But Nina knew better. Clouded as was her reason, she penetrated the mask he wore, and saw where the turbulent waters surged around him, while with an iron will and a brave heart he contended with the angry waves, and so outrode the storm. And as she watched them day after day, the purpose grew strong within her that if it were possible the marriage of Edith and Richard should be prevented, and as soon as she was able to talk she broached the subject to them both.

"Stay, Miggie," she said to Edith, who was stealing from the room. "Hear me this once. You are together now, you and Arthur."

"Nina," said the latter, pitying Edith's agitation, "You will spare us both much pain if you never allude again to what under other circumstances might have been."

"But I must," cried Nina. "Oh, Arthur, why won't you go to Richard and tell him all about it?"

"Because it would be wrong," was Arthur's answer, and then Nina turned to Edith, "Why won't you, Miggie?"

"Because I have solemnly promised that I would not," was her reply.

And Nina rejoined, "Then I shall write. He loved little Snow Drop. He'll heed what she says when she speaks from the grave. I'll send him a letter."

"Who'll take it or read it to him if you do?" Arthur asked, and the troubled eyes of blue turned anxiously to Edith.

"Miggie, sister, won't you?"

Edith shook her head, not very decidedly, it is true, still it was a negative shake, and Nina said, "Arthur boy, will you?"

"No, Nina, no."

Hia answer was determined, and poor, discouraged Nina sobbed aloud, "Who will, who will?"

In the adjoining room there was a rustling sound—a coming footstep, and Victor Dupres appeared in the door. He had been an unwilling hearer of that conversation, and when Nina cried "who will?" he started up, and coming into the room as if by accident, advanced to the bedside and asked in his accustomed friendly way, "How is Nina to-night?" Then bending over her so that no one should hear, he whispered softly, "Don't tell them, but I'll read that letter to Richard!"

Nina understood him and held his hand a moment while she looked the thanks she dared not speak.

"Nina must not talk any more" Arthur said, as Victor walked away, "she is wearing out too fast," and with motherly tenderness he smoothed her tumbled pillow—pushed back behind her ears the tangled curls—kissed her forehead, and then went out into the deepening night, whose cool damp air was soothing to his burning brow, and whose sheltering mantle would tell no tales of his white face or of the cry which came heaving up from where the turbulent waters lay, "if it be possible let this temptation pass from me, or give me strength to resist it."

His prayer was heard—the turmoil ceased at last—the waters all were stilled, and Arthur went back to Nina, a calm, quiet man, ready and willing to meet whatever the future might bring.



CHAPTER XXXI.

LAST DAYS.

"Aunt Hannah will stay with me to-night," Nina said to Arthur the next day, referring to an old negress who had taken cure of her when a child; and Arthur yielded to her request the more willingly, because of his own weariness.

Accordingly old Hannah was installed watcher in the sick room, receiving orders that her patient should not on any account be permitted to talk more than was absolutely necessary. Nina heard this injunction of Arthur and a smile of cunning flitted across her face as she thought how she would turn it to her own advantage in case Hannah refused to comply with her request, which she made as soon as they were left alone.

Hannah must first prop her up in bed, she said, and then give her her port-folio, paper, pen and ink. As she expected, the negress objected at once, bidding her be still, but Nina declared her intention of talking as fast and as loudly as she could, until her wish was gratified. Then Hannah threatened calling Arthur, thereupon the willful little lady rejoined, "I'll scream like murder, if you do, and burst every single blood-vessel I've got, so bring me the paper, please, or shall I got it myself," and she made a motion as if the would leap upon the floor, while poor old Hannah, regretting the task she had undertaken, was compelled to submit and bring the writing materials as desired.

"Now you go to sleep," Nina said coaxingly, and as old Hannah found but little difficulty in obeying the command, Nina was left to herself while she wrote that long, long message, a portion of which we give below.

"DEAR MR. RICHARD:

"Poor blind man! Nina is so sorry for you to-night, because she knows that what she has to tell you will crush the strong life all out of your big heart, and leave it as cold and dead as she will be when Victor reads this to you. There won't be any Nina then, for Miggie and Arthur, and a heap more, will have gone with their way out where both my mothers are lying, and Miggie'll cry, I reckon when she hears the gravel stones ruttling down just over my head, but I shall know they cannot hit me, for the coffin-lid will be between, and Nina'll lie so still. No more pain; no more buzzing; no more headache; no more darkness; won't it be grand, the rest I'm going to. I shan't be crazy in Heaven. Arthur says so; and he knows.

"Poor Arthur! It is of him and Miggie I am writing to you, if I ever can get to them; and Richard; when you hear this read, Nina'll be there with you; but you can't see her, because you're blind, and you couldn't see if you wern't, but she'll be there just the same. She'll sit upon your knee, and wind her arms around your neck, so as to comfort you when the great cry comes in, the crash like the breaking up of the winter ice on the northern ponds, and when you feel yourself all crushed like they are in the spring, listen and you'll hear her whispering, 'Poor Richard, Nina pities you so much! She'll kiss your tears away, too, though maybe you won't feel her. And, Richard, you'll do right, won't you. You'll give Miggie up. You'll let Arthur have her, and so bring back the sunshine to her face. She's so pale now and sorry, and the darkness lies thickly around her.

"There are three kinds of darkness, Richard. One like mine, when the brain has a buzz in the middle, and everything is topsy-turvy. One, like yours, when the world is all shut out with its beauty and its flowers; and then there's another, a blacker darkness when the buzz is in the heart, making it wild with pain. Such, Richard is the darkness, which lies like a pall around our beautiful sister Miggie, and it will deepen and deepen unless you do what Nina asks you to do, and what Miggie never will, because she promised that she wouldn't——-"

Then followed the entire story of the marriage performed by Richard, of the grief which followed, of Arthur's gradually growing love of Edith, of the scene of the Deering Woods, of the incidents connected with Edith's sickness, her anguish at parting with Arthur, her love for him still, her struggles to do right, and her determination to keep her engagement even though she died in doing it.

All this was told in Nina's own peculiar style; and then came her closing appeal that Richard himself should break the bonds and set poor Miggie free.

"... It will be dreadful at first, I know, and may be all three of the darknesses will close around you for a time,—darkness of the heart, darkness of the brain, and darkness of the eyes, but it will clear away and the daylight will break, in which you will be happier than in calling Miggie your wife, and knowing how she shrinks from you, suffering your caresses only because she knows she must, but feeling so sick at her stomach all the time, and wishing you wouldn't touch her. I know just how it feels, for when Arthur kissed me, or took my hand, or even came in my sight, before the buzz got into my head, it made me so cold and faint and ugly, the way the Yankees mean, knowing he was my husband when I wanted Charlie Hudson. Don't subject Miggie to this horrid fate. Be generous and give her up to Arthur. He may not deserve her more than you, but she loves him the best and that makes a heap of difference.

"It's Nina who asks it, Richard; dead Nina not a living one. She is sitting on your knee; her arms are round your neck; her face against yours and you must not tell her no, or she'll cling to you day and night, night and day; when you are in company and when you are alone. When it is dark and lonely and all but you asleep, she'll sit upon your pillow and whisper continually, 'Give Miggie up; give Miggie up,' or if you don't, and Miggie's there beside you, Nina'll stand between you; a mighty, though invisible shield, and you'll feel it's but a mockery, the calling her your wife when her love is given to another.

"Good bye, now, Richard, good bye. My brain begins to buzz, my hand to tremble. The lines all run together, and I am most as blind as you. God bless you, Mr. Richard; bless you any way, but a heap more if you give Miggie up. May be He'll give you back your sight to pay for Miggie. I should rather have it than a wife who did not love me; and I'll tease Him till He'll let me bring it to you some day.

"Good bye, again, good bye.

"NINA ARTHUR BERNARD."

