerly forward to get a
+sight of the house through the trees. There was a light burning in the
+room over mine: that was all I wanted to know, and with a sigh of relief
+I sank back.
+
+When we went into the hall, I remembered to hang Richard's coat upon a
+rack there, and then ran to my room. I could not get any news of Mr.
+Langenau, and could not hear how the day had gone with him: could only
+take the hope that the sight of the little lamp conveyed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+I SHALL HAVE SEEN HIM.
+
+     Go on, go on:
+     Thou canst not speak too much; I have deserved
+     All tongues to talk their bitterest.
+
+     _Winter's Tale_.
+
+
+Of course, the night was entirely sleepless after such, a day. I was
+over-tired, and the coffee would have been fatal to rest in any case. I
+tossed about restlessly till three o'clock, and then fell into a
+heavy sleep.
+
+The sun was shining into the room, and I heard the voices of people on
+the lawn when I awoke. When I went down, after a hurried and nervous
+half-hour of dressing, I found the morning, apparently, half gone, and
+the breakfast-table cleared.
+
+Mary Leighton, with a croquet mallet in her hand, was following Kilian
+through the hall to get a drink of water. She made a great outcry at me
+and my appearance.
+
+"What a headache you must have," she cried. "But ah! think what you've
+missed, dear! The tutor has been down at breakfast, or rather at the
+breakfast-table, for he didn't eat a thing. He is a, little paler than
+he was at dinner day before yesterday--and he's gone up-stairs; and
+we've voted that we hope he'll stay there, for he depresses us just to
+look at him."
+
+And then, with an unmeaning laugh, she tripped on after Kilian to get
+that drink of water, which was nothing but a ticket for a moment's
+_tete-a-tete_ away from the croquet party. Richard had seen me by this
+time, and came in and asked how I felt, and rang the bell in the
+dining-room, and ordered my breakfast brought. He did not exactly stay
+and watch it, but he came in and out of the dining-room enough times to
+see that I had everything that was dainty and nice (and to see, alas!
+that I could not eat it); for that piece of news from Mary Leighton had
+levelled me with the ground again.
+
+That I had missed seeing him was too cruel, and that he looked so ill;
+how could I bear it?
+
+After my breakfast was taken away, I went into the hall, and sat down on
+the sofa between the parlor doors. Pretty soon the people came in from
+the croquet ground, talking fiercely about a game in which Kilian and
+Mary had been cheating. Charlotte Benson was quite angry, and Charley,
+who had played with her, was enraged. I thought they were such, fools
+to care, and Richard looked as if he thought they were all silly
+children. The day was warm and close, such a contrast to the day before.
+The sudden cold had broken down into a sultry August atmosphere. The
+sun, which had been bright an hour ago, was becoming obscured, and the
+sky was grayish. Every one felt languid. We were all sitting about the
+hall, idly, when a servant brought a note. It was an invitation; that
+roused them all--and for to-day. There was no time to lose.
+
+The Lowders had sent to ask us all to a croquet party there at four
+o'clock.
+
+"What an hour!" cried Sophie, who was tired; "I should think they might
+have let us get rested from the picnic."
+
+But Charlotte and Henrietta were so much charmed at the prospect of
+seeing so soon the Frenchman and the young devoted Lowder, that they
+listened to no criticism on the hour or day.
+
+"How nice!" they said, "we shall get there a little before five--play
+for a couple of hours--then have tea on the lawn, perhaps--a little
+dance, and home by moonlight." It was a ravishing prospect for their
+unemployed imaginations, and they left no time in rendering
+their answer.
+
+For myself, I had taken a firm resolve. I would never repeat the misery
+of yesterday; nothing should persuade me to go with them, but I would
+manage it so that I should be free from every one, even Richard.
+
+Croquet parties are great occasions for pretty costumes; all this was
+talked over. What should I wear? Oh, my gray grenadine, with the violet
+trimmings, and a gray hat with violet velvet and feather.
+
+"You have everything so perfect for that suit," said Mary Leighton, in a
+tone of envy. "Cravat and parasol and gloves of just the shade
+of violet."
+
+"And gray boots," I said. "It _is_ a pretty suit." No one but Sophie had
+such expensive clothes as I, but I cannot say at that moment they made
+me very happy. I was only thinking how improbable that the gray suit
+would come out of the box that day, unless I should be obliged to dress
+to mislead the others till the last.
+
+The carriages (for we filled two), were to be at the door at four
+o'clock punctually. The Lowders were five miles away: the whole thing
+was so talked about and planned about, that when dinner was over, I felt
+we had had a croquet party, and quite a long one at that.
+
+Mr. Langenau did not come to dinner; Sophie sent a servant to his room
+after we were at table, to ask him if he would come down, or have his
+dinner sent to him; but the servant came back, saying he did not want
+any dinner, with his compliments to Mrs. Hollenbeck.
+
+"_A la bonne heure_" cried Kilian. "A skeleton always interferes with my
+appetite at a feast."
+
+"It is the only thing, then, that does, isn't it?" asked Charlotte, who
+seemed to have a pick at him always.
+
+"No, not the only thing. There is one other--just one other."
+
+"And, for the sake of science, what is that?"
+
+"A woman with a sharp tongue, Miss Charlotte.--Sophie, I don't think
+much of these last soups. Your famous cook's degenerating, take
+my word."
+
+And so on, while Charlotte colored, and was silent through the meal. She
+knew her tongue was sharp; she knew that she was self-willed and was not
+humble. But she had not taken herself in hand, religiously; to take
+one's self in hand morally, or on grounds of expediency, never amounts
+to much; and such taking in hand was all that Charlotte had as yet
+attempted. In a little passion of self-reproach and mortification, she
+occasionally lopped off ugly shoots; but the root was still vigorous and
+lusty, and only grew the better for its petty pruning. Richard looked
+very much displeased at his brother's rudeness, and tried to make up
+for it by great kindness and attention.
+
+About this time I had become aware of what were Sophie's plans for
+Richard. In case he must marry (to be cured of me), he was to marry
+Charlotte, who was so capable, so sensible, of so good family, so much
+indebted to Sophie, and so decidedly averse to living in the country.
+Sophie saw herself still mistress here, with, to be sure, a shortened
+income, and Richard and his wife spending a few weeks with her in the
+summer. I do not know how far Charlotte entered into these plans.
+Probably not at all, consciously; but I became aware that, as a little
+girl, Richard had been her hero; and he did not seem to have been
+displaced by any one entirely yet. But I took a very faint interest in
+all this. I should have cared, probably, if I had seen Richard devoted
+to her. He seemed to belong to me, and I should have resented any
+interference with my rights. But I did not dread any. I knew, though I
+took little pleasure in the knowledge, that he loved me with all his
+good and manly heart; and it never seemed a possibility that he
+could change.
+
+The simple selfishness of young women in these matters is appalling.
+Richard was mine by right of conquest, and I owed him no gratitude for
+the service of his life. That other was the lord who had the right
+inalienable over me. I bent myself in the dust before him. I would have
+taken shame itself as an honor from his hands. I thought of him day and
+night. I filled my soul with passionate admiration for his good deeds,
+his ill deeds, his all. And the other was as the ground beneath my feet,
+of which I seldom thought.
+
+Richard met me at the foot of the stairs, after dinner, as I was going
+up.
+
+"Pauline, will you go in the carriage with Charlotte and Sophie? I am
+going to drive."
+
+"Oh, it doesn't make any difference," I answered, with confusion.
+"Anywhere you choose."
+
+I think he had misgivings about my going from that moment; to allay
+which, I called out something about my costume to Sophie as I went up to
+my room. The day was growing duller, and stiller, and grayer. I sat by
+the window and watched the leaden river. It was like an afternoon in
+September, before the chill of the autumn has come. Not a leaf moved
+upon the trees, not a cloud crept over the sky. It was all one dim,
+gray, gloomy stillness overhead. I wondered if they would have rain.
+_They_, not I, for I was going to stay at home, and before they came
+back I should have seen him. I said that over and over to myself with
+bated breath, and cheeks that burned like flame. Every step that passed
+my door made me start guiltily. Once, when some one knocked, I pulled
+out my gray dress, and flung it on the bed, before I answered.
+
+It was approaching four o'clock. I undressed myself rapidly, put on a
+dressing-sack, and threw myself upon the bed. What should I say when
+they came for me? They could not _make_ me go. I felt very brave. At
+last the carriages drove up to the door. I crept to the window to see if
+any one was ready. While I was watching through the half-closed blinds,
+some one crossed the piazza. My heart gave a great leap, and then every
+pulse stood still. It was Mr. Langenau. His step was slower than it used
+to be, and, I thought, a little faltering. He crossed the road, and took
+the path that led through the grove and garden to the river. He had a
+book under his arm; he must be going to the boat-house to sit there and
+read. My heart gave such an ecstasy of life to my veins at the thought,
+that for a moment I felt sick and faint, as I drew back from the window.
+
+I threw myself on the bed as some one knocked. It was a servant to tell
+me they were ready. I sent word to Mrs. Hollenbeck that I was not well,
+and should not be able to go with them. Then I lay still and waited in
+much trepidation for the second knock. I heard in a few moments the
+rustle of Sophie's dress outside. She was not pleased at all. She could
+scarcely be polite. But then everything looked very plausible. There lay
+my dress upon the bed, as if I had begun to dress, and I was pale and
+trembling, and I am sure must have looked ill enough to have convinced
+her that I spoke the truth.
+
+She made some feeble offer to stay and take care of me. "Oh, pray
+don't," I cried, too eagerly, I am afraid. And then she said her maid
+should come and stay with me, for the children were going with them, and
+there would be nothing for her to do. I stammered thanks, and then she
+went away. I did not dare to move till after I had heard both carriages
+drive off, and all voices die away in the distance.
+
+Bettina came to the door, and was sent away with thanks. Then I began to
+dress myself with very trembling hands. This was new work to me, this
+horrible deception. But all remorse for that, was swallowed up in the
+one engrossing thought and desire which had usurped my soul for the days
+just passed.
+
+It was a full half-hour before I was ready, my hands shook so
+unaccountably, and I could scarcely find the things I wanted to put on.
+When I went to the door I could hardly turn the key, I felt so weak,
+and I stood in the passage many minutes before I dared go on. If any
+one had appeared or spoken to me, I am quite sure I should have fainted,
+my nerves were in such a shaken state.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+AUGUST THIRTIETH.
+
+     Were Death so unlike Sleep,
+     Caught this way? Death's to fear from flame, or steel,
+     Or poison doubtless; but from water--feel!
+
+     _Robert Browning_.
+
+
+I met no one in the hall or on the piazza. The house was silent and
+deserted: one of the maids was closing the parlor windows. She did not
+look at me with any surprise, for she had not probably heard that I
+was ill.
+
+Once in the open air I felt stronger. I took the river-path, and walked
+quickly, feeling freed from a nightmare: and my mind was filled with one
+thought. "In a few moments I shall be beside him, I shall make him look
+at me, he cannot help but touch my hand." I did not think of past or
+future, only of the greedy, passionate present. My infatuation was at
+its height. I cannot imagine a passion more absorbing, more unresisted,
+and more dangerous. I passed quickly through the garden without even
+noticing the flowers that brushed against my dress.
+
+As I reached the grove I thought for one instant of the morning that he
+had met me here, just where the paths intersected. At that moment I
+heard a step; and full of that hope, with a quick thrill, I glanced in
+the direction of the sound. There, not ten yards from me, coming from
+the opposite direction, was Richard. I felt a shock of disappointment,
+then fear, then anger. What right had he to dog me so? He looked at me
+without surprise, but as if his heart was full of bitterness and sorrow.
+He approached, and turned as if to walk with me.
+
+"I want to be alone," I said angrily, moving away from him.
+
+"No, Pauline," he answered with a sigh, as he turned from me, "you do
+not want to be alone."
+
+Full of shame and anger, and jarred with the shock and fear, I went on
+more slowly. The wood was so silent--the river through the trees lay so
+still and leaden. If it had not been for the fire burning in my heart, I
+could have thought the world was dead.
+
+There was not a sound but my own steps; should I soon meet him, would he
+be sitting in his old seat by the boat-house door, or would he be
+wandering along the dead, still river-bank? What should I say to him? O!
+he would speak. If he saw me he would have to speak.
+
+I soon forgot that I had met Richard, that I had been angry; and again
+I had but this one thought.
+
+The pine cones were slippery under my feet. I held by the old trees as I
+went down the bank, step by step. I had to turn and pass a clump of
+trees before I reached the boat-house door.
+
+I was there! With a beating heart I stepped up on the threshold. There
+were two doors, one that opened on the path, one that opened on the
+river. The house was empty. I had a little sinking pang of
+disappointment, but I passed on to the door looking out on the river. By
+this door was a seat, empty, but on this lay a book and a straw hat. I
+could feel the hot blushes cover my face, my neck, as I caught sight of
+these. I stooped down, feeling guilty, and took up the book. It was a
+book which he had read daily to me in our lesson-hours. It had his name
+on the blank page, and was full of his pencil-marks. I meant to ask him
+to give me this book; I would rather have it than anything the world
+held, when I should be parted from him. _When!_ I sat down on the seat
+beside the door, with the book lying in my lap, the straw hat on the
+bench. I longed to take it in my hands--to wreathe it with the clematis
+that grew about the door, as I had done one foolish, happy afternoon,
+not three weeks ago. But with a strange inconsistency, I dared not
+touch it; my face grew hot with blushes as I thought of it.
+
+How should I meet him? Now that the moment I had longed for had arrived,
+I wondered that I had dared to long for it. I felt that if I heard his
+step, I should fly and hide myself from him. The recollection of that
+last interview in the library--which I had lived over and over, nights
+and days, incessantly, since then, came back with fresh force, fresh
+vehemence. But no step approached me, all was silent; it began to
+impress me strangely, and I looked about me. I don't know at what moment
+it was, my eye fell upon the trace of footsteps on the bank, and then on
+the mark of the boat dragged along the sand; a little below the
+boat-house it had been pushed off into the water.
+
+I started to my feet, and ran down to the water's edge (at the
+boat-house the trees had been in the way of my seeing the river any
+distance).
+
+I stood still, the water lapping faintly on the sand at my feet; it was
+hardly a sound. I looked out on the unruffled lead-colored river: there,
+about quarter of a mile from the bank, the boat was lying: empty
+--motionless. The oars were floating a few rods from her, drifting
+slowly, slowly, down the stream.
+
+The sight seemed to turn my warm blood and blushes into ice: even
+before I had a distinct impression of what I feared, I was benumbed. But
+it did not take many moments for the truth, or a dread of it, to
+reach my brain.
+
+I covered my eyes with my hands, then sprang up the bank and called
+wildly.
+
+My voice was like a madwoman's, and it must have sounded far on that
+still air. In less than a moment Richard came hurrying with great
+strides down the path. I sprang to him, and caught his arm and dragged
+him to the water's edge.
+
+"Look," I whispered--pointing to the hat and book--and then out to the
+boat. I read his face in terror. It grew slowly, deadly white.
+
+"My God!" he said in a tone of awe. Then shaking me from him, sprang up
+the bank, and his voice was something fearful as he shouted, as he
+ran, for help.
+
+There were men laboring, two or three fields off. I don't know how long
+it took them to get to him, nor how long to get a boat out on the water,
+nor what boat it was. I know they had ropes and poles, and that they
+were talking in eager, hurried voices, as they passed me.
+
+I sat on the steps that led down the bank, clinging to the low railing
+with my hands: I had sunk down because my strength had given way all at
+once, and I felt as if everything were rocking and surging under me.
+Sometimes everything was black before me, and then again I could see
+plainly the wide expanse of the river, the wide expanse of the gray sky,
+and between them--the empty, motionless boat, and the floating oars
+beyond upon the tide.
+
+The voices of the men, and the splashing of the water, when at last they
+were launched and pulling away from shore, made a ringing, frightful
+noise in my head. I watched till I saw them reach the boat--till I saw
+one of them get over in it. Then while they groped about with ropes and
+poles, and lashed their boats together, and leaned over and gazed down
+into the water, I watched in a strange, benumbed state.
+
+But, by-and-by, there were some exclamations--a stir, and effort of
+strength. I saw them pulling in the ropes with combined movement. I saw
+them leaning over the side of the boat, nearest the shore, and together
+trying to lift something heavy over into it. I saw the water dripping as
+they raised it--and then I think I must have swooned. For I knew nothing
+further till I heard Richard's voice, and, raising my head, saw him
+leaping from the boat upon the bank. The other boat was further out, and
+was approaching slowly. I stood up as he came to me, and held by
+the railing.
+
+"I want you to go up to the house," he said, gently, "there can be no
+good in your staying here."
+
+"I will stay," I cried, everything coming back to me. "I will--will see
+him."
+
+"There is no hope, Pauline," he said, in a quick voice, for the boat was
+very near the bank, "or very little--and you must not stay. Everything
+shall be done that can be done. I will do all. But you must not stay."
+
+"I will," I said, frantically, trying to burst past him. He caught my
+arms and turned me toward the boat-house, and led me through it, out
+into the path that went up to the grove.
