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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."
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RICHARD VANDERMARCK***
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