The night was nearly worn away ere the letter was finished; and Nina's eyes flashed with unwonted fire as laughing aloud at the Arthur added to her name, she laid it away beneath her pillow and then tried herself to sleep. But this last was impossible, and when the morning broke she was so much worse that the old nurse trembled lest her master should censure her severely for having yielded to her young mistress's whim. Mild and gentle as he seemed, Arthur could, if necessary, be very stern, and knowing this, old Hannah concluded at last that if Nina did not betray herself she would not, and when Arthur came, expressing his surprise at the change, and asking for its cause, she told glibly "how restless and onquiet Miss Nina done been flirtin' round till the blood all got in her head and she was dreadful."

"You should have called me," Arthur said, sitting down by Nina, whose feverish hands he clasped, while he asked, "Is my little girl's head very bad this morning?"

Nina merely nodded, for she really was too weak to talk, and Arthur watched her uneasily, wondering why it was that her eyes were fixed so constantly upon the door, as if expecting some one. When breakfast was announced she insisted that both he and Edith should leave her, and, the moment they were gone, she asked for Victor, who came at once, half guessing why he was sent for.

"Under my pillow," she whispered, as he bent over her, and in an instant the letter, of whose existence neither Arthur nor Edith suspected, was safe in Victor's pocket.

Nina had accomplished her object, and she became unusually quiet. Richard would get the letter—Richard would do right, she knew, and the conviction brought to her a deep peace, which nothing ever after disturbed. She did not speak of him again, and her last days were thus pleasanter to Edith, who, from the sweet companionship held with her gentle sister, learned in part what Nina Bernard was, ere the darkness of which she had written to Richard crept into her brain. Fair and beautiful as the white pond lily, she faded rapidly, until Arthur carried her no longer to the window, holding her in his arms while she looked out upon the yard and garden where she used to play—but she lay all day upon her bed holding Edith's hands, and talking to her of that past still so dim and vague to the latter. Marie, too, often joined them, repeating to Edith many incidents of interest connected with both her parents, but speaking most of the queenly Petrea, whom Edith so strongly resembled. Nina, too, remembered her well, and Edith was never weary of hearing her tell of the "beautiful new mamma," who kissed her so tenderly that night when she first came home, calling her la petite enfant, and placing in her arms a darling little sister, with eyes just like the stars!

Very precious to Edith was the memory of those days, when she watched the dying Nina, who, as death drew near, clung closer and closer to her sister, refusing to let her go.

"I want you with me," she said, one afternoon, when the late autumn rain was beating against the window-pane, and the clouds hung leaden and dull in the Southern sky. "I want you and Arthur, both, to lead me down to the very edge of the river, and not let go my hands until the big waves wash me away, for Nina's a wee bit of a girl, and she'll be afraid to launch out alone upon the rushing stream. I wish you'd go too, Miggie,—go over Jordan with me. Why does God make me go alone?"

"You will not go alone, my darling!" and Edith's voice was choked with tears as she told the listening Nina of one whose arm would surely hold her up, so that the waters should not overflow.

"It's the Saviour you mean," and Nina spoke reverently. "I loved Him years ago before the buzzing came, but I've been so bad since then, that I'm afraid that He'll cast me off. Will He, think? When I tell him I am little Nina Bernard come from Sunnybank, will He say, 'Go 'way old crazy Nina, that tore poor Arthur boy's hair?'"

"No, no, oh, no," and Edith sobbed impetuously as she essayed to comfort the bewildered girl, whose mind grasped but faintly the realities of eternity.

"And you'll stand on the bank till I am clear across," she said, when Edith had ceased speaking, "You and Arthur stand where I can see you if I should look back. And, Miggie, I have a presentiment that Nina'll go to-night, but I don't want any body here except you and Arthur. I remember when grandma died the negroes howled so dismally, and they didn't love her one bit either. They used to make mouths at her, and hide her teeth. But they do love me, and their screeches will get my head all in a twist. I'd rather they wouldn't know till morning; then when they ask for me Arthur'll tell them sorry like that Nina's dead; Nina's gone into the daylight, and left a world of love to them who have been so kind to her. Don't let them crowd up around me, or make too much ado. It isn't worth the while, for I'm of no account, and you'll be good to them Miggie—good to the poor ignorant blacks. They are your's after me, and I love them a heap. Don't let them be sold, will you?"

Here Nina paused, too much exhausted to talk longer, and when about dark Arthur came in, he found her asleep with Edith at her side, while upon her face and about her nose there was a sharp, pitched look he had never seen before. Intuitively, however, he knew that look was the harbinger of death, and when Edith told him what Nina had said, he felt that ere the morning came his broken lily would be gone.

Slowly the evening wore on, and one by one the family retired, leaving Arthur and Edith alone with the pale sleeper whose slumbers ended not until near the midnight hour; silently, sadly, Arthur and Edith watched her, she on one side, he upon the other, neither speaking for the sorrow which lay so heavy at their hearts, She was very beautiful as she lay there so motionless, and Arthur felt his heart clinging more and more to his fair, childish wife, while his conscience smote him cruelly for any wrong he might have done to her. She was going from him now so fast, and as the clock struck twelve the soft blue eyes unclosed and smiled up in his face with an expression which, better than words could do, told that she bore no malice toward him, nothing but trusting faith and confiding love. He had been kind to her, most kind, and she told him so again, for she seemed to know how dear to him such testimonial would be when she was gone.

"The clouds are weeping for Nina," she said, as she heard the rain still beating against the window. "Will it make the river deeper, think? I hear its roar in the distance. It's just beginning to heave in sight, and I dread it so much. 'Twill be lonesome crossing this dismal, rainy night. Oh, Arthur—boy, Arthur—boy, let me stay with you. Can't you keep me? Can't you hide me somewhere? you, Miggie? I won't be in the way. It's so icy, and the river is so deep. Save me, do!" and she stretched out her hands to Arthur as if imploring him to hold her back from the rushing stream bearing down so fast upon her.

Forcing down his own great grief, Arthur took her in his arms and hugging her fondly to him, sought to comfort her by whispering of the blessed Saviour who would carry her in His bosom beyond the swelling flood, and Nina, as she listened, grew calm and still, while something like the glory of the better land shone upon her face as she repeated after him, "There'll be no night, no darkness there, no headache, no pain,—nor buzzing either?" she suddenly asked. "Say, will there be any buzzing brains in Heaven?"

Arthur shook his head, and she continued, "That will be so nice, and Dr. Griswold will be so glad when he knows Nina is not crazy. He's gone before, I reckon, to take care of me,—gone where there's nothing but daylight, glorious, grand; kiss me again, Arthur boy. 'Tis sweet to die upon your bosom with Miggie standing near, and when you both are happy in each other's love, don't quite forget little Nina,—Nina out under the flowers, will you? She's done a heap of naughtiness, I know; but she's sorry, Arthur, she is so sorry that she ever bit your arm or tore your hair! Poor hair! Pretty brown hair! Bad Nina made the white threads come," and her childish hands caressed the thick brown locks mingling with her sunny curls, as Arthur bent over her, answering only with his tears, which fell in torrents.

"Don't, darling, don't," he said, at last. "The bad has all been on my side, and I would that you should once more say I am forgiven."

Nina gazed wonderingly at him a moment, then made a motion that he should lay her back upon the pillow.

"Now put your head down here, right on my neck—so."

He complied with her request, and placing both her bands upon the bowed head of the young man, Nina whispered,

"May the Good Shepherd, whose lamb Nina hopes to be, keep my Arthur boy, and bless him a hundred fold for all he's been to me, and if he has wronged me, which I don't believe, but if he has, will God please forgive him as fully, as freely as Nina does—the best Arthur boy that ever lived. I'll tell God all about it, and how I pestered you, and how good you were, my Arthur boy—Nina's Arthur first and Miggie's after me. Now put your arms around me again," she said, as she finished the blessing which brought such peace to Arthur. "Put them around me tight, for the river is almost here. Don't you hear its splashing? Miggie, Miggie," she cried, shivering as with an ague chill, "hold my hand with all your might, but don't let me pull you in. I'm going down the bank. My feet are in the water, and it's so freezing cold. I'm sinking, too, and the big waves roll over me. Oh, Arthur, you said it would not hurt," and the dim eyes flashed upon the weeping man a most reproachful glance, as if he had deceived her, while the feet were drawn shudderingly up, as if they had, indeed, touched the chill tide of death, and shrank affrighted from it. Edith could only sob wildly, as she grasped the clammy hand stretched toward her, but Arthur, more composed, whispered to the dying girl,

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou, Lord, art with me; thy staff and thy rod, they comfort me."