+
+"Go home," he said, in a voice I never shall forget. "You shall not make
+a spectacle for these men. I have promised you I will do all. Mind you
+obey me strictly, and go up to your room and wait there till I come."
+
+I don't know how I got there. I believe Bettina found me at the entrance
+to the garden, and helped me to the house, and put me on my bed.
+
+An hour passed--perhaps more--and such an hour! (for I was not for a
+moment unconscious, after this, only deadly faint and weak), and then
+Richard came. The door was a little open, and he pushed it back and
+came in, and stood beside the bed.
+
+I suppose the sight of me, so broken and spoiled by suffering, overcame
+him, for he stooped down suddenly, and kissed me, and then did not speak
+for a moment.
+
+At last he said, in a voice not quite steady, "I didn't mean to be hard
+on you, Pauline. But you know I had to do it."
+
+"And there isn't any--any--" I gasped for the words, and could hardly
+speak.
+
+"No, none, Pauline," he said, keeping my hand in his. "The doctors have
+just gone away. It was all no use."
+
+"Tell me about it," I whispered.
+
+"About what?" he said, looking troubled.
+
+"About how it happened."
+
+"Nobody can tell," he answered, averting his face. "We can only
+conjecture about some things. Don't try to think about it. Try to rest."
+
+"How does he look?" I whispered, clinging to his hand.
+
+"Just the same as ever; more quiet, perhaps," he answered, looking
+troubled.
+
+I gave a sort of gasp, but did not cry. I think he was frightened, for
+he said, uneasily, "Let me call Bettina; she can give you
+something--she can sit beside you."
+
+I shook my head, and said, faintly, "Don't let her come."
+
+"I have sent for Sophie," he said, soothingly. "She will soon be here,
+and will know what to do for you."
+
+"Keep her out of this room," I cried, half raising myself, and then
+falling back from sudden faintness. "Don't let her come _near_ me," I
+panted, after a moment, "nor any of them, but, most of all, Sophie;
+remember--don't let her even look at me;" and with moaning, I turned my
+face down on the pillow. I had taken in about a thousandth fraction of
+my great calamity by that time. Every moment was giving to me some
+additional possession of it.
+
+Some one at that instant called Richard, in that subdued tone that
+people use about a house in which there is one dead.
+
+"I have got to go," he said, uneasily. I still kept hold of his hand.
+"But I will come back before very long; and I will tell Bettina to bring
+a chair and sit outside your door, and not let any one come in."
+
+"That will do," I said, letting go his hand, "only I don't want my door
+shut tight."
+
+I felt as if the separation were not so entire, so tremendous, while I
+could hear what was going on below, and know that no door was shut
+between us--no door! Bettina, in a moment more, had taken up her station
+in the passage-way outside.
+
+I heard people coming and going quietly through the hall below. I heard
+doors softly shut and opened.
+
+I knew, by some intuition, that _he_ was lying in the library. They
+moved furniture with a smothered sound; and when I heard two or three
+men sent off on messages by Richard, even the horses' hoofs seemed to be
+muffled as they struck the ground. This was the effect of the coming in
+of death into busy, household life. I had never been under the roof with
+it before.
+
+About dusk a servant came to the door, with a tray of tea and something
+to eat, that Mr. Richard had sent her with.
+
+"No," I said, "don't leave it here."
+
+But, in a few moments, Richard himself brought it back. I can well
+imagine how anxious and unhappy he felt. He had, perhaps, never before
+had charge of any one ill or in trouble, and this was a strange
+experience.
+
+"You must eat something, Pauline," he said. "I want you to. Sit up, and
+take this tea."
+
+I was not inclined to dispute his will, but raised my head, and drank
+the tea, and ate a few mouthfuls of the biscuit. But that made me too
+ill, and I put the plate away from me.
+
+"I am very sorry," I said, meekly, "but I can't eat it. I feel as if it
+choked me."
+
+He seemed touched with my submissiveness, and, giving Bettina the tray,
+stood looking down at me as if he did not know how to say something that
+was in his mind. Suddenly my ear, always quick, now exaggeratedly so,
+caught sound of carriage-wheels. I started up and cried, "They are
+coming," and hid my face in my hands.
+
+"Don't be troubled," he said, "you shall not be disturbed."
+
+"Oh, Richard," I exclaimed, as he was going away, after another
+undecided movement as if to speak, "you know what I want."
+
+"Yes, I know," he said, in a low voice.
+
+"And now they're come, I cannot. They will see him, and I cannot."
+
+"Be patient. I will arrange for you to go. Don't, don't, Pauline."
+
+For I was in a sort of spasm, though no tears came, and my sobs were
+more like the gasps of a person being suffocated, than like one
+in grief.
+
+"If you will only be quiet, I will take you down, after a few hours,
+when they are all gone to their rooms. Pauline, you'll kill me; don't do
+so--Pauline, they'll hear you. Try not to do so; that's right--lie down
+and try to quiet yourself, poor child. I can't bear to go away; but
+there is Sophie on the stairs."
+
+He had scarcely time to reach the hall before Sophie burst upon him with
+almost a shriek.
+
+"What is this horrible affair, Richard? What a terrible disgrace and
+scandal! we never shall get over it. Will it get in the papers, do you
+think? I am so ill--I have been in such a state since the news came.
+Such a drive home as this has been! Oh, Richard, tell me all about it
+quickly. Where is Pauline? how does she bear it?" making for my door.
+
+Richard put out his hand and stopped her. I had sprung up from the bed,
+and stood, trembling violently, at the further extremity of the room. I
+do not know what I meant to do if she came in, for I was almost beside
+myself at that moment.
+
+She was persistent, angry, agitated. How well I knew the curiosity that
+made her so intent to gain admission to me. It was not so much that I
+dreaded being a spectacle, as the horror and hatred I felt at being
+approached by her coldness and hypocrisy, while I was so sore and
+wounded. I was hardly responsible; I don't think I could have borne the
+touch of her hand.
+
+But Richard saved me, and sent her away angry. I crept back to the bed,
+and lay down on it again. I heard the others whispering as they passed
+through the hall. Mary Leighton was crying; Charlotte was silent. I
+don't think I heard her voice at all.
+
+After a long while I heard them go down, and go into the dining-room.
+They spoke in very subdued tones, and there was only the slightest
+movement of china and silver, to indicate that a meal was going on. But
+this seemed to give me a more frantic sense of change than anything
+else. I flung myself across the bed, and another of those dreadful,
+tearless spasms seized me. Everything--all life--was going on just the
+same; even in this very house they were eating and drinking as they ate
+and drank before--the very people who had talked with him this day; the
+very table at which he had sat this morning. Oh! they were so heartless
+and selfish: every one was; life itself was. I did not know where to
+turn for comfort. I had a feeling of dreading every one, of shrinking
+away from every one.
+
+"Oh!" I said to myself, "if Richard is with them at the table, I never
+want to see him again."
+
+But Richard was not with them. In a moment or two he came to the door,
+only to ask me if I wanted anything, and to say he would come back
+by-and-by.
+
+There was a question which I longed so frantically to ask him, but
+which I dared not; my life seemed to hang on the answer. _When were they
+going to take him away?_ I had heard something about trains and
+carriages, and I had a wild dread that it was soon to be.
+
+I went to the door and called Richard back, and made him understand what
+I wanted to know. He looked troubled, and said in a low tone,
+
+"At four o'clock we go from here to meet the earliest train. I have
+telegraphed his friends, and have had an answer. I am going down myself,
+and it is all arranged in the best way, I think. Go and lie down now,
+Pauline; I will come and take you down soon as the house is quiet."
+
+Richard went away unconscious of the stab his news had given me. I had
+not counted on anything so sudden as this parting. While he was in the
+house, while I was again to look upon his face, the end had not come;
+there was a sort of hope, though only a hope of suffering, something to
+look forward to, before black monotony began its endless day.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+BESIDE HIM ONCE AGAIN.
+
+     There are blind ways provided, the foredone
+     Heart-weary player in this pageant world
+     Drops out by, letting the main masque defile
+     By the conspicuous portal.
+
+     _R. Browning_.
+
+
+     What is this world? What asken men to have?
+     Now with his love--now in his cold grave--
+     Alone, withouten any companie!
+
+     _Chaucer_.
+
+
+The tall old clock, which stood by the dining-room door, had struck two,
+and been silent many minutes, before Richard came to me. I had spent
+those dreadful hours in feverish restlessness: my room seemed
+suffocating to me. I had walked about, had put away my trinkets, I had
+changed my dress, and put on a white one which I had worn in the
+morning, and had tried to braid my hair.
+
+The quieting of the house, it seemed, would never come. It was twelve
+o'clock before any one came up-stairs. I heard one door after another
+shut, and then sat waiting and wondering why Richard did not come, till
+the moments seemed to grow to centuries. At last I heard him at the
+door, and I went toward it trembling, and followed him into the hall. He
+carried a light, for up-stairs it was all dark, and when we reached the
+stairway, he took my hand to lead me. I was trembling very much; the
+hall below was dimly lit by a large lamp which had been turned low. Our
+steps on the bare staircase made so much noise, though we tried to move
+so silently. It was weird and awful. I clung to Richard's hand in
+silence. He led me across the hall, and stopped before the library-door.
+He let go my hand, and taking a key from his pocket, put it in the lock,
+turned it slowly, then opened the door a little way, and motioned me
+to enter.
+
+Like one in a trance, I obeyed him, and went in alone. He shut the door
+noiselessly, and left me with the dead.
+
+That was the great, the immense hour of my life. No vicissitude, no
+calamity of this mortal state, no experience that may be to come, can
+ever have the force, the magnitude of this. All feelings, but a child's
+feelings, were comparatively new to me, and here, at one moment, I had
+put into my hand the plummet that sounded hell; anguish, remorse,
+fear--a woman's heart in hopeless pain. For I will not believe that any
+child, that any woman, had ever loved more absolutely, more
+passionately, than I had loved the man who lay there dead before me. But
+I cannot talk about what I felt in those moments; all that concerns what
+I write is the external.
+
+The--coffin was in the middle of the room, where the table ordinarily
+stood--where my chair had been that night, when he told me his story.
+Surely if I sinned, in thought, in word, _that_ night, I paid its full
+atonement, _this_. Candles stood on a small table at the head of where
+he lay, and many flowers were about the room. The smell of
+verbena-leaves filled the air: a branch of them was in a vase that some
+one had put beside his coffin. The fresh, cool night-air came in from
+the large window, open at the top.
+
+His face was, as Richard said, much as in life, only quieter. I do not
+know what length of time Richard left me there, but at last, I was
+recalled to the present, by his hand upon my shoulder, and his voice in
+a whisper, "Come with me now, Pauline."
+
+I rose to my feet, hardly understanding what he said, but resisted when
+I did understand him.
+
+"Come with me," he said, gently, "You shall come back again and say
+good-bye. Only come out into the hall and stay awhile with me; it is not
+good for you to be here so long."
+
+He took my hand and led me out, shutting the door noiselessly. He took
+me across the hall, and into the parlor, where there was no light,
+except what came in from the hall. There was a sofa opposite the door,
+and to that he led me, standing himself before me, with his perplexed
+and careworn face. I was very silent for some time: all that awful time
+in the library, I had never made a sound: but suddenly, some thought
+came that reached the source of my tears, and I burst into a passion of
+weeping. I am not sure what it was: I think, perhaps, the sight of the
+piano, and the recollection of that magnificent voice that would never
+be heard again, Whatever it was, I bless it, for I think it saved my
+brain. I threw myself down upon the sofa, and clung to Richard's hand,
+and sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed.
+
+Poor fellow! my tears seemed to shake him terribly. Once he turned away,
+and drew his hand across his brow, as if it were a little more than he
+could bear. But some men, like many women, are born to sacrifice.
+
+He tried to comfort and soothe me with broken words. But what was there
+to say?
+
+"Oh, Richard," I cried, "What does it all mean? why am I so punished?
+was it so very wicked to have loved him after I knew all? Was all this
+allowed to come because I did that? Answer me, tell me; tell me what
+you think."
+
+"No, Pauline, I don't think that was it. Don't talk about it now. Try to
+be quiet. You are not fit to think about it now."
+
+"But, Richard, what else can it mean? I know, I know that it is the
+truth. God wouldn't have sent such a punishment upon me if he hadn't
+seen my sin."
+
+"It's more likely He sent it to--" and then he paused.
+
+I know now he meant, it was more likely He had sent it to save me from
+the sins of others; but he had the holy charity not to say it.
+
+"Oh," I cried, passionately, "When all the sin was mine, that he should
+have had to die: when he never came near me, never looked at me: when he
+would rather die than break his word to me. That night in the library,
+after he had told me all, he said, 'I will never look into your eyes
+again, I will never touch your hand;' and though we were in the same
+room together after that, and in the same house all this time, and
+though he knew I loved him so--he never looked at me, he never turned
+his eyes upon me; and I--I was willing to sin for him--to die for him. I
+would have followed him to the ends of the earth, not twelve hours ago."
+
+"Hush, Pauline," said Richard huskily, "you don't know what you're
+saying--you are a child."
+
+"No, I'm not a child--after to-day, after to-night--I am not a
+child--and I know too well what I say--too well--too well. Richard, you
+don't know what has been in my heart. That night, he held me in his arms
+and kissed me--when he said good-bye. Then I was innocent, for I was
+dazed by grief and had not come to my senses, after what he told me. But
+to-day I said--_to-day_--to have his arms around me once again--to have
+him kiss me once again as he kissed me then--I would go away from all I
+ever had been taught of right and duty, and would be satisfied."
+
+"Then, thank God for what has come," said Richard, hoarsely, wiping from
+his forehead the great drops that had broken out upon it.
+
+"No!" I cried with a fresh burst of weeping. "No, I cannot thank God,
+for I want him back again. _I want him_. I had rather die than be
+separated from him. I cannot thank God for taking him away from me. Oh,
+Richard, what shall I do? I loved him, loved him so. Don't look so
+stern; don't turn away from me. You used to love me. Could you thank God
+for taking me away from you, out of your arms, warm, and strong, and
+living, and making me cold, and dumb, and stiff, like _that_?"
+
+"Yes, Pauline, if it had been to save us both from sin."
+
+"You don't know what love is, if you say that."
+
+"I know what sin is, better than you do, maybe. Listen, Pauline. I've
+loved you ever since I saw you; men don't often love better than I have
+loved you; but I'd rather drag you, to-night, to that black river there,
+and hold you down with my own hands till the breath left your body, than
+see you turn into a sinful woman, and lead the life of shame you tell me
+you had it in your heart to lead, to-day."
+
+"Is it so very awful?" I whispered with a shiver, my own emotion stilled
+before his. "I only loved him!"
+
+"Forget you ever did," he said, rising, and pacing up and down the room.
+
+I put my hands before my face, and felt as if I were alone in the world
+with sin. If this unspoken, passionate, sweet thought, that I had
+harbored, were so full of danger as to force God to blast me with such
+punishment, as to drive this tender, generous, loving man to wish me
+dead, what must be the blackness of the sin from which I had been saved,
+if I were saved? If there were, indeed, anything but shocks of woe and
+punishment, and deadly despair and darkness, in this strange world in
+which I found myself. There was a silence. I rose to my feet. I don't
+know what I meant to do or where to go; my only impulse was to hide
+myself from the eyes of my companion, and to go away from him, as I had
+hidden myself from all others, since I was smitten with this
+chastisement.
+
+"Forgive me, Pauline," he said, coming to my side. "It is the second
+time I have been harsh with you this dreadful day. This is what comes of
+selfishness. I hope you will forget what I have said."
+
+I still turned to go away, feeling afraid of him and ashamed before him.
+He put out his hand to stop me.
+
+"Pauline, remember, I have been sorely tried. I would do anything to
+comfort you. I haven't another wish in my heart but to be of use
+to you."
+
+"Oh, Richard," I cried, bursting into tears afresh, and hiding my eyes,
+"if you give me up and drive me away from you, I am all alone. There
+isn't another human being that I love or that cares for me. Dear
+Richard, do be good to me; do be sorry for me."
+
+"I am sorry for you, Pauline; you know that."
+
+"And you will take care of me?" I cried, stretching out my arms toward
+him, with a sudden overwhelming sense of my loneliness and destitution.
+
+"Yes, Pauline, to the end of my life or of yours; as if you were my
+sister or almost my child."
+
+"Dear Richard," I whispered, as I buried my face on his arm, "if it were
+not for you I should not live through this dreadful time. I hope I shall
+die soon; as soon as I am better. But till I do die, I hope you will be
+good to me, and love me." And I pressed his hand against my cheek and
+lips, like the poor, frantic, grief-bewildered child that I was.
+
+At this moment there came a sound of movement in the stables: I heard
+one of the heavy doors thrown open, and a man leading a horse across the
+stable-floor. (The windows were open and the night was very still.)
+Richard started, and looked uneasily at his watch, stepping to the door
+to get the light.
+
+"How late is it?" I faltered.