"Look away to the shore," he continued, as Nina ceased to struggle, and lay still on his bosom. "Look away to the glorious city—my darling is almost there."

"Yes, yes, I do, I am," came faintly up, and then with a glad cry of joy, which rang in their ears for many a day and night, Nina said,

"You may lay me down, my Arthur boy, and take your arm away. There's a stronger one than yours around me now. The arm that Miggie told me of, and it will not let me down. I'm going over so easy, easy, in a cradle-like, and Dr. Griswold's there waiting for clipped-winged birdie. He looks so glad, so happy. It is very nice to die; but stand upon the bank, Arthur and Miggie. Wait till I'm across."

They thought she had left them, when softly, sweetly, as if it were a note of heavenly music sent back to them from the other world, there floated on the air the words,

"Climb up the bank, I'm most across. I do not see you now. MOTHER- -and Miggie's mother—and Dr. Griswold have waded out to meet me. The darkness is passed, the daylight has dawned; Miggie precious, and darling Arthur boy, good-bye, for Nina's gone, good-bye."

The white lips never moved again, the waxen hands lay lifelessly in Arthur's, the damp, bright hair lay half-uncurled upon the pillow, the blue eyes were closed, the aching head was still, the "twisted brain" had ceased to "buzz," the Darkness for her was over, and Nina had gone out into the Daylight.



CHAPTER XXXII.

PARTING WITH THE DEAD, AND PARTING WITH THE LIVING.

Softly the morning broke and the raindrops glittered like diamonds in the rising sun, whose rays fell mockingly upon desolate Sunnybank, where the howling of the blacks mingled with the sobs of those more nearly bereaved. Very troublesome had the beautiful departed been in life; none knew how troublesome one-half so well as Arthur, and yet of all the weeping band who gathered around her bed, none mourned her more truly than did he who had been her husband in name for eleven years. Eleven years! How short they seemed, looked back upon, and how much sorrow they had brought him. But this was all forgotten, and in his heart there was naught save tender love for the little maiden now forever at rest.

All the day he sat by her, and both Edith and Victor felt that it was not the mere semblance of grief he wore, while others of the household, who knew nothing of his past in connection with Edith, said to each other, "It is strange he should love her so well when she was so much care to him."

They did not know it was this very care for her; this bearing with her which made her so dear to him, and as the mother longs for and wishes back the unfortunate but beloved child which made her life so wearisome so Arthur mourned and wept for Nina, thanking God one moment that her poor, pain-worn head was at rest, and again murmuring to himself, "I would that I had her back again."

He scarcely spoke to Edith, although he knew whenever her footsteps crossed the threshold of the darkened room; knew when she bent over Nina; heard the kisses she pressed on the cold lips; and even watched until it was dry the tear she once left on Nina's cheek, but he held no communication with her, and she was left to battle with her grief alone. Once, indeed, she went to him and asked what Nina should be buried in, and this for a time roused him from his apathetic grief.

"Nina must be buried in white," he said; "she looked the best in that; and, Edith, I would have her curls cut off, all but those that shade her face. You have arranged them every day. Will you do so once more if I will hold her up?"

Edith would rather the task had devolved upon some one else, but she offered no objection, though her tears fell like rain when she brought the curling-stick and brush and began to separate the tangled locks, while Arthur encircled the rigid form with his arm, as carefully as if she still were living, watching her with apparent interest as she twined about her fingers the golden hair. But when, at last, she held the scissors which were to sever those bright tresses, his fortitude all gave way, for he remembered another time when he had held poor Nina, not as he held her now, but with a stronger, firmer grasp, while, by rougher hands than Edith's, those locks were shorn away. Groan after groan came from his broad chest, and his tears moistened the long ringlets he so lovingly caressed.

"You may cut them now," he said at last, holding his breath as if the sharp steel were cutting into his heart's core, as, one by one, the yellowish curls were severed, and dropped, some into Edith's lap, while others, lodging upon his fingers, curled about them with a seemingly human touch, making him moan bitterly, as he pressed them to his lips, and then shook them gently off.

Nina's hair, like her sister's, had been her crowning glory—so thick, so wavy, so luxuriant it was; and when the task was done, and the tresses divided, five heavy curls were Arthur's and five more were Edith's.

"Where shall I put yours?" Edith asked, and for a moment Arthur did not answer.

In a rosewood box, into which he had not looked for years, there was a mass of longer, paler, more uneven curls than these, but Arthur would not distress Edith by telling her about them, and he replied, at last, "I will put them away, myself." Then taking them from her and going to his own private chamber, he opened the box and dropped them in, weeping when he saw how strongly they contrasted with the other faded crazy curls, as he called them.

In a plain white muslin, which had been made for Nina at Grassy Spring, they arrayed her for the coffin, the soft, rich lace encircling her throat and falling about her slender arms folded so meekly together. Flowers were twined about her head—flowers were on her pillow—flowers in her hands—flowers upon her bosom— flowers of purest white, and meet emblems of the sweet young girl, whose features, to the last, retained the same childlike, peaceful expression which had settled upon them when she called back to Arthur, "Climb up the bank. I'm most across."

The day of her burial was balmy and warm, and the southern wind blew softly across the fields as the weeping band followed the lost one across the threshold and laid her away where the flowers of spring would blossom above her little grave. Very lonely and desolate seemed the house when the funeral train returned to it, and the lamentations of the blacks broke out afresh as they began to realize that their young mistress was really gone, and henceforth another must fill her place. Would it be Arthur or would it be the queenly Edith, whose regal beauty had captivated all their hearts? Assembled in the kitchen they discussed this question, giving to neither the preference, for though they had tried Arthur and found him a kind and humane master, they felt that after Nina, Edith had the right. Then, as other than blacks will do, they speculated upon the future, wondering why both Arthur and Edith could not rule jointly over them; they would like that vastly, and had nearly decided that it would be, when Victor, who was with them, tore down their castle by telling them that Edith was already engaged to some one else. This changed the channel of conversation, and Victor left them wondering still what the future would bring.

Slowly the evening passed, in kitchen and in parlor and only those who have felt it can tell the unspeakable loneliness of that first evening after the burial of the dead. Several times Arthur started as if he would go to the bed standing empty in the corner, while Edith, too, fancied that she heard the name "Miggie," spoken as only Nina could speak it. Then came a feeling of desolation as the thought was forced upon them, "She is gone;" and as the days went on till three suns had risen on her grave, the loneliness increased until Edith could bear it no longer, and to Victor she said, "We will go back to Richard, who is waiting so anxiously for us."

Everything which Arthur could do he did to reinstate Edith in her rights. Not one dollar of the Bernard estate had he ever spent for himself and very little for Nina, preferring to care for her out of his own resources and thus the property had increased so rapidly that Edith was richer than her wildest hopes. But not one feather did this weigh with her, and on the day when matters were arranged, she refused to do or say anything about it, persisting so obstinately in her refusal, that the servants whispered slily to each other, "That's a heap of old marster's grit thar."

For a time Arthur coaxed and reasoned with her; then finding that this did not avail, he changed the mode of treatment, and, placing a chair by his own, said to her commandingly, "Edith, sit here!" and she sat there, for there was that in Arthur's sternness which always enforced obedience.

"It cannot be more unpleasant for you than for me, but it is necessary," he said to her, in a low tone, as she sank into her seat, and ashamed of her willfulness, Edith whispered back, "I am sorry I behaved so like a child. Forgive me won't you?"

Still it grated harshly, this being compelled to listen while the lawyer, summoned by Arthur, talked to her of lands and mortgages, of bank stock, and, lastly, of the negroes. Would she have them sold, or what? Then Edith roused from her apathy. Nina had entrusted them to her, and she would care for them. They should not be sold, and so she said; they should still live at Sunnybank, having free papers made out in case of accident to herself, or, if they preferred, they should go with her at once to Collingwood, and Sunnybank to be sold.

"Oh, Heavens!" exclaimed Victor, who had stationed himself behind Edith. "Forty niggers at Collingwood! Mr. Harrington never would stand that. Leave them here."

Arthur smiled at the Frenchman's evident distress, while Edith made a gesture that Victor should be still, and then continued, "It may be better to leave them here for a time at least, and Mr. Harrington shall decide upon their future home."

She said this naturally, and as a matter of course, but her heart leaped to her throat when she saw the pallor which for an instant overspread Arthur's face at her allusion to one who would soon have the right to rule her and hers.

"Is Mr. Harrington your guardian, Miss Bernard?" the lawyer asked, and ere Edith could reply, Arthur answered for her, "He is to be her husband."

The lawyer bowed and went on with his writing, all unconscious of the wounds his question had tore open, leaving them to bleed afresh as both Arthur and Edith assumed a mask of studied indifference, never looking at or addressing each other again while that painful interview lasted. It was over at length, and the lawyer gone. Matters were adjusted as well they could be at present. The negroes were to remain at Sunnybank under charge of an overseer as usual, while Arthur was to stay there, too, until he decided upon his future course. This was his own proposition, and Edith acceded to it joyfully. There were no sweet home associations, connected in her mind with Sunnybank, it is true, for she was too young when she left it to retain more than a dim, shadowy remembrance of a few scenes and places; but it had been Nina's home; there she was born, there she had lived, there she had died, and Edith felt that it would not be one half so dreary looked back upon, if Arthur would stay there always.

"Why can't you?" she asked of him when in the evening she sat with him in the rather gloomy parlor. "I'll make you my agent in general, giving you permission to do whatever you please, or would you rather live at Grassy Spring?"

"Anywhere but there," was Arthur's quick response, "I shall sell Grassy Spring and go abroad. I shall be happier so. I have never known the comfort of a home for any length of time, and it does not matter where I am. My mother, as Grace may have told you, was a gay, fashionable woman, and after the period of mourning had expired, I only remember her resplendent in satin and diamonds, kissing me good-night ere her departure for some grand party. Then, when I was eight years old, she, too, died, leaving me to the care of a guardian. Thus, you see, I have no pleasant memories of a home, and the cafes of Paris will suit me as well as anything, perhaps. Once I hoped for something better, but that is over now, Nina is dead, while you, on whom, as my wife's sister, I have some claim, will soon be gone from here and I shall be alone. I shall sell Grassy Spring,—shall place the negroes there in your keeping, and then next spring leave the country, never to return, it may be."

He ceased speaking, and there was a silence in the room which Edith could not break. Arthur had told her frankly of his intended future, but she could not speak of hers—could not tell him that Collingwood's doors were ever open to him—that she would be his sister in very deed—that Richard would welcome him as a brother for her sake, and that the time might come when they could be happy thus. All this passed through her mind, but not a word of it escaped her lips, lest by doing so she would betray her real feelings. Arthur did not seem to her now as he had done a few days previous; their relations to each other had changed, and were there no Richard, it would not be wicked to love him now. Nina was gone; the past was more than atoned for; the marble, at first unsightly to some degree, had been hewn and polished, and though the blows had each struck deep, they wrought in Arthur St. Claire a perfect work. Ennobled, subdued, and purified, he was every way desirable, both as brother, friend, and husband, but he was not for her, and the consciousness that it was so, palsied her powers of speech.

Wishing to say something to break the awkward silence, Arthur asked at last, if it were true, as Victor had said, that she intended starting for Collingwood the day after to-morrow, and then she burst into tears, but made him no reply, only passionate sobs which smote cruelly upon his heart, for well he guessed their meaning. He could read Edith Hastings aright—could fathom her utmost thoughts, find he knew how she shrank from the future dreading a return to Collingwood, and what awaited her there. He knew, too, that but a few words from himself were needed to keep her at Sunnybank with him forever. Others might be powerless to influence her decision, but he was not; he could change her whole future life by whispering in her ear, "Stay with me, Edith; don't go back," but the Arthur of to-day was stronger than the Arthur of one year ago, and though the temptation was a terrible one, he met it bravely, and would not deal thus treacherously with Richard, who had so generously trusted her with him. Edith must keep her vow, and when at last he spoke, it was to say something of the journey, as if that had all the time been uppermost in his mind.

"He does not love me any more, and I don't care," was Edith's mental comment, as she soon after left him and hurried to her room, where she wept herself to sleep, never suspecting how long and dreary was that night to the young man whose eyelids never for a moment closed, and who, as the day was breaking, stole out to Nina's grave, finding there a peace which kept his soul from fainting.

At the breakfast table he was the same easy, elegant, attentive host he always was in his own house, conversing pleasantly upon indifferent topics, but he could not look at her now, on this her last day with him; could not endure to hear her voice, and he avoided her presence, seeing as little of her as possible, and retiring unusually early, even though he read in her speaking eyes a wish that he would tarry longer.

The next morning, however, he knew the instant she was astir, listening eagerly to the sound of her footsteps as she made her hasty toilet, and watching her from his window as she went to Nina's grave, sobbing out her sad farewell to the loved dead. He saw her, too, as she came back to the house, and then with a beating heart went down to meet her.

The breakfast was scarcely touched, and the moment it was over Edith hurried to her chamber, for it was nearly time to go. The trunks were brought down—Edith's and Marie's—for the latter was to live henceforth with her young mistress; the servants had crowded to the door, bidding their mistress good bye, and then it was Arthur's turn. Oh, who shall tell of the tempest which raged within as he held for a moment her soft, white hand in his and looked into the face which, ere he saw it again, might lose its girlish charm for him, inasmuch as a husband's kisses would have been showered upon it. Many times he attempted to speak, but could not, and pressing his lips to hers, he hastened away, going straight to Nina's grave which had become to him of late a Bethel.

Scarcely was he gone, when Tom, the driver, announced that something was the matter with the harness, and by this delay, Edith gained a few moments, which she resolved to spend with Nina. She did not know that Arthur, too, was there, until she came close upon him as he bent over the little mound. He heard her step, and turning toward her, and, half bitterly, "Edith, why will you tempt me so?"

"Oh, Arthur, don't," and with a piteous cry Edith sank at his feet, and laying her face on Nina's grave, sobbed out, "I did not know that you were here, but I am so glad that you are, for I cannot be without your blessing, you must tell me I am doing right, or I shall surely die. The world is so dark—so dark."

Arthur had been tempted before—sorely, terribly tempted—but never like this, and recoiling a pace or two, he stood with the dead Nina between himself and she weeping heavily, while the wild thought swept over him, "Is it right that I should fiend her away? " but over her an instant, and stretching his hand across the grave, he laid it on the head of the kneeling girl, giving her the blessing she so much craved, and then bidding her leave him.

"They are calling to you," he added, as he heard Victor's voice in the distance, and struggling to her feet, Edith started to go, but forgetting all sense of propriety in that dreadful parting, she turned to him again and said,

"I am going, Arthur, but I must ask one question. It will make my future brighter if I know you love me still, be it ever so little. Do you, Arthur, and when you know I am Richard's wife will you think of me sometimes, and pity me, too? I shall need it so much!"