+
+"Half-past three," he said, turning his eyes away, as if he could not
+bear the sight of my face. I do not like to remember the dreadful
+moments that followed this: the misery that I put upon Richard by my
+passionate, ungoverned grief. I threw myself upon the floor, I clung to
+his knees, I prayed him to delay the hour of going--another hour,
+another day. I said all the wild and frantic things that were in my
+heart, as he closed the library-door and led me to my room.
+
+"Try to say your prayers, Pauline," was all he could answer me.
+
+I did try to say them, as I knelt by the window, and saw in the dull,
+gray dawn, those two carriages drive slowly from the door.
+
+Richard went away alone. Kilian indeed came down-stairs just as he was
+starting.
+
+Sophie had awakened, and called him into her room for a few moments.
+
+Then he came down, and I saw him get into the carriage alone, and motion
+the man to drive on, after that other--which stood waiting a few rods
+farther on.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+A JOURNEY.
+
+     He, full of modesty and truth,
+     Loved much, hoped little, and desired nought.
+
+     _Tasso_.
+
+
+     Fresh grief can occupy itself
+       With its own recent smart;
+     It feeds itself on outward things,
+       And not on its own heart.
+
+     _Faber_
+
+
+A thing which surprises me very much in looking over those days of
+suffering, is, that during that day a frightful irritability is the
+emotion that I most remember--an irritability of feeling, not of
+expression: for I lay quite still upon the bed all day, and only
+answered, briefly and simply, the questions of Sophie and the maid.
+
+I could not sleep: it was many hours since I had slept: but nothing
+seemed further from possibility than sleeping. The lightest sound
+enraged my nerves: the approach of any one made me frantic. I lay with
+my hands crushed together, and my teeth against each other, whenever
+Sophie entered the room.
+
+She tried to be sympathetic and kind: but she was not much encouraged.
+Toward afternoon, she left me a good deal alone. "I wonder how people
+feel when they are going mad," I said, getting up and putting cold water
+on my head. I was so engaged with the strange sensations that pursued
+me, that I did not dwell upon my trouble.
+
+"Is this the way you feel when you are going to die? or what happens if
+you never go to sleep?" My body was so young and healthy, that it was
+making a good fight.
+
+Just at dusk, Richard returned. In a little while, about half an hour,
+Sophie came and told me Richard would like to see me in her little
+dressing-room.
+
+The day of panic and horror was over, and proprieties must begin their
+sway. I felt I hated Sophie for making me go out of my own room, but I
+pulled a shawl over my shoulders and followed her across the hall into
+her little room. There Richard was waiting for me. He gave me a chair,
+and then said, "You needn't wait, Sophie," and sat down beside me.
+
+Sophie went away half angry, and Richard looked at me uneasily.
+
+"I thought you'd want to see me," he said.
+
+"Yes," I answered; "I wish you'd tell me everything," but in so
+commonplace a voice, I know that he was startled.
+
+"You do not feel well, do you? Maybe we'd better not talk about it now."
+
+"Oh, yes. You might as well tell me all to-night."
+
+"Well, everything is done. The two persons to whom I telegraphed met me
+at the station. There was very little delay. I went with them to the
+cemetery."
+
+"I am very glad of that. I thought perhaps you wouldn't go. Was there a
+clergyman, or don't they have a clergyman when--when--"
+
+"There was a clergyman," said Richard, briefly.
+
+"I hope you'll take me there some time," I said dreamily. "Should you
+know where to go--exactly?"
+
+"Exactly," he answered. "But, Pauline, I am afraid you havn't rested at
+all to-day. Have you slept?"
+
+"No; and I wish I could; my head feels so strangely--light, you
+know--and as if I couldn't think."
+
+"Haven't you seen the Doctor?"
+
+"No--and that's what I want to say. I _won't_ have the Doctor here; and
+I want you to take me home to-morrow morning, early, I have put a good
+many of my clothes into my trunk, and Bettina will help me with the
+rest to-night. Isn't there any train before the five o'clock?"
+
+"No," said Richard, uneasily. "Pauline, I think you'd better not arrange
+to go away to-morrow."
+
+"If you don't take me out of this house I shall go mad. I have been
+thinking about it all day, and I know I shall."
+
+Richard was silent for a moment, then, with the wise instinct of
+affection, wonderful in man, and in a man who had had no experience in
+dealing with diseased or suffering minds, he acquiesced in my plan to
+go; told me that we would take the earliest train, and interested me in
+thoughts about my packing. About nine o'clock he came to my room-door,
+and I heard some one with him. It was the Doctor.
+
+I turned upon Richard a fierce look, and said, very quietly, he might go
+away, for I would not see the Doctor. After that, they tried me with
+Sophie, but with less success; and, finally, Richard came back alone,
+with a glass in his hand.
+
+"Take this, Pauline, it will make you sleep."
+
+I wanted to sleep very much, so I took it.
+
+Bettina had finished my packing, and had laid my travelling dress and
+hat upon a chair.
+
+"Shall Bettina come and sleep on the floor, by your bed?" asked Richard,
+anxiously.
+
+"No, I would not have her for the world."
+
+"Maybe you might not wake in time," said Richard, warily.
+
+That was very true: so I let Bettina come. Richard gave her some
+instructions at the door, and she came in and arranged things for the
+night, and lay down on a mattress at the foot of my bed.
+
+The sedative which the Doctor sent did not work very well. I had very
+little sleep, and that full of such hideous, freezing dreams, that every
+time I woke, I found Bettina standing by my bed, looking at me with
+alarm. I had been screaming and moaning, she said, The screaming and
+moaning and sleeping (such as it was), were all over in about two hours,
+and then I had the rest of the night to endure, with the same strange,
+light feeling in my head--the restlessness not much, but
+somewhat abated.
+
+I was very glad that Bettina was in the room, for though she was sleepy,
+and always a little stupid, she was human, and I was a coward, both in
+the matter of loneliness and of suffering. I made her sit by me, and
+take hold of my hand, and I asked her several times if she had ever been
+with any one that died, or that--I did not quite dare to ask her about
+going mad.
+
+My questions seemed to trouble her. She crossed herself, and shuddered,
+and said, No, she had never been with any one that died, and she prayed
+the good God never to let her be.
+
+"You'll have to be with one person that dies, Bettina. That's yourself.
+You know it's got to come. We've all got to go out at that gate," and I
+moaned, and turned my face away.
+
+"Let me call Mr. Richard," said Bettina, very much afraid. I would have
+given all the world to have seen Richard then; but I knew it was
+impossible, and I said, No, it would soon be morning.
+
+Long before morning, I heard Richard up and walking about the house. We
+were to leave the house at half-past four. By four, all the trunks, and
+shawls, and packages, were strapped and ready, and I was sitting
+dressed, and waiting by the window.
+
+Bettina liked very much better to pack trunks, and put rooms in order,
+than to sit still and hold a person's hot hands, in the middle of the
+night, and have dreadful questions asked her; and she had been very
+active and efficient. Soon Richard called her to come down and take my
+breakfast up to me. I could not eat it, and it was taken away. Then the
+carriage came, and the wagon to take the baggage. Finally, Richard came,
+and told me it was time to start, if I were ready.
+
+Sophie came into the room in a wrapper, looking very dutiful and
+patient, and said all that was dutiful and civil. But I suppose I was a
+fiery trial to her, and she wished, no doubt, that she had never seen
+me, or better, that Richard never had. All this I felt, through her
+decently framed good-bye, but I did not care at all; to be out of her
+sight as soon as possible, was all that I requested.
+
+When we went down in the hall, Richard looked anxiously at me, but I did
+not feel as if I had ever been there before; I really had no feeling. I
+said good-bye to Bettina, who was the only servant that I saw, and
+Richard put me into the carriage. When, we drove away, I did not even
+look back. As we passed out of the gate, I said to him, "What day of the
+month is it to-day?"
+
+"It is the first of September," he returned.
+
+"And when did I come here?" I asked.
+
+"Early in June, was it not?" he said. "You know I was not here."
+
+"Then it is not three months," and I leaned back wearily in the
+carriage, and was silent.
+
+Before we reached the city, Richard had good reason to think that I was
+very ill. He made me as comfortable as he could, poor fellow! but I was
+so restless, I could not keep in one position two minutes at a time.
+Several times I turned to him and said, "It is suffocating in this car;
+cannot the window be put up?" and when it was put up, I would seem to
+feel no relief, and in a few moments, perhaps, would be shaking with a
+nervous chill. It must have been a miserable journey, as I remember it.
+Once I said to Richard, after some useless trouble I had put him to, "I
+am very sorry, Richard, I don't know how to help it, I feel so
+dreadfully."
+
+Richard tried to answer, but his voice was husky, and he bent his head
+down to arrange the bundle of shawls beneath my feet. I knew that there
+were tears in his eyes, and that that was the reason that he did not
+speak. It made me strangely, momentarily grateful.
+
+"How strange that you should be so good," I said dreamily, "when Sophie
+is so hateful, and Kilian is so trifling. I think your mother must have
+been a good woman."
+
+I had never talked about Richard's mother before, never even thought
+whether he had had one or not, in my supreme and light-hearted
+selfishness. But the mind, at such a point as I was then, makes strange
+plunges out of its own orbit.
+
+"And she died when you were little?"
+
+"Yes, when I was scarcely twelve years old."
+
+"A woman ought to be very good when it makes so much difference to her
+children. Richard, did my uncle ever tell you anything about my
+mother--what sort of a woman she was, and whether I am like her?"
+
+"He never said a great deal to me about it," Richard answered, not
+looking at me as he talked. "He thinks you are like her, very
+strikingly, I believe."
+
+"Think! I haven't even a scrap of a picture of her, and no one has ever
+talked to me about her. All I have are some old yellow letters to my
+father, written before I was born. I think she loved my father very
+much. The noise of these cars makes me feel so strangely. Can't we go
+into the one behind? I am sure it cannot be so bad."
+
+"This is the best car on the train, Pauline. I know the noise is very
+bad, but try to bear it for a little while. We shall soon be there." And
+so on, through the weary journey.
+
+At one station Richard got out, and I saw him speaking to several men. I
+believe he was hoping to find a doctor, for he was thoroughly
+frightened.
+
+Before we reached the city I was past being frightened for myself, for I
+was suffering too much to think of what might be the result of my
+condition. When we left the cars, and Richard put me in a carriage, the
+motion of the carriage and its jarring over the stones were almost
+unendurable. Richard was too anxious now to say much to me. The
+expression of relief on his face as we reached Varick-street was
+unspeakable. He hurried up the steps and rang the bell, then came back
+for me, and half carried me up the steps.
+
+The door was opened by Ann Coddle, who was thrown into a helpless state
+of amazement by seeing me, not knowing why in this condition I did come,
+or why I came at all. She shrieked, and ejaculated, and backed almost
+down the basement stairs. Richard sternly told her she was acting like a
+fool, and ordered her to show him where Miss Pauline's room was, that he
+might take her to it.
+
+"But her room isn't ready," ejaculated Ann, coming to herself, which was
+a wretched thing to come to, as poor Richard found.
+
+"Not ready? well, make it ready, then. Go before me and open the
+windows, and I will put her on the sofa till you have the bed ready
+for her."
+
+"The sofa--oh, Mr. Richard, it's all full of her dear clothes that have
+come up from the wash."
+
+"Well, then, take them off--idiot--and do as you are told."
+
+"Oh, Miss Pauline--oh, my poor, dear lamb. Oh, I'm all in a flutter; I
+don't know what to do. I'd better call the cook."
+
+"Well, call the cook, then," said Richard, groaning, "only tell her to
+be quick."
+
+All this time Richard was supporting me up the stairs. As we reached the
+top, Richard called out, "Tell Peter I want him at once, to take a
+message for me."
+
+Ann was watching our progress up the stairs, with groans and
+ejaculations, forgetting that she was to call the cook. At the mention
+of Peter she exclaimed,
+
+"He's laid up with the rheumatism, Mr. Richard. Oh, whatever shall we
+do!"
+
+When we reached the middle of the second pair of stairs, I was almost
+helpless; Richard took me in his arms, and carried me.
+
+"Is it this door, Pauline dear?" he said, opening the first he came to.
+
+I should think the room had not been opened since I went away, it was so
+warm and close.
+
+Richard carried me to the sofa, and scattered the _lingerie_ far and
+wide as he laid me down upon it, and went to open the windows. Then he
+went to the bell and pulled it violently. In a few moments the cook came
+up (accompanied by Ann). She was a huge, unwieldy woman, but she had
+some intelligence, and knew better than to whimper.
+
+"Miss Pauline is ill," he said, "and I want you to stay by her, and not
+leave her for a moment, till I come back. Make that woman get the room
+in order instantly, and keep everything as quiet as you can." To me: "I
+am going to bring a doctor, and I shall be back in a few moments. Do not
+worry, they will take good care of you."
+
+When I heard Richard shut the carriage-door and drive away rapidly, I
+felt as if I were abandoned, and by the time he returned with the
+Doctor, I was in a state that warranted them in supposing me
+unconscious, tossing and moaning, and uttering inarticulate words.
+
+The Doctor stood beside me, and talked about me to Richard with as much
+freedom as if I had been a corpse.
+
+"I may as well be frank with you," he said, after a few moments of
+examination. "I apprehend great trouble from the brain. How long has she
+been in this condition?"
+
+"She has been unlike herself since yesterday; as soon as I saw her, at
+seven o'clock last night, I noticed she was looking badly. She answered
+me in an abstracted, odd way, and was unlike herself, as I have said.
+But she had been under much excitement for some time."
+
+"Tell me, if you please, all about it; and how long she has been under
+this excitement."
+
+"She has been often agitated, and quite overstrained in feeling for some
+time. Three weeks ago I thought her looking badly. Two days ago she had
+a frightful shock--a suicide--which she was the first to discover. Since
+then I do not think that she has slept."
+
+"Ah! poor young lady. She has had a terrible experience, and is paying
+for it. Now for what we can do for her. In the first place, who takes
+care of her?" with a look about the room.
+
+"You may well ask. I have just brought her home, and find here, the
+man-servant ill, one woman too old and inactive to perform much service,
+and another to whom I would not trust her for a moment. I must ask
+_you_, who shall I get to take care of her?"
+
+"You have no friend, no one to whom you could send in such a case? One
+of life and death,--I hope you understand?"
+
+"None," answered Richard, with a groan. "There is not a person in the
+city to whom I could send for help. All my family--all our friends, are
+away. Is there no one that can be got for money--any money? no nurse
+that you could recommend?"
+
+"I have a list of twenty. Yesterday I sent to every one, for a dangerous
+case of hemorrhage, and could not find one disengaged. It may be
+to-morrow night before you get on the track of one that is at liberty,
+if you hunt the city over. And this girl is in need of instant care; her
+life hangs on it, you must see."
+
+"In God's name, then," said Richard, with a groan, pacing up and down
+the room, "what am I to do?"
+
+"In _His_ name, if you come, to that," said the Doctor, who was a good
+sort of man, notwithstanding his professional cool ways, "there is a
+sisterhood, that I am told offer to do things like this. I never sent to
+them, for I only heard of it a short time ago; but if you have no
+objection to crosses, and caps, and ritualistic nonsense in its highest
+flower, I have no doubt, that they will let you have a sister, and that
+she'll do good service here."
+
+"The direction," said Richard, too eager to be civil. "How am I to get
+there?"
+
+The Doctor pulled over a pocket-case of loose papers, and at last found
+one, which he handed his companion.
+
+"I give you three quarters of an hour to get back," he said. "I will
+stay here till then, at all events. Do not waste any time--nor spare any
+eloquence," he added to himself, as Richard hurried from the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+SISTER MADELINE.
+
+     Yes! it is well for us: from these alarms,
+     Like children scared, we fly into thine arms;
+     And pressing sorrows put our pride to rout
+     With a swift faith which has not time to doubt.
+
+     _Faber._
+
+
+     Learn by a mortal yearning to ascend
+     Towards a higher object. Love was given,
+     Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end;
+     For this the passion to excess was driven---
+     That self might be annulled; her bondage prove
+     The fetters of a dream, opposed to love.
+
+     _Wordsworth_.
+
+
+The next thing that I recall, is rousing from slumber, or something
+related to slumber, and seeing a tall woman in the dress of a sister,
+standing by my bed. It was night, and there was a lamp upon a table
+near. The unusual dress, and the unfamiliarity of her whole appearance,
+made me start and stare at her, half raising myself in the bed.
+
+"Why did you come here?" I said. "Who sent for you?"
+
+"I came because you were sick and suffering, and I was sent in the Name
+----" and bending her head slightly, she said a Name too sacred for
+these pages.
+
+I gave a great sigh of relief, and sank back on my pillow. Her answer
+satisfied me, for I was not able to reason. I let her hold my hand; and
+all through that dark and troubled time submitted to her will, and
+desired her presence, and was soothed by her voice and touch.
+
+Sister Madeline was not at all the ideal sister, being tall and dark,
+and with nothing peculiarly devotional or pensive in her cast of
+feature. Her face was a fine, earnest one. Her movements were full of
+energy and decision, though not quick or sharp. The whole impression
+left was that of one by nature far from humility, tenderness, devotion;
+but, by the force of a magnificent faith, made passionately humble,
+devout from the very heart, more than humanly compassionate and tender.