Arthur had not expected this, and he reeled as if smitten with a heavy blow. Leaning for support against Petrea's monument, whence Miggie's name had been effaced, he gasped:

"God help me, Edith! You should have spared me this. Do I love you? Oh Edith, alas, alas! Here with Nina, whom, Heaven is my witness, I did love truly at the last—here with her, I say, lying dead between us, I swear to you that never was maiden loved as I this moment love you; but I cannot make you mine. I dare not prove thus treacherous to Richard, who trusted you with me, and, Edith, you can be happy with him, and you will. You must forget that I ever crossed your path, thinking of me only as one who was your sister's husband. And God will give you strength to do this if you ask it of him aright I shall not forgot you, Edith. That cannot be. Across the sea, wherever I may be, I shall remember you, enshrining your memory in my heart, together with Nina, whom I so much wish I had loved earlier, and so have saved us both from pain. And now go—go back to Collingwood, and keep your vow to Richard. He is one of God's noblest works, an almost perfect man. You will learn to love him. You will be happy. Do not write to me till it is over, then send your cards, and I shall know 'tis done. Farewell, my sister—farewell forever."

Without a word of reply Edith moved away, nor cast a backward glance at the faint, sick man, who leaned his burning forehead against the gleaming marble; while drop after drop of perspiration fell upon the ground, but brought him no relief. He heard the carriage wheels as they rolled from the door, and the sound seemed grinding his life to atoms, for by that token he knew that Edith was gone—that to him there was nothing left save the little mound at his feet and the memory of his broken lily who slept beneath it. How he wanted her now—wanted his childish Nina—his fair girl-wife, to comfort him. But it could not be, Nina was dead—her sweet, bird-like voice was hushed; it would never meet his listening ear again, and for him there was nothing left, save the wailing wind to whisper sadly to him as she was wont to do, "Poor Arthur boy, poor Arthur boy."



CHAPTER XXXIII.

HOME.

Oh, what a change it was from sunny Florida to England, just how both Edith and Victor shivered, arrived at the last stage of their journey, they looked out upon the snow-clad hills and leafless trees which fitted out by bare and brown against the winter sky. West Shannondale! the brakeman shouted, and Edith drew her furs around her, for in a few moments more their own station would be reached.

"The river is frozen; it must be very cold," said Victor, pointing to the blue-black stream; skimmered over with a thin coat of ice.

"Yes, very, very cold," and Edith felt the meaning of the word in more senses than one.

Why wasn't she glad to be home again? Why did her thoughts cling so to distant Sunnybank, or her heart die within her as waymark after waymark told her Collingwood was near? Alas! she was not a loving, eager bride elect, returning to the arms of her beloved, but a shrinking, hopeless, desolate woman, going back to meet the destiny she dared not avoid. The change was all in herself, for the day was no colder, the clouds no greyer, the setting sun no paler than New England wintry days and clouds and suns are wont to be. Collingwood was just the same, and its massive walls rose as proudly amid the dark evergreens around it as they had done in times gone by, when to the little orphan it seemed a second Paradise. Away to the right lay Grassy Spring, the twilight shadows gathering around it, piles of snow resting on its roof, and a thin wreath of smoke curling from a single chimney in the rear.

All this Edith saw as in the village omnibus she was driven toward home, Richard was not expecting them until the morrow, and thus no new fires were kindled, no welcoming lights hung out, and the house was unusually gloomy and dark. During Edith's absence Richard had staid mostly in the library, and there he was sitting now, with his hands folded together in that peculiarly helpless way which characterized all his motions. He heard the sound of wheels, the banging of trunks, and then his ear caught a footstep it knew full well, a slow, shuffling tread, but Edith's still, and out into the silent hall he groped his way, watching there until she came.

How he hugged her to his bosom—never heeding that she gave him back but one answering kiss, a cold, a frozen thing, which would not thaw even after it touched his lips, so full of life and warmth. Poor, deluded man! he fancied that the tears he felt upon his face were tears of joy at being home again; but alas! alas! they were tears wrung out by a feeling of dreary home-sickness—a longing to be somewhere else—to have some other one than Richard chafing her cold hands and calling her pet names. He looked older, too, than he used to do, and Edith thought of what he once had said about her seeing the work of decay go on in him while she yet was young and vigorous. Still her voice was natural as she answered his many questions and greeted Mrs. Matson who came in to see her as soon as she heard of her arrival.

"In mourning!" the latter exclaimed as with womanly curiosity she inspected Edith's dress.

Richard started, and putting his hand to Edith's neck, felt that her collar was of crape, and a shadow passed over his face. He liked to think of her as a bright plumaged bird, not as sombre- hued and wearing the habiliments which come only from some grave.

"Was it necessary that my darling should carry her love for a stranger quite so far as this?" he asked. "Need you have dressed in black?"

Without meaning it, his tone implied reproach, and it cut Edith cruelly, making her wish that she had told him all, when she wrote that she was coming home.

"Oh, Richard," she cried, "don't chide me for these outward tokens of sorrow. Nina, dear, darling Nina, was my sister—my fathers child. Temple was only a name he assumed to avoid arrest, so it all got wrong. Everything is wrong," and Edith sobbed impetuously, while Richard essayed to comfort her.

The dress of black was not displeasing to him now, and he passed his hands caressingly over its heavy folds as if to ask forgiveness for having said aught against it.

Gradually Edith grew calm, and after she had met the servants, and the supper she could not taste was over, she repeated to Richard the story she had heard from Marie, who had stopped for a time in New York to visit her sister.

A long time they sat together that night, while Richard told her how lonely he had been without her, and asked her many questions of Nina's last days.

"Did she send no message to me?" he said. "She used to like me, I fancied."

Edith did not know how terrible a message Nina had sent to him, and she replied, "She talked of you a great deal, but I do not remember any particular word. I told her I was to be your wife." and Edith's voice trembled, for this was but a prelude to what she meant to say ere she bade him good night. She should breathe so much more freely if she knew her bridal was not so near, and her sister's death was surely a sufficient reason for deferring it.

Summoning all her courage, she arose, and sitting on Richard's knee, buttoned and unbuttoned his coat in a kind of abstracted manner, while she asked if it might be so. "I know I promised for New Year's night," she said, "but little Nina died so recently and I loved her so much, May it be put off, Richard—put over until June?"

Edith had not thought of this in Florida, but here at home, it came to her like succor to the drowning, and she anxiously awaited Richard's answer.

A frown for an instant darkened his fine features, for he did not like this second deferring the day, but he was too unselfish to oppose it, and he answered,

"Yes, darling, if you will have it so. It may be better to wait at least six months, shall it be in June, the fifteenth say?"

Edith was satisfied with this, and when they parted her heart was lighted of a heavy load, for six months seemed to her a great, great while.

The next day when Grace came up to call on Edith, and was told of the change, she shrugged her shoulders, for she knew that by this delay Richard stood far less chance of ever calling Edith his wife. But she merely said it was well, congratulating Edith upon her good fortune in being an heiress, and asking many questions about Arthur and Nina, both, and at last taking her leave without a hint as to her suspicions of the future. To Edith the idea had never occurred. She should marry Richard of course, and nothing could happen to defer the day a third time. So she said at least to Victor, when she told him of the arrangement, and with a very expressive whistle, Victor, too, shrugged his shoulders, thinking, that possibly he need not read Nina's letter after all. He would rather not if it could be avoided, for he knew how keen the pang it would indict upon his noble master, and he would not add one unnecessary drop to the cup of sorrow he saw preparing for poor Richard.

After a few days of listless languor and pining home-sickness, Edith settled into her olden routine of reading, talking and singing to Richard, who thought himself happy even though she did not caress him as often as she used to do, and was sometimes impatient and even ill-natured towards him.

"She mourns so much for Nina," was the excuse which Richard wrote down in his heart for all her sins, either of omission or commission; and in a measure he was right.

Edith did mourn for sweet little Nina, but mourned not half so much for her as for the hopes forever fled—for Arthur, at whose silence she greatly marvelled, thinking that she would write to him as to her brother, and then shrinking from the task because she knew not what to say.

Spite of her feelings the six months she had thought so long were passing far too rapidly to suit her. Time lingers for no one, and January glided into February, February into March, whose melting snows and wailing winds gave place at last to April, and then again the people of Shannondale begun to talk of "that wedding," fixed for the 15th of June. Marie had become domesticated at Collingwood, but the negroes, who now called Edith mistress, still remained at Grassy Spring, waiting until Arthur should come, or some message be received from him. It was four months now since Edith left Sunnybank, and in all that time no tiding had come to her from Arthur. Grace's letters were unanswered, and Grace herself was beginning to feel alarmed, when one afternoon, Victor called Edith to an upper balcony and pointing in the direction of Grassy Spring, bade her look where the graceful columns of smoke were rising from all its chimneys, while its windows were opened wide, and the servants hurried in and out, seemingly big with some important event.

"Saddle Bedouin," said Edith, more excited than she had deemed it possible for her to be. "Mr. St. Claire must be expected, I am going down to see."

Victor obeyed, and without a word to Richard, Edith was soon galloping off toward Grassy Spring, where she found Grace hurriedly giving orders to the delighted blacks, who tumbled over each other in their zeal to have everything in readiness for "Marster Arthur." He was coming that night, so Grace had told them, she having received a telegram that morning from New York, together with a letter.

"He started North the first of Feb." she said to Edith, "taking Richmond on the way, and has been detained there ever since by sickness. He is very feeble yet, but is anxious to see us all. He has received no letters from me, it seems, and thinks you are married."

Edith turned very white for a moment, and then there burned upon her cheek a round, red spot, induced by the feeling that the believing she was married had been the immediate cause of Arthur's illness. Edith was no longer the pale, listless woman who moved so like a breathing statue around Collingwood, but a flushed, excited creature, flitting from room to room, and entering heart and soul into Grace's plans for having everything about the house as cheerful and homelike as possible for the invalid. She should stay to welcome him, too, she said, bidding one of the negroes put Bedouin in the stable and then go up to Collingwood to tell Richard where she was.

Arthur was indeed coming to Grassy Spring, brought thither by the knowing that something must be done with the place ere he went to Europe as he intended doing, and by the feverish desire to see Edith once more even though she were the wife of Richard, as he supposed her to be. Grace's first letter had been lost, and as he had been some weeks on the way he knew nothing of matters at Collingwood, though occasionally there crept into his heart a throb of hope that possibly for Nina's sake the marriage had been deferred and Edith might be Edith Hastings still. It was very sad coming back to the spot so fraught with memories of Nina, and this it was in part which made him look so pale and haggard when at last he stood within the hall and was met by Grace, who uttered an exclamation of surprise at seeing him so changed.

"I am very tired," he said, with the tone and air of an invalid, "Let me rest in the library awhile, before I see the negroes. Their noise will disturb me," and he walked into the very room where Edith stood waiting for him.

She had intended to meet him as a brother, the husband of her sister, but the sight of his white, suffering face swept her calmness all away, and with a burst of tears she cried, "Oh, Arthur, Arthur, I did not think you had been so sick. Why did you not let us know; I would have come to you," and she brought herself the arm-chair which he took, smiling faintly upon her and saying,

"It was bad business being sick at a hotel, and I did sometimes wish you were there, but of course I could not expect you to leave your husband. How is he?"

Edith could hear the beating of her heart and feel the blood tingling her cheeks as she replied, "You mean Richard, but he is not my husband. He—"

Quickly, eagerly Arthur looked up, the expression of his face speaking volumes of joy, surprise, and even hope, but all this faded away, leaving him paler, sicker-looking than before, as Edith continued,

"The marriage was a second time deferred on account of Nina's death. It will take place in June."

Grace had left the room and an awkward silence ensued during which Arthur looked absently into the fire, while Edith gazed out upon the darkening sky, wondering if life would always be as hard to bear as now, and half wishing that Arthur St. Claire had staid at Sunnybank until the worst was over.

There was a sound of wheels outside, and Edith heard Richard as he passed into the hall. He had received her message, and thinking it proper for him to welcome Mr. St. Claire, he had come to Grassy Spring to do so, as well as to escort Edith home. Richard could not see how much Arthur was changed, but his quick ear detected the weak, tremulous tones of the voice, which tried to greet him steadily, and so the conversation turned first upon Arthur's recent illness, and then upon Nina, until at last, as Richard rose to leave, he laid his arm across Edith's shoulder and said playfully, "You know of course, that what you predicted, when years ago you asked me to take a certain little girl, is coming true. Edith has promised to be my wife. You will surely remain at Grassy Spring through the summer, and so be present at our wedding on the 15th of June. I invite you now."

"Thank you," was all Arthur could say, as with his accustomed politeness he arose to bid his guests good night; but his lip quivered as he said it, and his eye never for a moment rested upon Edith, who led Richard in silence to the carriage, feeling that all she loved in the wide world was left there in the little library where the light was shining, and where, although she did not know it, Grace was ministering to the half fainting Arthur.

The sight of Edith and Richard had effected him more than he supposed it would, but the worst was over now, and as he daily grew stronger in the bracing northern air he felt more and more competent to meet what lay before him.



CHAPTER XXXIV.

NINA'S LETTER.

After a week or two had passed, Arthur went occasionally to Collingwood, where Richard greeted him most cordially, urging him to come more frequently and wondering why he always seemed in so much haste to get away. On the occasion of these visits Edith usually kept out of the way, avoiding him so studiously that Richard began to fear she might perhaps dislike him, and he resolved to ask her the first good opportunity. But Edith avoided him, too, never coming now to sit with him alone; somebody must always be present when she was with him, else had her bursting heart betrayed the secret telling so fearfully upon her. Oh, how hateful to her were the preparations for her bridal, which had commenced on a most magnificent scale, for Richard, after waiting so long, would have a grand wedding, and that all who chose might witness the ceremony, it was to be performed in the church, from which the guests would accompany him back to Collingwood.

All Shannondale was interested, and the most extravagant stories were set afloat, not only concerning the trouseau of the bride, but the bride herself. What ailed her? What made her so cold, so white, so proudly reserved, so like a walking ghost? She, who had been so full of vigorous life, so merry, so light-hearted. Could it be the mourning for sweet little Nina, or was it—?

And here the knot of gossippers, at the corner of the streets, or in the stores, or in the parlors at home, would draw more closely together as they whispered,

"Does she love Richard Harrington as she ought? Is not her heart given rather to the younger, handsomer St. Claire?"

How they pitied her if it were so, and how curiously they watched her whenever she appeared in their midst, remarking every action, and construing it according to their convictions.

Victor, too, was on the alert, and fully aware of the public feeling. Day after day he watched his young mistress, following her when she left the house alone, and seeing her more than once when in the Deering woods she laid her face in the springing grass and prayed that she might die. But for her promise, sworn to Richard, she would have gone to him, and kneeling at his feet begged him to release her from her vow, and so spare her the dreadful trial from which she shrank more and more as she saw it fast approaching.

Edith was almost crazy, and Arthur, whenever he chanced to meet her, marvelled at the change since he saw her last. Once he, too, thought of appealing to Richard to save her from so sad a fate as that of an unloving wife, but he would not interfere, lest by so doing he should err again, and so in dreary despair, which each day grew blacker and more hopeless, Edith was left alone, until Victor roused in her behalf, and without allowing himself time to reflect, sought his master's presence, bearing with him Nina's letter, and the soiled sheet on which Richard had unwittingly scratched out Arthur's marriage.

It was a warm, balmy afternoon, and through the open windows of the library, the south wind came stealing in, laden with the perfume of the pink-tinted apple blossoms, and speaking to the blind man of the long ago, when it was his to see the budding beauties now shut out from his sight. The hum of the honey-bee was heard, and the air was rife with the sweet sounds of later spring. On the branch of a tree without, a robin was trilling a song. It had sung there all the morning, and now it had come back again, singing a second time to Richard, who thought of the soft nest up in the old maple, and likened that robin and its mate to himself and Edith, his own singing-bird.