+
+I never felt toward her as if she were "born so"--but as if she were
+rescued from the world by some great effort or experience; as if it were
+all "made ground," reclaimed from nature by infinite patience and
+incessant labor. She lived the life of an angel upon the earth. I never
+saw her, by look, by word, or tone, transgress the least of the
+commandments, so wonderful was the curb she held over all her human
+feelings. Nor was this perfection attained by a sudden and grand
+sacrifice; the consecration of herself to the religious life was not the
+"single step 'twixt earth and heaven," but it was attained by daily and
+hourly study--by the practice of a hundred self-denials--by the most
+accurate science of spiritual progress.
+
+Doubtless, saints can be made in other ways, but this is one way they
+can be made, starting with a sincere intention to serve God. At least,
+so I believe, from knowing Sister Madeline.
+
+She made a great change in my life, and I owe her a great deal. It is
+not strange I feel enthusiasm for her. I cannot bear to think what my
+coming back to life would have been without her.
+
+Of the alarming nature of my illness, I only know that there were
+several days when Richard never left the house, but waited, hour after
+hour, in the library below, for the news of my condition, and when even
+Uncle Leonard came home in the middle of the day, and walked about the
+house, silent and unapproachable.
+
+One night--how well I remember it! I had been convalescent, I do not
+know how long; I had passed the childish state of interest in my
+_bouilli_, and fretfulness about my _peignoir_; my mind had begun to
+regain its ordinary power, and with the first efforts of memory and
+thought had come fearful depression and despondency. I was so weak,
+physically, that I could not fight against this in the least. Sister
+Madeline came to my bedside, and found me in an agony of weeping. It was
+not an easy matter to gain my confidence, for I thought she knew nothing
+of me, and I was not equal to the mental effort of explaining myself;
+she was only associated with my illness. But at last she made me
+understand that she was not ignorant of a great deal that troubled me.
+
+"Who has told you?" I said, my heart hardening itself against Richard,
+who could have spoken of my trouble to a stranger.
+
+"You, yourself," she answered me.
+
+"I have raved?" I said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And who has heard me?"
+
+"No one else. I sent every one else from the room whenever your delirium
+became intelligible."
+
+This made me grateful toward her; and I longed for sympathy. I threw my
+arms about her and wept bitterly.
+
+"Then you know that I can never cry enough," I said.
+
+"I do not know that," she answered. After a vain attempt to soothe me
+with general words of comfort, she said, with much wisdom, "Tell me
+exactly what thought gives you the most pain, now, at this moment."
+
+"The thought of his dreadful act, and that by it he has lost his soul."
+
+"We know with Whom all things are possible," she said, "and we do not
+know what cloud may have been over his reason at that moment. Would it
+comfort you to pray for him?"
+
+"Ought I?" I asked, raising my head.
+
+"I do not know any reason that you ought not," she returned. "Shall I
+say some prayers for him now?"
+
+I grasped her hand: she took a little book from her pocket, and knelt
+down beside me, holding my hand in hers. Oh, the mercy, the relief of
+those prayers! They may not have done him any good, but they did me. The
+hopeless grief that was killing me, I "wept it from my heart" that hour.
+
+"Promise me one thing," I whispered as she rose, "that you will read
+that prayer, every hour during the day, to-morrow, by my bed, whether I
+am sleeping or awake."
+
+"I promise," she said, and I am sure she kept her word, that day and
+many others after it.
+
+During my convalescence, which was slow, I had no other person near me,
+and wanted none. Uncle Leonard came in once a day, and spent a few
+minutes, much to his discomfort and my disadvantage. Richard I had not
+seen at all, and dreaded very much to meet. Ann Coddle fretted me, and
+was very little in the room.
+
+Over these days there is a sort of peace. I was entering upon so much
+that was new and elevating, under the guidance of Sister Madeline, and
+was so entirely influenced by her, that I was brought out of my trouble
+wonderfully. Not out of it, of course, but from under its crushing
+weight. I know that I am rather easily influenced, and only too ready to
+follow those who have won my love. Therefore, I am in every way thankful
+that I came at such a time under the influence of a mind like that of
+Sister Madeline.
+
+But the time was approaching for her to go away. I was well enough to do
+without her, and she had other duties. The sick-room peace and
+indulgence were over, and I must take up the burden of every-day life
+again. I was very unhappy, and felt as if I were without stay
+or guidance.
+
+"To whom am I to go when I am in doubt?" I said; "you will be so far
+away."
+
+"That is what I want to arrange: the next time you are able to go out, I
+want to take you to some one who can direct you much better than I."
+
+"A priest?" I asked. "Tell me one thing: will he give me absolution?"
+
+"I suppose he will, if he finds that you desire it."
+
+"What would be the use of going to him for anything else?" I said. "It
+is the only thing that can give me any comfort."
+
+"All people do not feel so, Pauline."
+
+"But you feel so, dear Sister Madeline, do you not? You can understand
+how I am burdened, and how I long to have the bands undone?"
+
+"Yes, Pauline, I can understand."
+
+I am not inclined to give much weight to my own opinions, and as for my
+feelings, I know they were, then, those of a child, and in many ways
+will always be. I can only say what comforted me, and what I longed for.
+There had always been great force to me, in the Scripture that says,
+"Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whosesoever
+sins ye retain, they are retained," even before I felt the burden of
+my sins.
+
+I had once seen the ordination of a priest, and I suppose that added to
+the weight of the words ever after in my mind. I never had any doubt of
+the power then conferred, and I no sooner felt the guilt and stain of
+sin upon my soul, than I yearned to hear the pardon spoken, that Heaven
+offered to the penitent. I had been tangibly smitten; I longed to be
+tangibly healed.
+
+Whatever shame and pain there was about laying bare my soul before
+another, I gladly embraced it, as one poor means at my command of
+showing to Him whom I had offended, that my repentance was actual, that
+I stopped at no humiliation.
+
+It may very well be that these feelings would find no place in larger,
+grander, more self-reliant natures; that what healed my soul would only
+wound another. I am not prepared to think that one remedy is cure for
+all diseases, but I know what cured mine. I bless God for "the soothing
+hand that Love on Conscience laid." I mark that hour as the beginning of
+a fresh and favored life; the dawning of a hope that has not yet
+lost its power
+
+                                "to tame
+     The haughty brow, to curb the unchastened eye,
+     And shape to deeds of good each wavering aim."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE HOUR OF DAWN.
+
+     Slowly light came, the thinnest dawn,
+       Not sunshine, to my night;
+     A new, more spiritual thing,
+       An advent of pure light.
+
+     All grief has its limits, all chastenings their pause;
+     Thy love and our weakness are sorrow's two laws.
+
+
+The winter that followed seemed very long and uneventful. After Sister
+Madeline went away, my days settled themselves into the routine in which
+they continued to revolve for many months. I was as lonely as formerly,
+save for the companionship of well-chosen books, and for the direction
+of another mind, which I felt to be the truest support and guidance. I
+was taught to bend to my uncle's wishes, and to give up constant
+church-going, and visiting among the poor, which would have been such a
+resource and occupation to me. And so my life, outwardly, was very
+little changed from former years--years that I had found almost
+insupportable, without any sorrow; and yet, strange to say, I was
+not unhappy.
+
+My hours were full of little duties, little rules. (I suppose my heart
+was in them, or I should have found them irksome.) Above all, I was not
+permitted to brood over the past: I was taught to feel that every
+thought of it indulged, was a sin, and to be accounted for as such: I
+could only remember the one for whom I mourned, on my knees, in my
+prayers. This checked, as nothing else could have done, the morbid
+tendency of grief, in a lonely, unoccupied, undisciplined mind. I was
+thoroughly obedient, and bent myself with all simplicity to follow the
+instructions given me. Sometimes they seemed very irrelevant and
+useless, but I never rebelled against any, even one that seemed as hard
+to flesh and blood as this. And I have, sooner or later, seen the wisdom
+of them all, as I have worked out the problem of my correction.
+
+Obedient as I was, though, and simple as the routine of my life
+continued, sometimes there came crises that were beyond my strength.
+
+I can remember one; it was a furious storm--a day that nailed one in the
+house. There was something in the rage without that disturbed me; I
+wandered about the house, and found myself unable to settle to any task.
+Some one to speak to! Oh, it was so dreary to be alone. I went into my
+uncle's room where there were many books. Among those that were there I
+found one in French, (I have no idea how it came there, I am sure my
+uncle had never read it.) I carelessly turned it over, and finally
+became absorbed in it. I came upon this passage:
+
+     Quel plus noir abime d'angoisse y a-t-il an monde que le
+     coeur d'un suicide? Quand le malheur d'un homme est du a
+     quelque circonstance de sa vie, on pent esperer de l'en voir
+     delivrer par un changement qui pent survenir dans sa
+     position. Mais lorsque ce malheur a sa source en lui; quand
+     c'est l'ame elle-meme qui est le tourment de l'ame; la vie
+     elle-meme qui est le fardeau de la vie; que faire, que de
+     reconnaitre en gemissant qu'il n'y a rien a faire--rien,
+     selon le monde; et qu'un tel homme, plus a plaindre que ce
+     prisonnier que l'histoire nous peint dans les angoisses de la
+     faim, se repaissant de sa propre chair, est reduit a devorer
+     la substance meme de son ame dans les horreurs de son
+     desespoir. Et qu'imagine-t-il done pour echapper a lui-meme,
+     comme a son plus cruel ennemi? Je ne dis pas: 'Ou ira-t-il
+     loin de l'esprit de Dieu? ou fuira-t-il loin de sa face?' Je
+     demande, ou ira-t-il loin de son propre esprit? ou fuira-t-il
+     loin de sa propre face? Ou descendra-t-il qu'il ne s'y suive
+     lui-meme; ou se cachera-t-il qu'il ne s'y trouve encore?
+     Insense, dont la folie egale la misere, quand tu te seras
+     tue, on dira: 'Il est mort;' mais ce sont les autres qui le
+     diront; ce ne sera pas toi-meme. Tu seras mort pour ton
+     pays, mort pour ta ville, mort pour ta famille; mais pour
+     toi-meme, pour ce qui pense en toi, helas! pour ce qui
+     souffre en toi, tu vivras toujours.
+
+     Et comment ne sens-tu pas, que pour cesser d'etre malheureux,
+     ce n'est pas ta place qu'il faut changer, c'est ton coeur.
+     Que tu disparaisses sous les flots, qu'un plomb meurtrier
+     brise ta tete, ou qu'un poison subtil glace tes veines; quoi
+     que tu fasses, et ou que tu ailles, tu n'y peux aller qu'avec
+     toi-meme, qu'avec ton coeur, qu'avec ta misere! Que dis-je?
+     Tu y vas avec un compte de plus a rendre, a la rencontre du
+     grand Dieu qui doit te juger; tu y vas avec l'eternite de
+     plus pour souffrir, et le temps de moins pour te repentir!
+
+     A moins que tu ne penses peut-etre, parceque l'oeil de
+     l'homme n'a rien vu au-dela de la tombe, que cette vie n'ait
+     pas de suite. Mais non, tu ne saurais le croire! Quand tous
+     les autres le penseraient, toi, tu ne le pourrais pas. Tu as
+     une preuve d'immortalite qui t'appartient en propre. Cette
+     tristesse qui te consume, est quelque chose de trop intime et
+     de trop profond pour se dissoudre avec tes organes, et ce qui
+     est capable de tant souffrir ne pent pas s'aller perdre dans
+     la terre. Les vers heriteront de la poussiere de ton corps,
+     mais l'amertume de ton ame, qui en heritera? Ces extases
+     sublimes, ces tourments affreux; ces hauteurs des cieux, ces
+     profondeurs des abimes; qu'y a-t-il d'assez grand ou d'assez
+     abaisse, d'assez eleve ou d'assez avili pour les revetir en
+     ta place? Non, tu ne saurais jamais croire que tout meurt
+     avec le corps; ou si tu le pouvais tu n'en serais que plus
+     insense, plus miserable encore.
+
+It is proof how child-like I had been, how obedient in suppressing all
+forbidden thoughts, that these words smote me with such horror. I had
+indulged in no speculation; I had never thought of him as haunted by the
+self he fled; as still bound to an inexorable and inextinguishable life,
+
+                     "With time and hope behind him cast,
+     And all his work to do with palsied hands and cold."
+
+The terrors I had had, had been vague. I had thought dimly of
+punishment, more keenly of separation. If I had analysed my thoughts, I
+suppose I should have found annihilation to have been my belief--death
+forever, loss eternal. But this--if this were truth--(and it smote me as
+the truth alone can smite), oh, it was maddening. To my knees! To my
+knees! Oh, that I might live long years to pray for him! Oh, that I
+might stretch out my hands to God for him, withered with age and shrunk
+with fasting, and strong but in faith and final perseverance! Oh, it
+could not be too late! What was prayer made for, but for a time like
+this? What was this little breath of time, compared with the Eternal
+Years, that we should only speak _now_ for each other to our merciful
+God, and never speak for each other afterward? Spirits are forever; and
+is prayer only for the days of the body?
+
+It was well for me that none of the doubts that are so often expressed
+had found any lodgment in my brain; if I had not believed that I had a
+right to pray for him, and that my prayers might help him, I cannot
+understand how I could have lived through those nights and days
+of thought.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+APRSE PERDRE, PERD ON BIEN.
+
+     What to those who understand
+     Are to-day's enjoyments narrow,
+     Which to-morrow go again,
+     Which are shared with evil men,
+     And of which no man in his dying
+     Taketh aught for softer lying?
+
+
+It was now early spring: the days were lengthening and were growing
+soft. Lent (late that year) was nearly over. I had begun to think much
+about the summer, and to wonder if I were to pass it in the city. There
+was one thing that the winter had developed in me, and that was, a sort
+of affection for my uncle. I had learned that I owed him a duty, and had
+tried to find ways of fulfilling it; had taken a little interest in the
+house, and had tried to make him more comfortable. Also I had prayed
+very constantly for him, and perhaps there is no way more certain of
+establishing an affection, or at least a charity for another, than that.
+
+In return, he had been a little more human to me than formerly, had
+shown some interest in my health, and continued appreciation of the fact
+that I was in the house. Once he had talked to me, for perhaps half an
+hour, about my mother, for which I was unspeakably grateful. Several
+times he had given me a good deal of money, which I had cared much less
+about. Latterly he had permitted me to go to church alone, which had
+seemed to me must be owing to Richard's intervention.
+
+Richard had been almost as much as formerly at the house: my uncle was
+becoming more and more dependent on him. For myself, I did not see as
+much of him as the year before. We were always together at the table, of
+course. But the evenings that Richard was with my uncle, I thought it
+unnecessary for me to stay down-stairs. Besides, now, they almost always
+had writing or business affairs to occupy them.
+
+It was natural that I should go away, and no one seemed to notice it.
+Richard still brought me books, still arranged things for me with my
+uncle (as in the matter of going to church alone), but we had no more
+talks together by ourselves, and he never asked me to go anywhere with
+him. At Christmas he sent me beautiful flowers, and a picture for my
+room. Sophie I rarely saw, and only longed never to see Benny was
+permitted to come and spend a day with me, at great intervals, and I
+enjoyed him more than his mother or his uncle.
+
+One day my uncle went down to his office in his usual health; at three
+o'clock he was brought home senseless, and only lived till midnight,
+dying without recovering speech or consciousness. It was a sudden
+seizure, but what everybody had expected; everybody was shocked for the
+moment, and then wondered that they were. It was very appalling to me; I
+was so unhappy, I almost believed I loved him, and I certainly mourned
+for him with simplicity and affection.
+
+The preparations for the funeral were so frightful, and all the thoughts
+it brought so unnerving, that I was almost ill. A great deal came upon
+me, in trying to manage the wailing servants, and in helping Richard in
+arrangements.
+
+It was the day after the funeral; I was tired, out, and had lain down on
+the sofa in the dining-room, partly because I hated to be alone
+up-stairs, and partly because it was not far from lunch-time, and I felt
+too weary to take any needless steps. I don't think ever in my life
+before I had lain down on that sofa, or had spent two hours except, at
+the table, in that room. It was a most cheerless room, and no one ever
+thought of sitting down in it, except at mealtime. I closed the shutters
+and darkened it to suit my eyes, which ached, and I think must have
+fallen asleep.
+
+The parlor was the room which adjoined the dining-room (only two large
+rooms on one floor, as they used to build), and separated from it by
+heavy mahogany columns and sliding-doors. These doors were half-way
+open, and I was roused by voices in the parlor. As soon as I recovered
+myself from the sudden waking, I recognized Sophie's and then Richard's.
+I wondered what Richard was doing up-town at that hour, and so Sophie
+did too, for she asked him very plainly.
+
+"I thought I ought to come to see Pauline," she said, "but I did not
+suppose I should find you here in the middle of the day."
+
+"There is something that I've got to see Pauline about at once," he
+said, "and so I was obliged to come up-town."
+
+"Nothing has happened?" she said interrogatively.