But why linger so long over that May-day which Richard remembered through many, many future years, growing faint and sick as often as the spring brought back the apple-blossom perfume or the song of mated robins. It is, alas, that we shrink as Victor did from the task imposed, that, like him, we dread the blow which will strike at the root of Richard's very life, and we approach tearfully, pityingly, half remorsefully, as we stand sometimes by a sunken grave, doubting whether our conduct to the dead were always right and just. So Victor felt, as he drew near to Richard; and sitting down beside him said,

"Can I talk with you awhile about Miss Hastings?" Richard started. Victor had come to tell him she was sick, and he asked if it were not so.

"Something has ailed her of late," he said.

"She is greatly changed since Nina's death. She mourns much for her sister."

"Yes," returned Victor, "she loved Nina dearly, but it is more than this which ails her. God forbid that I should unnecessarily wound you, Mr. Harrington, but I think it right for you to know."

The dark face, shaded with the long beard, was very white now, and the sightless eyes had in them a look of terror as Richard asked,

"What is it, Victor? Tell me."

"Come to the sofa first," Victor rejoined, feeling intuitively that he was safer there than in that high arm-chair, and with unusual tenderness he led his master to the spot, then sitting down beside him, he continued, "Do you remember Nina once made you write something upon a sheet of paper, and that you bade me ascertain what it was?"

"Yes, I remember," answered Richard, "you told me you had not read it, and imputing it to some crazy fancy of no importance, I gave it no more thought. What of it, Victor?"

"I had not read it then," answered Victor, "but I have done so since, I have it in my possession—here in my hand. Would you like to hear it?"

Richard nodded, and Victor read aloud: "I, the blind man, Richard Harrington, do hereby solemnly swear that the marriage of Arthur St. Claire and Nina Bernard, performed by me and at my house, is null and void,"

"What! Read it again! It cannot be that I heard aright," and Richard listened while Victor repeated the lines. "Arthur and Nina! Was she the young girl wife, he, the boy husband, who came to me that night?" Richard exclaimed. "Why have I never known of this before? Why did Edith keep it from me? Say, Victor," and again Richard listened, this time, oh, how eagerly, while Victor told him what he knew of that fatal marriage, kept so long a secret, and as he listened, the beaded drops stood thickly upon his forehead and gathered around his ashen lips, for Victor purposely let fall a note of warning which shot through the quivering nerves of the blind man like a barbed burning arrow, wringing from him the piteous cry,

"Oh, Victor, Victor, does she—does Edith love Arthur? Has she loved him all the time? Is it this which makes her voice so sad, her step so slow? Speak—better that I know it now than after 'tis too late. What other paper is it you are unfolding?"

"'Tis a letter from Nina to you. Can you hear it now?"

"Yes, but tell me first all you know. Don't withhold a single thing. I would hear the whole."

So Victor told him what he knew up to the time of their going to Florida; and then, opening Nina's letter, he began to read, pausing, occasionally, to ask if he should stop.

"No, no; go on!" Richard whispered, hoarsely, his head dropping lower and lower, until the face was hidden from view and the chin rested upon the chest, which heaved with every labored breath.

Once at the words, "When you hear this Nina'll be there with you. She'll sit upon your knee and wind her arms around your neck"—he started, and seemed to be thrusting something from his lap— something which made him shiver. Was it Nina? He thought so, and strove to push her off but when Victor read, "She will comfort you when the great cry comes in—the crash like the breaking up of the ice in the Northern ponds," he ceased to struggle, and Victor involuntarily stopped when he saw the long arms twine themselves as it were around an invisible form. Then he commenced again: "And when you feel yourself broken up like they are in the spring, listen and you'll hear me whispering, 'Poor Richard! I pity you so much, and I'll kiss your tears away.'"

Did he hear her? hear Nina whispering comfort to his poor bruised heart? We cannot tell. We only know he bent his ear lower, as if to catch the faintest breath; but alas! there were no tears to kiss away. The blind eyes could not weep—they were too hot, too dry for that—and blood-red rings of fire danced before them as they did when Nina came to him with the startling news that Miggie was dead in the Deering woods.

Victor was reading now about these woods and the scene enacted there, and Richard understood it all, even to the reason why Edith had persisted in being his wife. The deepest waters run silently, it is said, and so, perhaps, the strongest heart when crushed to atoms lies still as death, and gives outwardly no token of its anguish. True it is that Richard neither moaned, nor moved, nor spoke; only the head drooped lower, while the arms clung tightly to the fancied form he held, as if between himself and Nina, wherever she was that dreary day, there was a connecting link of sympathy which pervaded his whole being, and so prevented him from dying outright as he wished he could.

It was finished at last, Nina's letter—and it seemed to Richard as if the three kinds of darkness, of which she told him, had indeed settled down upon him, so confused was his brain, so crushed his heart, and so doubly black his blindness. He looked to Victor like some great oak, scathed and blasted with one fell blow, and he was trembling for the result, when the lips moved and he caught the words, "Leave me little Snow Drop. Go back to Heaven, whence you came. The blind man will do right."

Slowly then the arms unclosed, and as if imbued with sight, the red eyes followed something to the open window and out into the bright sunshine beyond; then they turned to Victor, and a smile broke over the stormy features as Richard whispered:

"Nina's gone! Now take me to my room."

Across the threshold Victor led the half-fainting man, meeting with no one until his master's chamber was reached, when Edith came through the hall, and, glancing in, saw the white face on the pillow, where Victor had laid his master down, Richard heard her step, and said, faintly, "Keep her off; I cannot bear it yet!" But even while he spoke Edith was there beside him, asking, in much alarm, what was the matter. She did not observe how Richard shuddered at the sound of her voice; she only thought that he was very ill, and, with every womanly, tender feeling aroused, she bent over him and pressed upon his lips a kiss which burned him like a coal of fire. She must not kiss him now, and, putting up his hands with the feebleness of a little child, he cried piteously,

"Don't Edith, don't! Please leave me for a time. I'd rather be alone!"

She obeyed him then, and went slowly out, wondering what it was which had so affected him as to make even her presence undesirable.

Meantime, with hand pressed over his aching eyes, to shut out, if possible, the rings of fire still dancing before them, Richard Harrington thought of all that was past and of what was yet to come.

"How can I lose her now," he moaned, "Why didn't she tell me at the first? It would not then have been half so bad. Oh, Edith, my lost Edith. You have not been all guiltless in this matter. The bird I took to my bosom has struck me at last with its talons, and struck so deep. Oh, how it aches, how it aches, and still I love her just the same; aye, love her more, now that I know she must not be mine. Edith, oh, my Edith!"

Then Richard's thoughts turned upon Arthur. He must talk with him, and he could not meet him there at Collingwood. There were too many curious eyes to see, too many ears to listen. At Grassy Spring they would be more retired, and thither he would go, that very night. He never should sleep again until he heard from Arthur's own lips a confirmation of the cruel story. He could not ask Edith. Her voice would stir his heart-strings with a keener, deeper agony than he was enduring now. But to Arthur he could speak openly, and then too—Richard was loth to confess it, even to himself, but it was, never the less, true—Arthur, though a man, was gentler than Edith. He would be more careful, more tender, and while Edith might confirm the whole with one of her wild, impulsive outbursts, Arthur would reach the same point gradually and less painfully.

"Order the carriage, Victor," he said, as it was growing dark in the room. "I am going to Grassy Spring,"

It was in vain that Victor attempted to persuade him to wait until the morrow. Richard was determined, and when Edith came from her scarcely tasted supper, she saw the carriage as it passed through the Collingwood grounds on its way to Grassy Spring, but little dreamed of what would be ere its occupant returned to them again.