+
+"No," he answered, evasively.
+
+But she went on: "I suppose it's something in relation to the will; I
+hope she's well provided for, poor thing."
+
+"Sophie," said her brother, with a change of tone, "You'll have to hear
+it some time, and perhaps you may as well hear it now. It is that that I
+have come up-town about; there has been some strange mistake made; there
+is no will."
+
+"No will!" echoed Sophie, "Why, you told me once--"
+
+"That he had left her everything. So he told me twice last year; so I
+have always believed to be the case. Since the day he died, the most
+faithful search has been made; there is not a corner of his office, of
+his library, of his room, that I have not hunted through. He was so
+methodical in business matters, so exact in the care of his papers, that
+I had little hope, after I had gone through his desk. I cannot
+understand it. It is altogether dark to me."
+
+"What can have made him change his mind about it, Richard? Can he have
+heard anything about last summer?"
+
+"Not from me, Sophie. But I have sometimes thought he knew, from
+allusions that he has made to her mother's marriage, more than once
+this winter."
+
+"He was very angry about that, at the time, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, I imagine so. The man she married was poor, and a foreigner: two
+things he hated. I never heard there was anything against him but
+his poverty."
+
+"How can he have heard about Mr. Langenau?" said Sophie, musingly.
+
+"I think Pauline must have told him," said Richard.
+
+"Pauline? never. She is much too clever; she never told him. You may be
+quite sure of _that_."
+
+"Pauline clever! Poor Pauline!" said Richard, with a short, sarcastic
+laugh, which had the effect of making Sophie angry.
+
+"I am willing," she said, "that she should be as stupid and as good as
+you can wish--. To whom does the money go?" she added, as if she had not
+patience for the other subject.
+
+"To a brother, with whom he had a quarrel, and whom he had not seen for
+over sixteen years."
+
+"Incredible!"
+
+"But there had been some sort of a reconciliation, at least an exchange
+of letters, within these three months past."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"And it is in consequence of hearing from him, and being pressed by his
+lawyer for an immediate settlement of the estate, that I have come up to
+tell Pauline, and to prepare her for her changed prospects."
+
+"And what do you propose to advise?" asked Sophie, with a chilling
+voice.
+
+"Heaven knows, Sophie," answered her brother, with a heavy sigh. "I see
+nothing ahead for the poor girl, but loneliness and trial. She is
+utterly unfit to struggle with the world. And she has not even a shelter
+for her head."
+
+"Richard," interrupted his sister, with intensity of feeling in her
+voice, "I see what you are trying to persuade yourself: do not tell me,
+after what has passed, you still feel that you are bound to her--"
+
+"_Bound!_" exclaimed Richard, with a vehemence most strange in him, as,
+pacing the room, he stood still before his sister. His back was toward
+me. She was so absorbed she did not see me as I darted past the
+folding-doors into the hall. As I flew panting up to my own room, I
+remember one feeling above all others, the first feeling of affection
+toward the house that I had ever had. It was mine no longer, my home
+never again; I had no right to stay in it a moment: my own room was not
+mine any more--the room where I had learned to pray, and to try to lead
+a good life--the room where I had lain when I was so near to death--the
+room where Sister Madeline had led me to such peaceful, quiet thoughts.
+I had but one wish now, not to see Richard, to escape Sophie, to get
+away forever from this house to which I had no right. I pulled down my
+hat and my street things, and dressed so quickly, that I had slipped
+down the stairs, and out into the street, before they had ceased talking
+in the parlor. I heard their voices, very low, as I passed through the
+hall. I fully meant never to come back to the house again--not to be
+turned out.
+
+My heart swelled as the door closed behind me. It was dreadful not to
+have a home. I was so unused to being in the street alone, that I felt
+frightened when I reached the cars and stopped them.
+
+I was going to Sister Madeline. She would take me, and keep me, and
+teach me where to live, and how. I was a little confused, and got out at
+the wrong street, and had to walk several blocks before I reached
+the house.
+
+The servant at the door met me with an answer that made me wonder
+whether there were anything else to happen to me on that day.
+
+Sister Madeline had been called away--had gone on a long
+journey--something about the illness of her brother; and I must not come
+inside the door, for a contagious disease was raging, and the orders
+were strict that no one be admitted. I had walked so fast, and in such
+excitement of feeling, that I was weak and faint when I turned to go
+down the steps. Where should I go? I walked on slowly now, and
+undecided, for I had no aim.
+
+The clergyman to whom I had gone for direction in matters spiritual, was
+ill--for two weeks had given up even Lenten duties. Anything--but I
+could not go home, or rather where home had been. I walked and walked
+till I was almost fainting, and found myself in the Park. There the
+lovely indications of spring, and the quiet, and the fresh air, soothed
+me, and I sat down under some trees near the water, and rested myself.
+But the same giddy whirl of thoughts came back, the same incompetency to
+deal with such strange facts, and the same confusion. I do not know how
+long I wandered about; but I was faint and weary and hungry, and
+frightened too, for people were beginning to look at me.
+
+It began to force itself upon me that I must go back to Varick-street
+after all, and take a fresh start. Then I began to think how I should
+get back, on which side must I go to find the cars--where was I,
+literally. Then I sat down to wait, till I should see some policeman, or
+some kind-looking person, near me, to whom I could apply for this very
+necessary information. In the meantime I took out my purse to see if I
+had the proper change. Verily, not that, nor any change at all! My heart
+actually stood still. Yes, it was very true: I had given away, right
+and left, during this Lent: caring nothing for money, and being very
+sure of more when this was gone. I was literally penniless. I had not
+even the money to ride home in the cars.
+
+Till a person has felt this sensation, he has not had one of the most
+remarkable experiences of life. To know where you can get money, to feel
+that there is some _dernier ressort_ however hateful to you, is one
+thing; but to _know_ that you have not a cent--not a prospect of getting
+one--not a hope of earning one--no means of living--this is suffocation.
+This is the stopping of that breath that keeps the world alive.
+
+The bench on which I happened to be sitting was one of those pretty,
+little, covered seats, which jut out into the lake. I looked down into
+the water as I sat with my empty purse in my lap, and remembered vaguely
+the many narratives I had seen in the newspapers about unaccounted-for
+and unknown suicides. I could see how it might be inevitable--a sort of
+pressure, a fatality that might not be resisted. Even cowardice might be
+overcome when that pressure was put on.
+
+It is a very amazing thing to feel that you have no money, nor any means
+of getting even eightpence: it chokes you: you feel as if the wheel had
+made its last revolution, and there was no power to make it turn again.
+It is not any question of pride, or of independence, when it comes
+suddenly; it is a feeling of the inevitable; you do not turn to others.
+You feel your individual failure, and you stand alone.
+
+For myself, this was my reflection: I had not even a shelter for my
+head; Richard had said so. I had not a cent of money, and I had no means
+of earning any. The uncle who was coming to take possession of the house
+and furniture, was one whom I had been taught to distrust and dread. He
+would, perhaps, not even let me go into my room again, and would turn me
+out to-morrow, if he came: my clothes--were _they_ even mine, or would
+they be given to me, if they were? This uncle had reproached Uncle
+Leonard once for what he had done for me. I had even an idea that it was
+about my mother's marriage that the quarrel had occurred. And hard as I
+had regarded Uncle Leonard, he had been the soft-hearted one of the
+brothers, who had sheltered the little girl (after he had thrown off the
+mother, and broken her poor heart).
+
+The house in Varick-street would be broken up. What would become of the
+cook, and Ann Coddle? It would be easier for them to live than for me.
+
+They could get work to do, for they knew how to work, and people would
+employ them. I--I could do nothing, I had been taught to do nothing. I
+had never been directed how to hem a handkerchief. I had tried to dust
+my room one day, and the effort had tired me dreadfully, and did not
+look very well, as a result. I could not teach. I had been educated in a
+slipshod way, no one directing anything about it--just what it occurred
+to the person who had charge of me to put before me.
+
+I had intended to throw myself upon Sister Madeline. But what then? What
+could she have done for me? I had asked her months before if I could not
+be a sister, and had been discouraged both by her and by my director. I
+believe they thought I was too young and too pretty, and, in fact, had
+no vocation. No doubt they thought I might soon look upon things
+differently, when my trouble was a little older.
+
+And Richard--I did not give Richard many thoughts that day, for my heart
+was sore, when I remembered all his words. He had always thought that I
+was to be rich; perhaps that had made him so long patient with me. He
+had said I was not clever; he had seemed to be very sorry for me. He
+might well be. Sophie had asked him if he were still bound to me. I had
+not heard all his answer, but he had spoken in a tone of scorn. I did
+not want to think about him.
+
+There was no whither to turn myself for help. And the clergyman, who had
+been more than kind to me, who had seemed to help me with words and
+counsel out of heaven,--he was cut off from my succor, and I stood
+alone--I, who was so dependent, so naturally timid, and so
+easily mistaken.
+
+It was a dreary hour of my life, that hour that I sat looking over at
+the water of the pretty placid lake. I don't like to recall it. Some one
+passed by me, gave an exclamation of surprise, and came back hastily. It
+was Richard. He seemed so glad, and so relieved to see me--and to me it
+was like Heaven opening; notwithstanding my vindictive thoughts about
+him, I could have sprung into his arms; I felt protected, safe, the
+moment he was by me. I tried to speak, and then began to cry.
+
+"I've been looking for you these last two hours," he said, sitting down
+beside me. "I came up-town to see you, and found you had gone out. I
+thought you would not be likely to go anywhere but to see Sister
+Madeline, and there the servant told me you had come this way. I could
+not find you here, and went back to Varick-street, then was frightened
+at hearing you had not come back, and returned again to look for you.
+What made you stay so long? Something has happened. Tell me what you are
+crying for."
+
+I had no talent for acting, and not much discretion when I was excited;
+and he found out very soon that I knew what had befallen me. (I think he
+believed that Sophie had told me of it.)
+
+"Were you very much surprised?" he said. "Had you supposed that you
+would be his heiress?"
+
+"Why, no. I had not thought anything about it. I am afraid I have not
+thought much about anything this winter. I must have been very
+ungrateful, as well as childish, for I never have felt as if it were
+fortunate that I had a home, and as much money as I wanted. I did not
+care anything about being rich, you know--ever."
+
+"No, I know you did not. I was sure you would have been satisfied with a
+very moderate provision."
+
+"Oh, Richard," I cried, clasping my hands together, "if he had left me a
+little--just a little--just a few hundred dollars, when he had so much,
+to have kept me from having to work, when I don't know how to work, and
+am such a child."
+
+"Work!" he exclaimed, looking down at me as if I were something so
+exquisite and so precious, that the very thought was profanation.
+"Work! no, Pauline, you shall not have to work."
+
+"But what can I do?" I said, "I have nothing--and you know it; not a
+shelter; not the money to pay for my breakfast to-morrow morning. Not a
+person to whom I have a right to go for help; not a human being who is
+bound to care for me. Oh, I don't care what becomes of me; I wish that
+it were time for me to die."
+
+Richard got up, and paced up and down the little platform with an
+absorbed look.
+
+"It was so strange," I went on, "when he seemed this winter to take a
+little notice of me, and to want to have me near him. I really almost
+thought he cared for me. And when I was so ill last Fall, don't you
+remember how often he used to come up to my room?"
+
+"I remember--yes. It is all very strange."
+
+"And some days early in the winter, when I could scarcely speak at
+table, I was so unhappy, he would look at me so long, and seem to think.
+And then would be very kind and gentle afterward, and do something to
+show he liked me--give me money, you know, as he always did."
+
+"Tell me, Pauline: did he ever ask you anything about last summer, or
+did you ever tell him?"
+
+"No, Richard, I could never have spoken to him about it; and he never
+asked me. But I know he saw that I was not happy."
+
+"Pauline," said Richard, after a pause, and as if forcing himself to
+speak, "there is no use in disguising from you what your position is:
+you know it yourself, enough of it, at least, to make you understand why
+I speak now. I don't know of any way out of it, but one; and I feel as
+if it were ungenerous to press that on you now, and, Heaven knows, I
+would not do it if I could think of anything else to offer to you. You
+know, Pauline, that if you will marry me, you will have everything that
+you need, as much as if your uncle had left you everything."
+
+He did not look at me, but paced up and down the platform, and spoke
+with a thick, husky voice.
+
+"You know it's been the object of my life, ever since I knew you, but I
+don't want that to influence you. I know it is too soon, a great deal
+too soon. And I would not have done it, if I could have seen anything
+else to do, or if you could have done without me."
+
+I must have been deadly pale, for when at last he looked at me, he
+started.
+
+"I don't know how it is," he said, with a groan, "I always have to give
+you pain, when, Heaven knows, I'd give my life to spare you every
+suffering. I can't see any other way to take care of you than the way I
+tell you of, and yet, I have no doubt you think me cruel, and selfish,
+to ask you to do it now. It does seem so, and yet it is not. If you knew
+how much it has cost me to speak, you would believe it."
+
+"I do believe it," I said, trying to command my voice. "I think you have
+always been too good and kind to me. But I can't tell you how this makes
+me feel. Oh, Richard, isn't there any, any other way?"
+
+"Perhaps there may be," he said, with a bitter and disappointed look,
+"but I do not know of it."
+
+"Oh, Richard, do not be angry with me. Think how hard it is for me
+always to be disappointing you. I have a great deal of trouble!"
+
+"Yes, Pauline, I know you have," he said, sitting down by me, and taking
+my hand in a repentant way. "You see I'm selfish, and only looked at my
+own disappointment just that minute. I thought I had not any hope that
+you might not mind the idea of marrying me; but you see, after all, I
+had. I believe I must have fancied that you were getting over your
+trouble: you have seemed so much brighter lately. But now I know the
+truth; and now I know that what I do is simply sacrifice and duty. A man
+must be a fool who looks for pleasure in marrying a woman who has no
+love for him. And I say now, in the face of it all, marry me, Pauline,
+if you can bring yourself to do it. I am the only approach to a friend
+that you have in the world. As your husband, I can care for you and
+protect you. You are young, your character is unformed, you are ignorant
+of the world. You have no home, no protection, literally none, and I am
+afraid to trust you. You need not be angry if I say so. I think I've
+earned the right to find some faults in you. I don't expect you to love
+me. I don't expect to be particularly happy; but there are a good many
+ways of serving God and doing one's duty; and if we try to serve him and
+to live for duty, it will all come out right at last. You will be a
+happier woman, Pauline, if you do it, than if you rebel against it, and
+try to find some other way, and put yourself in a subordinate place, or
+a place of dependence, and waste your life, and expose yourself to
+temptation. No, no, Pauline, I cannot see you do it. Heaven knows, I
+wish you had somebody else to direct you. But it has all come upon me,
+and I must do the best I can. I think any one else would advise the
+same, who had the same means of judging."
+
+"I will do just what you think best," I said, almost in a whisper,
+getting up.
+
+"That is right," he answered, in a husky voice, rising too, and putting
+my cloak about my shoulders, which had fallen off. "You will see it
+will be best."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+A GREAT DEAL TOO SOON.
+
+     But her sad eyes, still fastened on the ground,
+     Are governed with a goodly modesty,
+     That suffers not a look to glance away,
+     Which may let in a little thought unsound.
+
+     _Spenser_.
+
+
+     Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule science
+     Qui nous met en repos.
+
+     _Malherbe_.
+
+
+Richard had obtained for me (with difficulty), from the lawyer of the
+new uncle who had arisen, the privilege of remaining in the house for
+another month, undisturbed in any way. At the end of those four weeks I
+was to be married to him, one day, quietly in church, and to go away. It
+was very hard to have to see Sophie, and be treated with ignominy, for
+doing what I did not want to do; it was very hard to make preparations
+to leave the only place I wanted to stay in now; it was very hard to be
+tranquil and even, while my heart was like lead. But I had begun to
+discover that that was the general order of things here below, and it
+did not amaze me as it had done at first. I was doing my duty, to the
+best of my discernment, and was not to be deterred by all the lead in
+the world.
+
+It was very well for Richard to say, he did it for sacrifice and for
+duty. I have no doubt at first he did it greatly for those two things:
+but he grew happier every day, I could see. He was very considerate of
+my sadness, and always acted on the basis on which our engagement was
+begun, never keeping my hand in his, or kissing me, or asking any of the
+trifling favors of a lover.
+
+He was grave and silent: but I could see the change in his face; I could
+see that he was more exacting of every moment that I spent away from
+him; he kept near me, and followed me with his eyes, and seemed never to
+be satisfied with his possession of me.
+
+He bought me the most beautiful jewels, (he had made great strides
+toward fortune in the last six months, and was a rich man now in
+earnest,) and though he never clasped them on my throat or wrist, nor
+even fitted a ring on my finger, I could feel his eyes upon me,
+hungering for a smile, a word of gratitude.
+
+And who would not have been grateful? But it was "too soon, a great deal
+too soon," as he had said himself. I was very grateful, but I would
+have been glad to die.
+
+I have wondered whether he saw it or not, I rather think not. I was very
+submissive and gentle, and tried to be bright, and I think he was so
+absorbed in the satisfaction of my promise, so intent upon his plans for
+making me happy, and for making me love him, that he made himself
+believe there was no heart of lead below the tranquillity he saw.
+
+It was the third week since my uncle's death. The next week was to come
+the marriage, on Wednesday, the 19th of May.
+
+"Marriages in May are not happy," said Ann Coddle.
+
+"I did not need you to tell me that," I thought.
+
+It was on Thursday, the 13th; Richard had come up a little earlier, in
+the evening. It grew to be a little earlier every evening.
+
+"By-and-by he will not go down-town at all, at this rate," I said to
+myself, when I heard his ring that night.
+
+I was sitting by the parlor-lamp, with the evening paper in my lap, of
+which I had not read a word. He came and sat down by the table, and we
+talked a little while. I tried to find things to talk about, and
+wondered if it always would be so. I felt as if some day I should give
+out entirely, and have to go through bankruptcy. (And take a
+fresh start.)
+
+He never seemed to feel the want of talking; I suppose he was quite
+satisfied with his thoughts, and with having me beside him.
+
+By-and-by, he said he should have to go up to the library, and look over
+the last of some books of my uncle's, and finish an inventory that he
+had begun. Could I not bring my work and sit there by him? I felt a
+little selfish, for we were already on the last week, and I said I
+thought I would sit in the parlor. I had to write a letter to Sister
+Madeline. I had not heard a word from her yet, though I had
+written twice.
+
+Why could not I write in the library?
+
+I always liked to be alone when I wrote letters: I could not think, when
+any one was in the room. Besides, trying to smile, he would be sure
+to talk.
+
+He looked disappointed, and lingered a good while before he went away.
+As he rose to go away he threw into my lap a little package, saying,
+
+"There is some white lace for you. Can't you use it on some of your
+clothes? I don't know anything about such things: maybe it isn't pretty
+enough, but I thought perhaps it would do for that lilac silk you
+talked of."
+
+I opened the package: it was exquisite, fit for a princess; and as I
+bent over it, I thought, how dead I must be, that it gave me no pleasure
+to know it was my own, for I had loved such baubles so, a year ago.
+
+"What a mass of it!" I exclaimed, unfolding yard on yard.
+
+"You must always wear lace," he said, throwing one end of it over my
+black dress around the shoulder. "I like you in it. I am tired of those
+stiff little linen collars."
+
+The lace had given me a little compunction about not spending the
+evening with him: but as I had said so, I could not draw back; so I
+compromised the matter by going up to the library with him, to see that
+he was comfortable, before I came down to write my letter.
+
+I brought the little student-lamp from my own room and lit it, and put
+it on the library-table, and brought him some fresh pens, and opened the
+inkstand for him, even pushed up the chair and put a little footstool by
+it. Though he was standing by the bookshelves, and seemed to be
+engrossed by them, I knew that he was watching me, filled with content
+and satisfaction.
+
+"Do you remember where that box of cigars was put?" he said, turning to
+me as I paused. That was to keep me longer; for they were on the shelf,
+half a yard from where he stood.
+
+I got the cigar-box and put it on the table.
+
+"Now you will want some matches, and this stand is almost empty." So I
+took it away with me to my room, and came back with it filled.
+
+"Is there anything else that I can do?" I said, pausing as I put it on
+the table.
+
+"No, Pauline. I believe not. Thank you."
+
+I think that moment Richard was nearer to happiness than he had ever
+been before. Poor fellow!
+
+I went down-stairs, feeling quite easy in mind, and sat down to my
+letter. That threw me back into the past, for to Sister Madeline I
+poured out my heart. An hour went by, and I had forgotten Richard and
+the library. I was recalled to the present by hearing some books fall on
+the floor (the library was over the parlor); and by hearing Richard's
+step heavily crossing the room. I started up, pushed my letter into my
+portfolio, and wiped away my tears, quite frightened that Richard should
+see me crying. To my surprise, he came hurriedly down the stairs, passed
+the parlor-door, opened the hall-door, and shutting it heavily after
+him, was gone, without a word to me. This startled me for a moment, it
+was so unusual. But my heart was not enough engaged to be wounded by the
+slight, and I very soon returned to my letter and my other thoughts.
+
+When I went up to bed, I stopped in the library, and found the lamp
+still burning, the pens unused, a cigar, which had been lighted, but
+unsmoked, lying on the table. A book was lying on the floor at the foot
+of the bookshelf, where I had left Richard standing. I picked it up.
+"This was the last book that Uncle Leonard ever read," I said to myself,
+turning its pages over. I remembered that he had it in his hand the last
+night of his life, when I bade him goodnight. I was not in the room the
+next day, till he was brought home in a dying state.
+
+Ann had put the books in order, and arranged them, after he went
+down-town in the morning.
+
+I wondered whether Richard knew that that was the last book he had been
+reading, and I put it by, to tell him of it in the morning when he came.
+But in the morning Richard did not come. Unusual again; and I was for an
+hour or two surprised. He always found some excuse for coming on his way
+down-town: and it was very odd that he should not want to explain his
+sudden going away last night. But, as before, my lack of love made the
+wound very slight, and in a little time I had forgotten all about it,
+and was only thinking that this was Friday--and that Wednesday was
+coming very near.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+A REVERSAL
+
+     All this is to be sanctified,
+       This rupture with the past;
+     For thus we die before our deaths,
+       And so die well at last.
+
+     _Faber_.
+
+
+Dinner-time came, and passed, and still Richard did not come. At eight
+o'clock Ann brought the tea, as usual, and it stood nearly an hour upon
+the table; and then I told her to take it away.
+
+By this time I had begun to feel uneasy. Something must have happened.
+It would necessarily be something uncomfortable, perhaps something that
+would frighten me, and give me another shock. And I dreaded that so; I
+had had so many. But perhaps, dreadful though it might be, it would
+bring me a release. Perhaps Richard was only angry with me, and _that_
+might bring me a release.
+
+At nine o'clock I heard a ring at the bell, and then his step in the
+hall. He was slower than usual in coming in; everything made me feel
+confused and apprehensive. When he opened the door and entered, I was
+trying to command myself, but I forgot all about myself when I saw
+_him_. His face was white, and he looked haggard and harassed, as if he
+had gone through a year of suffering since last night, when I left him
+with the lamp and cigar in the library.
+
+I started up and put out my hand. "What is it, Richard? You are in some
+trouble."
+
+He said no, and tried to speak in an ordinary tone, sitting down on the
+sofa by my chair.
+
+I was confused and thrown back by this, and tried to talk as if nothing
+had been said.
+
+"Will you have a cup of tea?" I asked; "Ann has just taken it away."
+
+He said absently, yes, and I rang for Ann to bring the tea, and then
+went to the table to pour it out.
+
+He sat with his face leaning on his hand on the arm of the sofa, and did
+not seem to notice me till I carried the cup to him, and offered it.
+Then he started, and looked up and took it, asking my pardon, and
+thanking me.
+
+"Are you not going to have one yourself?" he said, half rising.
+
+"No, I don't want any to-night. Tell me if yours is right."
+
+"Yes, it is very nice," he said absently, drinking some. Then rising
+suddenly, he put the cup on the mantleshelf, and said to me, "Send Ann
+away, I want to talk to you."
+
+I told Ann I would ring for her when I wanted her, and sat down by the
+lamp again, with many apprehensions.
+
+"You asked me if anything had happened, Pauline, didn't you?" he said.
+
+"No," I answered. "But I was sure that something had, from the way you
+looked when you came in."
+
+"It is something that--that changes things very much for you, Pauline,"
+he resumed, with an effort, "and makes all our arrangements
+unnecessary--that is, unless you choose."
+
+I looked amazed and frightened, and he went on.
+
+"I made a discovery last night in the library. The will is found,
+Pauline."
+
+I started to my feet, with my hands pressed against my heart, waiting
+breathlessly for his next word.
+
+"Everything is left to you--and I have come to tell you, you are
+free--if you desire to be."
+
+"Oh, thank God! Thank God!" I cried; then covering my face with my
+hands, sank back into my seat, and burst into tears.
+
+He turned from me and walked to the other end of the room; each of us
+lived much in that little time.
+
+For myself, I had accepted my bondage so meekly, so dutifully, that I
+did not know the weight it had been upon me till it was suddenly taken
+off. I did not think of him--I could only think, there was no next
+Wednesday, and I could stay where I was. It was like the sudden
+cessation of dreadful and long-continued pain: it was Heaven. I was
+crying for joy. But at last the reaction came, and I had to think
+of him.
+
+"Oh, Richard," I cried, going toward him, (he was sitting by the window,
+and his hand concealed his eyes.) "I don't know what you think of me, I
+hope you can forgive me."
+
+He did not speak, and I felt a dreadful pang of self-reproach.
+
+"Richard," I said, crying, and taking hold of his hand, "I am ashamed of
+myself for being glad. I will marry you yet, if you want me to. I know
+how good you have been to me. I know I am ungrateful and abominable."
+
+Still he did not speak. His very lips were white, and his hand, when I
+touched it, did not meet mine or move.
+
+"You are angry with me," I cried, bursting into a flood of tears. "Oh,
+how you ought to hate me. Oh, I wish we had never seen each other. I
+wish I had been dead before I brought you all this trouble. Richard, do
+look at me--do speak to me. Don't you believe that I am sorry? Don't you
+know I will do anything you want me to?"
+
+He seemed to try to speak--moved a little, as a person in pain might do,
+but, bending his head a little lower on his hand, was silent still.
+
+"Richard," I said, after several moments' silence, speaking
+thoughtfully--"it has all come to me at last. I begin to see what you
+have been to me always, and how badly I have treated you. But it must
+have been because I was very young, and did not think. I am sure my
+heart was not so bad, and I mean to be different now. You know I have
+not had any one to teach me. Will you let me try and make you happy?"
+
+"No, Pauline," he said at last, speaking with effort. "It is all over
+now, and we will never talk of it again."
+
+I was silent for many minutes--standing before him with irresolution.
+"If it was right for me to marry you before," I said at last, "Why is it
+not right now, if I mean to do my duty?"
+
+"No, it is no longer right, if it ever was," he answered. "I will not
+take advantage of your sense of duty now, as I was going to take
+advantage of your necessity before. No, you are free, and it is all
+at an end."
+
+"You are unjust to yourself. You were not taking advantage of my
+necessity. You were saving me, and I am ashamed of myself when I think
+of everything. Oh, Richard, where did you learn to be so good!"
+
+A spasm of pain crossed his face, and he turned away from me.
+
+"If you give me up," I said timidly, "who will take care of me?"
+
+"There will be plenty now," he answered bitterly.
+
+"There wasn't anybody yesterday."
+
+"But there will be to-morrow. No, Pauline," he said, lifting his head
+and speaking in a firmer voice, "What I thought I was doing, till this
+showed me my heart, and how I had deceived myself, I will do now, even
+if it kills me. I thought I was acting for your good, and from a sense
+of duty: now that I know what is for your good, and what is my duty, I
+will go on in that, and nothing shall turn me from it, so help
+me Heaven."
+
+"At least you will forgive me," I said, with tears, "for all the things
+that I have made you suffer."
+
+"Yes," he said, with some emotion, "I shall forgive you sooner than I
+shall forgive myself. I cannot see that you have been to blame."
+
+"Ah," I cried, hiding my face with shame, when I thought of all my
+selfishness and indifference, and the return I had made him for his
+devoted love. "I know how I have been to blame; and I am going to pay
+you for your goodness and care by breaking your heart for you--by
+upsetting all your plans. Oh, Richard! You had better let it all go on!
+Think how everybody knows about it!"
+
+He shook his head. "I don't care a straw for that," he said. And I am
+sure he did not.
+
+"No," he said firmly, getting up, and walking up and down the room; "it
+is all over, and we must make the best of it. I shall still have
+everything to do for you under the will; and while you mustn't expect me
+to see you often, just for the present time, at least, you know I shall
+do everything as faithfully as if nothing had occurred. You must write
+to me whenever you think my judgment or advice would do you any good.
+And I shall be always looking after things that you don't understand,
+and taking care of your interests, whether you hear from me or not.
+You'll always be sure of that, whatever may occur."
+
+"Oh," I faltered, with a sudden frightened feeling of loneliness and
+loss, in the midst of my new freedom, "I can't feel as if it were
+all over."
+
+"I don't know how this terrible mistake about the will occurred," he
+went on, without noticing what I said: "it was only a--mercy that I
+found it when I did. It was between the leaves of a book, an old volume
+of Tacitus; I took it down to look at the title for the inventory, and
+it fell out."
+
+"That was the book he had in his hand when I saw him last, that night
+before he died."
+
+"Yes? Then after you went up-stairs I suppose he was thinking of you,
+and he took out the will to read it over, and maybe left it out, meaning
+to lock it up again in the morning."
+
+"And in the morning he was not well," I said, "and perhaps went away
+leaving it lying on the book; I remember, Ann said there were several
+papers lying on the table, when she arranged the room."
+
+"No doubt," said Richard, "she shut it up in the book it laid on, and
+put it on the shelf. But it is all one how it came about. The will is
+all correct and duly executed. One of the witnesses was a clerk, who
+returned yesterday from South America, where he had been gone for
+several months. The other is lying ill at his home in Westchester, but I
+have sent to-day and had his deposition taken. It is all in order, and
+there can be no dispute."
+
+I think at that moment I should have been glad if it had been found
+invalid. There was something so inevitable and final in Richard's plain
+and practical words.
+
+Evidently a great change had come in my life, and I could not help it if
+I would. I could not but feel the separation from the person upon whom I
+had leaned so long, and who had done everything for me, and I knew this
+separation was to be a final one; Richard's words left no doubt of that.
+
+"What you'd better do," he said, leaning by the mantelpiece, "is to tell
+the servants about this--this--change in your plans, to-morrow; unpack,
+and settle the house to stay here for the present. In the course of a
+couple of months it will be time enough to make up your mind about where
+you will live. I think, till the will is admitted and all that, you had
+better keep things as they are, and make no change."
+
+He had been so used to thinking for me, that he could not give it up at
+once. "I will tell Sophie to-morrow," he went on. "It will not be
+necessary for you to see her if she should come before she hears of it
+from me." (Sophie had an engagement with me to go out on the following
+morning. He seemed to to have forgotten nothing.)
+
+"What will Sophie think of me?" I said, with my eyes on the floor.
+"Richard, it looks very bad for me; when I was poor, I was going to
+marry you, and now that I have money left me, I am going to break
+it off."
+
+"What difference does it make how it looks," he said, "when you know you
+have done right? I will tell Sophie the truth, that it was my doing both
+times, and that you only yielded to my judgment in the matter. Besides,
+if she judges you harshly, it need not make much matter to you. You will
+never again be thrown intimately with her, I suppose."
+
+"No, I suppose not," I said faintly. I was being turned out of my world
+very fast, and it was not very clear what I was going to get in exchange
+for it (except freedom).
+
+"I will send you up money to-morrow morning," he went on, "to pay the
+servants, and all that. The clerk I shall send it by, is the one that I
+shall put in charge of your matters. You can always draw on him for
+money, or ask him any questions, or call on him for any service, in case
+I should be away, or ill, or anything."
+
+"You are going away?" I said interrogatively.
+
+"It is possible, for a while--I don't know. I haven't made up my mind
+definitely about what I am going to do. But in case I _should_ be away,
+I mean, you are to call on him."
+
+"I understand."
+
+"Anything he tells you, about signing papers, and such things, you may
+be sure is all right."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But don't do anything, without consulting me, for anybody else,
+remember."
+
+"I'll remember," I said absently and humbly. It was no wonder Richard
+felt I needed somebody to take care of me!
+
+"I believe there's nothing else I wanted to say to you," he said at
+last, moving from the mantelpiece where he had been standing; "at least,
+nothing that I can't write about, when it occurs to me."
+
+"Oh, Richard!" I said, beginning to cry again, as I knew that the moment
+of parting had come, "I don't understand you at all. I think you take it
+very calm."
+
+"Isn't that the way to take it?" he said, in a voice that was,
+certainly, very calm indeed.
+
+I looked up in his face: he was ten years older. I really was frightened
+at the change in him.
+
+"Oh!" I exclaimed, putting my face down in my hands, "I wasn't worth
+all I've made you suffer."
+
+"Maybe you weren't," he said simply, "But it wasn't either your fault or
+mine--and you couldn't help it--that I wanted you."
+
+He made a quick movement as he passed the table, and my work-basket fell
+at his feet, and a little jewel-box rolled across the floor. It was a
+ring he had brought me, only three days before.
+
+He stooped to pick it up, and I saw his features contract as if in pain,
+as he laid it back upon the table. And his voice was unsteady, as he
+said, not looking at me while he spoke, "I hope you won't send any of
+these things back. If there's anything you're willing to keep, because I
+gave it to you, I'd like it very much. The rest send to your church, or
+somewhere. I don't want to have to look at them again."
+
+By this time I was sobbing, and, sitting down by the table, had buried
+my face on my arms.
+
+"I'm sorry that it makes you feel so," he said, "but it can't be helped.
+Don't cry, I can't bear to see you cry. Good-bye, Pauline; God
+bless you."
+
+And he was gone. I did not realize it, and did not lift my head, till I
+heard the heavy sound of the outer door closing after him.
+
+Then I knew it was all over, and that things were changed for me
+indeed.
+
+"I cannot cry and get over it as you can," he had said.
+
+And if tears would have got me over it, I should have been cured that
+night.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+MY NEW WORLD.
+
+     Few are the fragments left of follies past;
+     For worthless things are transient. Those that last
+     Have in them germs of an eternal spirit,
+     And out of good their permanence inherit.
+
+                                      _Bowring_.
+
+
+         Nor they unblest,
+     Who underneath the world's bright vest
+     With sackcloth tame their aching breast,
+     The sharp-edged cross in jewels hide.
+
+                                    _Keble_.
+
+
+From eighteen to twenty-four--a long step; and it covers the ground that
+is generally the brightest and gayest in a woman's life, and the most
+decisive. With me it was, in a certain sense, bright and gay; but the
+deciding events of my life seemed to have been crowded into the year,
+the story of which has just been told. Of the six years that came after,
+there is not much to tell. My character went on forming itself, no
+doubt, and interiorly I was growing in one direction or the other; but
+in external matters, there is not much of interest.
+
+I had "no end of money," so it seemed to me, and to a good many other
+people, I should think, from the way that they paid me court. I don't
+see why it did not turn my head, except that I was what they call
+religious, and dreadfully afraid of doing wrong. I was not my own
+mistress exactly, either, for I had some one to direct my conscience,
+though that was the only direction that I ever had. I had not the
+smallest restriction as to money from Richard (to whom the estate was
+left in trust); and it had been found much to exceed his expectations,
+or those of anybody else.
+
+I had the whole world before me, where to go and what to choose; not
+very much stability of character, and the greatest ignorance; a
+considerable share of good looks, and the love of pleasure inseparable
+from youth and health; absolutely no authority, and any amount of
+flattery and temptation. I think it must be agreed, it was a happy thing
+for me that I was brought under the influence of Sister Madeline, and
+that through her I was made to feel most afraid of sin, and of myself;
+and that the life within, the growth in grace, and the keeping clear my
+conscience, was made to appear of more consequence than the life
+without, that was so full of pleasures and of snares.
+
+I often think now of the obedience with which I would give up a party,
+stay at home alone, and read a good book, because I had been advised to
+do it, or because it was a certain day; of the simplicity with which I
+would pat away a novel, when its interest was at the height, because it
+was the hour for me to read something different, or because it was
+Friday, or because I was to learn to give up doing what I wanted to.
+
+These things, trivial in themselves, and never bound upon my conscience,
+only offered as advice, had the effect of breaking up the constant
+influence of the world, giving me a little time for thought, and
+opportunity for self-denial. I cannot help thinking such things are very
+useful for young persons, and particularly those who have only ordinary
+force and resolution. At least, I think they were made a means of
+security to me. I was so in earnest to do right, that I often thought,
+in terror for myself, in the midst of alluring pleasures and delights,
+it was a pity they had not let me be a Sister when I wanted to at first.
+(I really think I had more vocation than they thought: I could have
+_given up_, to the end of life, without a murmur, if that is what is
+necessary.) As to the people who wanted to marry me, I did not care for
+any of them, and seemed to have much less coquetry than of old. They
+simply did not interest me, (of course, in a few years, I had outgrown
+the love that I had supposed to be so immortal.) It was very pleasant to
+be always attended to, and to have more constant homage than any other
+young woman whom I saw. But as to liking particularly any of the men
+themselves, it never occurred to me to think of it.
+
+I was placed by my fortunate circumstances rather above the intrigue,
+and detraction, and heart-burning, that attends the social struggle for
+life in ordinary cases. If I were envied, I did not know it, and I had
+small reason to envy anybody else, being quite the queen.
+
+I enjoyed above measure, the bright and pleasant things that I had at my
+command: the sunny rooms of my pretty house: the driving, the sailing,
+the dancing: all that charms a healthy young taste, and is innocent. I
+took journeys, with the ecstasy of youth and of good health. I never
+shall forget the pleasure of certain days and skies, and the enjoyment
+that I had in nature. In society, I had a little more weariness, as I
+grew older, and found a certain want of interest, as was inevitable.
+Society isn't all made up of clever people, and even clever people get
+to be tiresome in the course of time. But at twenty-four I was by no
+means _blase_, only more addicted to books and journeys, and less
+enthusiastic about parties and croquet, though these I could enjoy a
+little yet.
+
+I had a pretty house (and re-furnished it very often, which always gave
+me pleasure). I had no care, for Richard had arranged that I should have
+a very excellent sort of person for duenna, who had a good deal of tact,
+and didn't bore me, and was shrewd enough to make things very smooth. I
+liked her very much, though I think now she was something of a
+hypocrite. But she had enough principle to make things very respectable,
+and I never took her for a friend. We had very pretty little dinners,
+and little evenings when anybody wanted them, though the house wasn't
+very large. My duenna (by name Throckmorton) liked journeys as well as I
+did, and never objected to going anywhere. Altogether we were very
+comfortable.
+
+The people whom I had known in that first year of my social existence,
+had drifted away from me a good deal in this new life. Sophie I could
+not help meeting sometimes, for she was still a gay woman, but I
+naturally belonged to a younger set, and did not go very long into
+general society. We still disliked each other with the cordiality of our
+first acquaintance, but I was very sorry for it, and had a great many
+repentances about it after every meeting. Kilian I met a good deal, but
+we rather avoided each other, at short range, though exceedingly good
+friends to the general observation.
+
+Mary Leighton I seldom saw; no doubt she was consumed with envy when she
+heard of me, for they were poor, and not able to keep up with gay life
+as would have pleased her. She still maintained her intimacy with
+Kilian, for he had not the resolution to break off a flirtation of
+which, I was sure, he must be very tired.
+
+Henrietta had married very well, two years after I saw her at R----, and
+was the staid, placid matron that she was always meant to be.
+
+Charlotte Benson was the clever woman still: a little stronger-minded,
+and no less good-looking than of old, and no more. People were beginning
+to say that she would not marry, though she was only twenty-six. She did
+not go much to parties, and was not in my set. She affected art and
+lectures, and excursions to mountains, and campings-out, and
+unconventionalities, and no doubt had a good time in her way. But it was
+not my way: and so we seldom met. When we did, she did not show much
+more respect for me than of old, which always had the effect of making
+me feel angry.
+
+And as for Richard, we could not have been much further apart, if he
+had lived "in England and I at Rotterdam." For a year, while he was
+settling up the estate, he was closely in the city. I did not see him
+more than once or twice, all business being transacted through his
+lawyer, and the clerk of whom he had spoken to me. After the business
+matters of the estate were all in order, he went away, intending, I
+believe, to stay a year or two. But he came back before many months were
+over, and settled down into the routine of business life, which now
+seemed to have become necessary to him.
+
+Travel was only a weariness to him in his state of mind; and work, and
+city-life, seemed the panacea. He did not live with Sophie, but took
+apartments, which he furnished plainly; and seemed settling down,
+according to his brother, into much of the sort of life that Uncle
+Leonard had led so many years in Varick-street.
+
+Sophie still went to R----, and I often heard of the pleasant parties
+there in summer. But Richard seldom went, and seemed to have lost his
+interest in the place, though I have no doubt he spent more money on it
+than before. I heard of many improvements every year.
+
+And Richard was now a man of wealth, so much so that people talked about
+him; and the newspapers said, in talking about real-estate, or
+investments, or institutions of charity--"When such men as Richard
+Vandermarck allow their names to appear, we may be sure," etc., etc. He
+was now the head of the firm, and one of the first business men of the
+city. He seemed a great deal older than he was; thirty-seven is young to
+occupy the place he held.
+
+Such a _parti_ could not be let alone entirely. His course was certainly
+discouraging, and it needs tough hopes to live on nothing. But stranger
+things had happened; more obdurate men had yielded; and unappropriated
+loveliness hoped on. The story of an early attachment was afloat in
+connection with his name. I don't know whether I was made to play a part
+in it or not.
+
+I saw him, perhaps, twice a year, not oftener. His manner was always, to
+me, peculiarly grave and kind; to every one, practical and unpretending.
+I had many letters from him, particularly when I was away on journeys.
+He seemed always to want to know exactly where I was, and to feel a care
+of me, though his letters never went beyond business matters, and advice
+about things I did not understand.
+
+As my guardian, he could not have done less, nor was it necessary that
+he should do more; still I often wished it would occur to him to come
+and see me oftener, and give me an opportunity of showing him how much
+I had improved, and how different I had become. I had the greatest
+respect for his opinion; and he had grown, unconsciously to myself, to
+be a sort of oracle with me, and a sort of hero, too.
+
+I was apt to compare other men with him, and they fell very far short of
+his measure in my eyes. That may have been because I saw him much too
+seldom, and the other men much too often.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+BIEN PERDU, BIEN CONNU.
+
+     Keep, therefore, a true woman's eye,
+     And love me still, but know not why;
+       So hast thou the same reason still
+         To doat upon me ever!
+
+
+"It's very nice to be at home again," I said to Mrs. Throckmorton, as I
+broke a great lump of coal in pieces, and watched the flames
+with pleasure.
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Throckmorton, putting another piece of sugar in her
+coffee, for she was still at the table. "That is, if you call this home;
+I must confess it doesn't feel so to me altogether."
+
+"Well, it's our own dear, noisy, raging, racketing, bustling old city,
+if it isn't our own house, and I'm sure we're very comfortable."
+
+"Very," said Mrs. Throckmorton, who was always pleased.
+
+"Every time I hear the tinkle of a car-bell, or the roar of an omnibus,
+I feel a thrill of pleasure," I said; "I never was so glad to get
+anywhere before."
+
+"That's something new, isn't it?" said Mrs. Throckmorton, briefly.
+
+"I don't know; I think I am always glad to get back home."
+
+"And very glad to go away again too, my dear."
+
+"I don't think I shall travel any more," I returned. "The fact is, I am
+getting too old to care about it, I believe."
+
+Mrs. Throckmorton laughed, being considerably over forty, and still as
+fond of going about as ever.
+
+We were only _de retour_ two days. We had started eighteen months ago,
+for at least three years in Europe, and I had found myself unaccountably
+tired of it at the end of a year and a half; and here we were.
+
+Our house was rented, but that I had not allowed to be any obstacle,
+though Mrs. Throckmorton, who was very well satisfied with the easy life
+abroad, had tried to make it so. I had secured apartments which were
+very pretty and complete. We had found them in order, and we had come
+there from the steamer. I was eminently happy at being where I wanted
+to be.
+
+"How odd it seems to be in town and have nobody know it," I said,
+thinking, with a little quiet satisfaction, how pleased several people I
+could name would be, if they only knew we were so near them.
+
+"Nobody but Mr. Vandermarck, I suppose," said Mrs. Throckmorton.
+
+"Not even he," I answered, "for he can't have got my letter yet; it was
+only mailed the day we started. It was only a chance, you know, our
+getting those staterooms, and we were in such a hurry. I was so much
+obliged to that dear, old German gentleman for dying. We shouldn't have
+been here if he hadn't."
+
+"Pauline, my dear!"
+
+"Well, I can't think, as he's probably in heaven, that he can have
+begrudged us his tickets to New York."
+
+"I should think not," said Mrs. Throckmorton, with a little sigh. For
+New York was not heaven to her, and she had spent a good deal of the day
+in looking up the necessary servants for our establishment, which,
+little as it was, required just double the number that had made us
+comfortable abroad.
+
+She had too much discretion to trouble me with her cares, however, so
+she said cheerfully, after a few moments, by way of diverting my mind
+and her own--
+
+"Well, I heard some news to-day."
+
+"Ah!"--(I had been unpacking all day; and Mrs. Throckmorton in the
+interval of servant-hunting had not been able to refrain from a visit or
+two, _en passant_ to dear friends.)
+
+"Yes: Kilian Vandermarck was married yesterday."
+
+"Yesterday! how odd. And pray, who has he married? Not Mary Leighton, I
+should hope."
+
+"Leighton. Yes, that's the name. No money, and a little _passe_.
+Everybody wonders."
+
+"Well, he deserves it. That is even-handed justice, I'm not sorry for
+him. He's been trifling all his days, and now he's got his punishment.
+It serves Sophie right, too. I know she can't endure her. She never
+thought there was the slightest danger. But I'm sorry for Richard, that
+he's got to have such a girl related to him."
+
+"Oh, well," said Mrs. Throckmorton, "I don't know whether that'll affect
+him very much, for they say he's going to be married too."
+
+"Richard!"
+
+"Yes; and to that Benson girl, you know."
+
+"Who told you?"
+
+"Mary Ann. She's heard it half a dozen times, she says. I believe it's
+rather an old affair. His sister made it up, I'm told. The young lady's
+been spending the summer with them, and this autumn it came out."
+
+"I don't believe it."
+
+"I'm sure I don't know; only that's the talk. It would be odd, though,
+if we'd just come home in time for the wedding. You'll have to give her
+something handsome, being your guardian, and all."
+
+I wouldn't give her anything, and she shouldn't marry Richard, I
+thought, as I leaned back in my chair and looked into the fire; a great
+silence having fallen on us since the delivery of that piece of news.
+
+I said I didn't believe it, and yet I'm afraid I did. It was so like a
+man to give in at last; at least, like any man but Richard. He had
+always liked Charlotte Benson, and known how clever she was, and Sophie
+had been so set upon it, (particularly since Richard had had so much
+money that he had given her a handsome settlement that nothing would
+affect.) And now that Kilian was married and would have the place,
+unless Richard wanted it, it was natural that Sophie should approve
+Richard having _his_ wife there instead of Kilian having his; Kilian's
+being one that nobody particularly approved.
+
+Yes, it did sound very much like probability. I wasn't given to
+self-analysis; but I acknowledged to myself, that I was very much
+disappointed, and that if I had known that this was going to happen, I
+should have stayed in Europe.
+
+I had never felt as if there were any chance of Richard marrying any
+one; I had not said to myself, that his love for me still had an
+existence, nor had I any reason to believe it. But the truth had been,
+I had always felt that he belonged to me, and was my right, and I felt a
+bitter resentment toward this woman, who was supposed to have usurped my
+place. How _dared_ Richard love anybody else! I was angry with him, and
+very much hurt, and very, very unhappy.
+
+Long after Mrs. Throckmorton went to her middle-aged repose, I sat up
+and went through imaginary scenes, and reviewed the situation a hundred
+times, and tried to convince myself of what I wanted to believe, and
+ended without any satisfaction.
+
+One thing was certain. If Richard was going to marry Charlotte Benson,
+he was not going to do it because he loved her. He might not be
+prevented from doing it because he loved me; but he did not love her. I
+could not say why exactly. But I knew she was not the kind of woman for
+him to think of loving, and I would not believe it till I heard it from
+himself, and I would hear it from himself at the earliest possible date.
+I did not like to be unhappy, and was very impatient to get rid of this,
+if it were not true, and to know the worst, at once, if it were.
+
+"My dear Throcky," I said to my companion, at the breakfast-table, "I
+think you'd better go and take dinner with your niece to-day. I've sent
+for Mr. Vandermarck to come and dine, and I thought perhaps you'd
+rather not be bored; we shall have business to talk about, and business
+is such a nuisance when you're not interested in it."
+
+"Very well, my dear," said Mrs. Throckmorton, with indestructible
+good-humor.
+
+"Or you might have a headache, if you'd rather, and I'll send your
+dinner up to you. I'll be sure Susan takes you everything that's nice."
+
+"Well, then, I think I'll have a headache; I'm afraid I'd rather have it
+than one of Mary Ann's poor dinners. (I'd be sure of one to-morrow if
+I went.)"
+
+"Paris things have spoiled you, I'm afraid," I said. "Only see that I
+have something nice for Richard, won't you?--How do you think the cook
+is going to do?" This was the first sign of interest I had given in the
+matter of _menage_; by which it will be seen I was still a little
+selfish, and not very wise. But Throckmorton was a person to cultivate
+my selfishness, and there had not been much to develop the wisdom of
+common life.
+
+She promised me a very pretty dinner, no matter at what trouble, and
+made me feel quite easy about her wounded feelings. One of the best
+features of Throckmorton was, she hadn't any feelings; you might treat
+her like a galley-slave, and she would show the least dejection. It was
+a temptation to have such a person in the house.
+
+I had sent a note to Richard which contained the following:
+
+/#
+     "DEAR RICHARD:
+
+     "I am sure you will be surprised to know we have returned.
+     But the fact is, I got very tired of Italy; and we were
+     disappointed in the apartments we wanted in Berlin, and some
+     of the people we expected to have with us had to give it up,
+     and altogether it seemed dull, and we thought it would be
+     just as pleasant to come home. We were able to get staterooms
+     that just suited us, and it didn't seem worth while to lose
+     them by waiting to send word. We had a very comfortable
+     voyage, and I am glad to find myself at home, though Mrs.
+     Throckmorton doesn't think the rooms are very nice. I want to
+     know if you won't come to dinner. We dine at six. Send a line
+     back by the boy. I want to ask you about some
+     business matters.
+
+     "Affectionately yours,
+
+     "PAULINE."
+#/
+
+And I had received for answer:
+
+/#
+     "MY DEAR PAULINE:
+
+     "Of course I am astonished to think you are at home. I
+     enclosed you several letters by the steamer yesterday, none
+     of them of any very great importance, though, I think. I will
+     come up at six.
+
+     "Always yours,
+
+     "RICHARD VANDERMARCK.
+
+     "P.S. I am very glad you wanted to come home."
+#/
+
+I read this letter over a great many times, but it did not enlighten me
+at all as to his intentions about marrying Charlotte Benson. It was very
+matter-of-fact, but that Richard's letters always were. Evidently he had
+thought the same of it himself, as he read it over, and had added the
+postscript. But that did not seem very enthusiastic. Altogether I was
+not happy, waiting for six o'clock to come.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+A DINNER
+
+     Time and chance are but a tide,
+     Slighted love is sair to bide.
+
+
+The dining-room and parlor of our little suite adjoined; the door was
+standing open between them, as I walked up and down the parlor, waiting
+nervously for Richard to arrive. The fire was bright, and the only light
+in the parlor was a soft, pretty lamp, which we had brought from Italy.
+There were flowers on the table, and in two or three vases, and the
+curtains were pretty, and there were several large mirrors. Outside, it
+was the twilight of a dark autumnal day; almost night already, and the
+lamps were lit. It lacked several minutes of six when Richard came. I
+felt very much agitated when he entered the room. It was a year and a
+half since I had seen him: besides, this piece of news! But he looked
+just the same as ever, and I had not the self-possession to note whether
+he seemed agitated at meeting me. I do not know exactly what we talked
+about for the first few moments, probably I was occupied in trying to
+excuse myself for coming home so suddenly, for I found Richard was not
+altogether pleased at not having been informed, and thought there must
+be something yet to tell. He was not used to feminine caprice, and I
+began to feel a good deal ashamed of myself. I had to remind myself,
+more than once, that I was not responsible to any one.
+
+"I just felt like it," was such a very weak explanation to offer to this
+grave business-man, for disarranging two years of carefully-laid plans.
+
+I found I was getting to be a little afraid of Richard: we had been so
+long apart, and he had grown so much older.
+
+"I hope, at least, you are not going to scold me for it," I said at
+last, with a little laugh, feeling that was my best way out of it. "I
+shall think you are not glad, to see me."
+
+"I am glad to see you," he said, gravely; "and as to scolding, it's so
+long since you've given me an opportunity, I should not know how to
+go to work."
+
+"Do you mean, because I've been away so long, or because I've been so
+good?"
+
+Susan, who had been watching her opportunity, now appeared in the
+dining-room door, and said that dinner was on the table.
+
+Richard asked for Mrs. Throckmorton when we sat down to dinner. I told
+him she was dining with her niece. (She had reconsidered the question of
+the headache, and had gone to hear more news.) The dinner was very nice,
+and very nicely served; but somehow, Richard did not seem to enjoy it
+very much, that is, not as I had been in the habit lately of seeing men
+enjoy their meals.
+
+"I am afraid you are getting like Uncle Leonard, and only care about
+Wall-street," I said. "I shouldn't wonder if you forgot to order your
+dinner half the time, and took the same thing for breakfast every
+morning in the year."
+
+"That's just exactly how it is," he said. "If Sophie did not come down
+to my quarters every week or two, and regulate affairs a little, I don't
+know where I should be, in the matter of my dinners."
+
+"How is Sophie?" I said.
+
+"Very well. I saw her yesterday. I went to put Charley in College for
+her."
+
+"I can't think of Charley as a young man."
+
+"Yes, Charley is a strapping fellow, within two inches of my height."
+
+"Impossible! And where is Benny?"
+
+"At school here in town. His mother will not let him go to
+boarding-school. He is a nice boy: I think there's more in him
+than Charley."
+
+"And I hear Kilian is married!"
+
+"Yes. Kilian is married--the very day you landed, too."
+
+"Well," I said, with a little dash of temper, "I'm very sorry for you
+all. I did not think Kilian was going to be so foolish."
+
+"He thinks he's very wise, though, all the same," said Richard, with a
+smile, which turned into a sigh before he had done speaking.
+
+"I do dislike her so," I exclaimed, warmly. "There isn't an honest or
+straightforward thing about her. She is weak, too; her only strength is
+her suppleness and cunning."
+
+"I know you never liked her," said Richard, gravely; "but I hope you'll
+try to think better of her now."
+
+"I hope I shall never have to see her," I answered, with angry warmth.
+
+Richard was silent, and I was very much ashamed of myself a moment
+after. I had meant him to see how much improved I was, and how well
+disciplined. This was a pretty exhibition! I had not spoken so of any
+one for a year, at least. I colored with mortification and penitence.
+Richard evidently saw it, and felt sorry for me, for he said,
+most kindly,
+
+"I can understand exactly how you feel, Pauline. This marriage is a
+great trial to me. I have done all I could to keep Kilian from throwing
+himself away, but I might as well have argued with the winds."
+
+"I don't care how much Kilian throws himself away," I said, impulsively.
+"He deserves it for keeping around her all these years. But I do mind
+that she is your sister, and that she will be mistress of the house
+at R----."
+
+There was an awful silence then. Heavens! what had I been thinking about
+to have said that! I had precipitated the _denouement_, and I had not
+meant to. I did not want to hear it that moment, if he were going to
+marry Charlotte Benson, nor did I want to hear it, if he were saving the
+old place for me. I felt as if I had given the blow that would bring the
+whole structure down, and I waited for the crash in frightened silence.
+
+In the meantime the business of the table went on. I ate half a chicken
+croquette, and Susan placed the salad before Richard, and another plate.
+He did not speak till he had put the salad on his plate; then he said,
+without looking at me, in a voice a good deal lower than was usual
+to him,
+
+"She is not to be mistress of that house. They will live in town."
+
+Then I felt cold and chilled to my very heart; it was well that he did
+not expect me to speak, for I could not have commanded my voice enough
+to have concealed my agitation. I knew very well from that moment that
+he was going to marry Charlotte Benson. Something that was said a little
+later was a confirmation.
+
+I had recovered myself enough to talk about ordinary things, and to keep
+strictly to them, too. Richard was talking of the great heat of the past
+summer. I had said it had been unparalleled in France; had he not found
+it very uncomfortable here in town?
+
+"I have been out of town so much, I can hardly say how it has been
+here," he answered. "I was all of August in the country; only coming to
+the city twice."
+
+My heart sank: that was just what they had said; he had been a great
+deal at home this summer, and she had been there all the time.
+
+The dinner was becoming terribly _ennuyant_, and I wished with all my
+heart Throckmorton had been contented with just half the courses.
+Richard did not seem to enjoy them, and I--I was so wretched I could
+scarcely say a word, much less eat a morsel. It had been a great
+mistake to invite him to take dinner; it was being too familiar, when he
+had put me at such a distance all these years: I wished for Mrs.
+Throckmorton with all my heart. Why had I sent her off? Richard was
+evidently so constrained, and it was in such bad taste to have asked him
+here; it could not help putting thoughts in both our minds, sitting
+alone at a table opposite each other, as we should have been sitting
+daily if that horrid will had not been found. He had dined with us just
+twice before, but that was at dinner-parties, when there had been ever
+so many people between us, and when I had not said six words to him
+during the whole evening.
+
+The only excuse I could offer, and that he could understand, would be
+that I wanted to talk business to him; I had said in my note that I
+wanted to consult him about something, and I must keep that in mind. I
+had wanted to ask him about a house I thought of buying, adjoining the
+Sisters' Hospital, to enlarge their work; but I was so wicked and
+worldly, I felt just then as if I did not care whether they had a house
+or not, or whether they did any work. However, I resolved to speak about
+it, when we had got away from the table, if we ever did.
+
+Susan kept bringing dish after dish.
+
+"Oh, we don't want any of that!" I exclaimed, at last, impatiently; "do
+take it away, and tell them to send in the coffee."
+
+I was resolved upon one thing: Richard should tell me of his engagement
+before he went away; it would be dishonorable and unkind if he did not,
+and I should make him do it. I was not quite sure that I had
+self-control enough not to show how it made me feel, when it came to
+hearing it all in so many words. But in very truth, I had not much pride
+as regarded him; I felt so sore-hearted and unhappy, I did not care much
+whether he knew it or suspected it.
+
+I could not help remembering how little concealment he had made of his
+love for me, even when he knew that all the heart I had was given to
+another. I would be very careful not to precipitate the disclosure,
+however, while we sat at table; it is so disagreeable to talk to any one
+on an agitating subject _vis-a-vis_ across a little dinner-table, with a
+bright light overhead, and a servant walking around, able to stop and
+study you from any point she pleases.
+
+Coffee came at last, though even that, Susan was unwilling to look upon
+as the legitimate finale, and had her views about liqueur, instructed by
+Throckmorton. But I cut it short by getting up and saying, "I'm sure
+you'll be glad to go into the parlor; it gets warm so soon in these
+little rooms."
+
+The parlor was very cool and pleasant; a window had been open, and the
+air was fresh, and the flowers were delicious, and the lamp was softer
+and pleasanter than the gas. I went to break up the coal and make the
+fire blaze, and Richard to shut the window down.
+
+When I had pulled a chair up to the fire and seated myself, he stood
+leaning on the mantelpiece, on the other side from me. I felt sure he
+meant to go, the minute that he could get away--a committee meeting, no
+doubt, or some such nauseous fraud. But he should not go away until he
+had told me, that was certain.
+
+"What is it that you wanted to ask me about, Pauline?" he said, rather
+abruptly.
+
+My heart gave a great thump; how could he have known? Oh, it was the
+business that I had spoken of in my stupid note. Yes; and I began to
+explain to him what I wanted to do about the hospital.
+
+He looked infinitely relieved. I believe he had an idea it was something
+very different. My explanation could not have added much to his
+reverence for my business ability. I was very indefinite, and could not
+tell him whether it was hundreds or thousands that I meant.
+
+He said, with a smile, he thought it must be thousands, as city property
+was so very high. He was very kind, however, about the matter, and did
+not discourage me at all. He always seemed to approve of my desire to
+give away in charity, and, within bounds, always furthered such plans of
+doing good. He said he would look into it, and would write me word next
+week what his impression was; and then, I think, he meant to go away.
+
+Then I began talking on every subject I could think of, hoping some of
+the roads would lead to Rome. But none of them led there, and I was
+in despair.
+
+"Oh, don't you want to look at some photographs?" I said, at last,
+thinking I saw an opening for my wedge. I got the package, and he came
+to the table and looked at them, standing up. They were naturally of
+much more interest to me than to him, being of places and people with
+which I had so lately been familiar.
+
+But he looked at them very kindly, and asked a good many questions about
+them.
+
+"Look at this," I said, handing him an Antwerp peasant-woman in her
+hideous bonnet. "Isn't that ridiculously like Charlotte Benson? I bought
+it because it was so singular a resemblance."
+
+"It is like her," he said, thoughtfully, looking at it long. "The mouth
+is a little larger and the eyes further apart. But it is a most striking
+likeness. It might almost have been taken for her."
+
+"How is she, and when have you seen her?" I said, a little choked for
+breath.
+
+"She is very well. I saw her yesterday," he answered, still looking at
+the little picture.
+
+"Was she with Sophie this summer?"
+
+"Yes, for almost two months."
+
+"I hope she doesn't keep everybody in order as sharply as she used to?"
+I said, with a bitter little laugh.
+
+"I don't know," he said. "I think, perhaps, she is rather less decided
+than she used to be."
+
+"Oh, you call it decision, do you? Well, I'm glad I know what it is. I
+used to think it hadn't such a pretty name as that."
+
+Richard looked grave; it certainly was not a graceful way to lead up to
+congratulations.
+
+"But then, you always liked her," I said.
+
+"Yes, I always liked her," he answered, simply.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm not very amiable," I retorted, "for I never liked her:
+no better even than that fraudulent Mary Leighton, clever and sensible
+as she always was. There is such a thing as being too clever, and too
+sensible, and making yourself an offence to all less admirable people."
+
+Richard was entirely silent, and, I was sure, was disapproving of me
+very much.
+
+"Do you know what I heard yesterday?" I said, In a daring way. "And I
+hope you're going to tell me if it's true, to-night?"
+
+"What was it that you heard yesterday?" he asked, without much change of
+tone. He had laid down the photograph, and had gone back, and was
+leaning by the mantelpiece again.
+
+"Why, I heard that you were going to marry Charlotte Benson. Is it
+true?"
+
+I had pushed away the pile of photographs from me, and had looked up at
+him when I began, but my voice and courage rather failed before the end,
+and my eyes fell. There was a silence--a silence that seemed to
+stifle me.
+
+"Why do you ask me that question?" he said, at last, in a low voice. "Do
+you believe I am, yourself?"
+
+"No," I cried, springing up, and going over to his side. "No, I don't
+believe it. Tell me it isn't true, and promise me you won't ever, ever
+marry Charlotte Benson."
+
+The relief was so unspeakable that I didn't care what I said, and the
+joy I felt showed itself in my face and voice. I put out my hand to him
+when I said "promise me," but he did not take it, and turned his head
+away from me.
+
+"I shall not marry Charlotte Benson," he said; "but I cannot understand
+what difference it makes to you."
+
+It was now my turn to be silent, and I shrank back a step or two in
+great confusion.
+
+He raised his head, and looked steadily at me for a moment, and then
+said:
+
+"Pauline, you did a great many things, but I don't think you ever
+willingly deceived me. Did you?"
+
+I shook my head without looking lip.
+
+"Then be careful what you do now, and let the past alone," he said, and
+his voice was almost stern.
+
+I trembled, and turned pale.
+
+"Women sometimes play with dangerous weapons," he said; "I don't accuse
+you of meaning to give pain, but only of forgetting that some
+recollections are not to you what they are to me. I never want to
+interfere with any one's comfort or enjoyment; I only want to be let
+alone. I do very well, and am not unhappy. About marrying, now or ever,
+I should have thought you would have known. But let me tell you once for
+all: I haven't any thought of it, and shall not ever have. It is not
+that I am holding to any foolish hopes. It would be exactly the same if
+you were married, or had died. It simply isn't in my nature to feel the
+same way a second time. People are made differently, that is all. I'm
+very well contented, and you need never let it worry you."
+
+He was very pale now, and his eyes had an expression I had never seen in
+them before.
+
+"Richard," I said, faintly, "I never _have_ deceived you: believe me now
+when I tell you, I am sorry from my heart for all that's past."
+
+"You told me so before, and I did forgive you. I forgave you fully, and
+have never had a thought that wasn't kind."
+
+"I know it," I said. "But you do not trust me--you don't ever come near
+me, or want to see me."
+
+"You do not know what you are talking of," he answered, turning from me.
+"I forgive you anything you may have done at any time to give me pain. I
+will do everything I can to serve you, in every way I can; only do not
+stir up the past, and let me forget the little of it that I can forget."
+
+I burst into tears, and put my hands before my face.
+
+"What is it?" he said, uneasily. "You need not be troubled about me."
+
+Seeing that I did not stop, he said again, "Tell me: is it that that
+troubles you?"
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"What is it, then? Something that I do not know about? Pauline, you are
+unhappy, and yet you've everything in the world to make you happy. I
+often think, there are not many women have as much."
+
+"The poorest of them are better off than I," I said, without raising my
+head.
+
+"Then you are ungrateful," he said, "for you have youth, and health, and
+money, and everybody likes you. You could choose from all the world."
+
+"No, I couldn't," I exclaimed, like a child; "and everybody doesn't like
+me,"--and then I cried again, for I was really in despair, and thought
+he meant to put me away, memory and all.
+
+"Well, if that's your trouble," he said, with a sigh, "I suppose I
+cannot help you; but I'm very sorry."
+
+"Yes, you _can_ help me," I cried imploringly, forgetting all I ought to
+have remembered; "if you only would forgive me, really and in earnest,
+and be friends again--and let me try--" and I covered my face with
+my hands.
+
+"Pauline," he said, standing by my side, and his voice almost frightened
+me, it was so strong with feeling; "is this a piece of sentiment? Do you
+mean anything? Or am I to be trifled with again?"
+
+He took hold of my wrists with both his hands, with such force as to
+give me pain, and drew them from my face.
+
+"Look at me," he said, "and tell me what you mean; and decide
+now--forever and forever. For this is the last time that you will have a
+chance to say."
+
+"It's all very well," I said, trying to turn my face away from him.
+"It's all very well to talk about loving me yet, and being just the
+same; but this isn't the way you used to talk, and I think it's
+very hard--"
+
+"That isn't answering me," he said, holding me closer to him.
+
+"What shall I say," I whispered, hiding my face upon his arm. "Nothing
+will ever satisfy you."
+
+"Nothing ever _has_ satisfied me," he said, "--before."
+
+
+
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