CHAPTER XXXV.

THE FIERY TEST.

Arthur was not at home. From the first he had intended making Edith a bridal present—a life-sized portrait of Nina, which he knew she would value more than gifts of gold and silver. He had in his possession a daguerreotype taken when she was just eighteen, and sent to him by her father among other things, of which Charlie Hudson was the bearer. From this he would have a picture painted, employing the best artist in Boston, and it was upon this business that he left Grassy Spring the previous day, saying he should probably be home upon the next evening's train.

Just before Richard arrived at Grassy Spring, however, a telegram had been received to the effect that Arthur was detained and would not return until midnight. This Phillis repeated to Richard, who for an instant stood thinking, and then said to Victor, "I shall stay. I cannot go back to Collingwood till I have talked with Arthur. But you may go, I would rather be left alone, and, Victor, you will undoubtedly think it a foolish fancy, but I must sleep in Nina's room. There will be something soothing to me in a place so hallowed by her former presence. Ask old Phillis if I may. Tell her it is a whim, if you like, but get her consent at all hazards."

Phillis' consent was easily won, and after Victor was gone, Richard sat alone in the parlor until nearly eleven, when, feeling weary, he consented to retire, and Ike led him up the two flights of stairs into the Den, where he had never been before.

"I do not need your services," he said to the negro, who departed, having first lighted the gas and turned it on to its fullest extent out of compliment to the blind man.

Gas was a luxury not quite two years old in Shannondale, and had been put in Arthur's house just before he left for Florida. Collingwood being further from the village could not boast of it yet and consequently Richard was not as much accustomed to it as he would otherwise have been. On this occasion he did not know that it was lighted until, as he stood by the dressing bureau, he felt the hot air in his face. Thinking to extinguish the light by turning the arm of the fixture just as he remembered having done some years before, he pushed it back within an inch of the heavy damask curtain which now shaded the window, and too much absorbed in his own painful reflections to think of ascertaining whether the light was out or not, he groped his way to the single bed, and threw himself upon it, giving way to a paroxysm of grief.

It was strange that one in his frame of mind should sleep, but nature was at last exhausted, and yielding to the influence of the peculiar atmosphere slowly pervading the room, he fell away into a kind of lethargic slumber, while the work of destruction his own hand had prepared, went silently on around him. First the crimson curtain turned a yellowish hue, than the scorched threads dropped apart and the flame crept into the inner lining of cotton, running swiftly through it until the whole was in a blaze, and the wood- work of the window, charred and blackened, and bore the deadly element still onward, but away from the unconscious Richard, leaving that portion of the room unscathed, and for the present safe. Along the cornice under the lathing, beneath the eaves they crept—those little fiery tongues—lapping at each other in wanton, playfulness, and whispering to the dry old shingles on the roof above of the mischief they meant to do.

Half an hour went by, and from the three towers of Shannondale the deep toned bells rang out the watchword of alarm, which the awakened inhabitants caught up, echoing it from lip to lip until every street resounded with the fearful cry, "Fire, fire, Grassy Spring is all on fire."

Then the two engines were brought, from their shelter, and went rattling through the town and out into the country, a quarter of a mile away, to where the little forked tongues had grown to a mammoth size, darting their vicious heads from beneath the rafters, reaching down to touch the heated panes, hissing defiance at the people below, and rolling over the doomed building until billow of flame leaped billow, both licking up in their mad chase the streams of water poured continually upon them.

Away to the eastward the night express came thundering on, and one of its passengers, looking from his window, saw the lurid blaze, just as once before he had seen the bonfire crazy Nina kindled, and as he watched, a horrible fear grow strong within him, manifesting itself at last in the wild outcry, "'Tis Grassy Spring, 'tis Grassy Spring."

Long before the train reached the depot, Arthur St. Claire, had jumped from the rear car, and was flying across the meadow toward his burning home, knowing ere he reached it that all was lost. Timbers were falling, glass was melting, windows were blazing, while at every step the sparks and cinders whirled in showers around his head.

And where all this time was Richard? Victor was asking that question—Victor, just arrived, and followed by the whole household of Collingwood. They were the last to waken, and they came with headlong haste; but Victor's longer strides outran them all, and when Arthur appeared, he was asking frantically for his master. The negroes in their fright had forgotten him entirely, and the first words which greeted Arthur were, "Mr. Harrington is in the building!"

"Where? where?" he shrieked, darting away, and dragging Victor with him.

"In Nina's room. He would sleep there," Victor answered, and with another cry of horror, Arthur sprang to the rear of the building, discovering that the stairs leading to the Den were comparatively unharmed as yet.

"Who will save him?" he screamed, and he turned toward Victor, who intuitively drew back from incurring the great peril.

There was no one to volunteer, and Arthur said,

"I will do it myself."

Instantly a hundred voices were raised against it. It were worse than madness, they said. The fire must have caught in the vicinity of that room, and Richard was assuredly dead.

"He may not be, and if he is not, I will save him or perish too," was Arthur's heroic reply, as he sprang up the long winding stairs, near which the flames were roaring like some long pent up volcano.

He reached the door of the Den. It was bolted, but with superhuman strength he shook it down, staggering backward as the dense cloud of yellowish smoke rolled over and around him, warning him not to advance. But Arthur heeded no warning then. By the light which illumined the entire front of the house, he saw that two sides of the room were not yet touched; the bed in the recess was unharmed, but Richard was not there, and a terrible fear crept over Arthur lest he had perished in his attempt to escape. Suddenly he remembered Nina's cell, and groping his way through fire and smoke, he opened the oaken door, involuntarily breathing a prayer of thanksgiving when he saw the tall form stretched upon the empty bedstead. He had probably mistaken the way out, and by entering here, had prolonged his life, for save through the glass ventilator the smoke could not find entrance to that spot. Arthur knew that he was living, for the lips moved once and whispered, "Edith," causing Arthur's brain to reel, and the cold sweat to start from every pore as he thought for what and for whom he was saving his rival. Surely in that terrible hour, in Nina's cell, with death staring him in the face on every side, Arthur St. Claire atoned for all the past, and by his noble unselfishness proved how true and brave he was.

Snatching from the nail the heavy sack, he wound it round Richard's head to shield him from the flames, then recollecting that on the bed without there was a thick rose blanket, he wrapped that too around him, and bending himself with might and main, bore him in his arms across the heated floor and out into the narrow hall, growing sick and faint when he saw the wall of fire now rolling steadily up the stairway.

"Oh, must I die!" he groaned, as he leaned panting against the wall, listening to the roar without, which sounded in his ear like demons yelling over their prey.

Life looked very fair to the young man then; even life without Edith was preferable far to a death like this. He was too young to die and the heart which had said in its bitterness, "there is nothing worth living for," clung tenaciously to a world which seemed so fast receding from view.

By leaving Richard there, by stripping him of his covering, and folding it about himself, he could assuredly leap down those stairs, and though he reached the bottom a scarred, disfigured thing, life would be in him yet; but Arthur did not waver, Richard should share his fate, be it for weal or woe, and with a prayer for help, he turned aside into a little room from which a few wide steps led up into the cupola. Heaven surely saved this way for him, for the fire was not there yet, and he passed in safety to the roof, where he stood, many dizzy feet from the shouting multitude, who, hoping he might take advantage of it, were watching for him to appear, greeting him with many a loud huzza, and bidding him take courage. The engines had been brought to bear on this part of the building, subduing the fire to such an extent that it was barely possible for him to reach the northern extremity, where, by jumping upon a flat, lower roof, whose surface was tin, and then walking a beam over a sea of hissing flame, he could reach the ladder hoisted against the wall. All this they made him understand, and with but little hope of his success they watched him breathlessly as he trod the black, steaming shingles, which crisped the soles of his boots, and penetrated even to his flesh. He has passed that point in safety, he leaps upon the wing, staggering, aye, falling with his burden, and when he struggles to his feet, the red blaze, wheeling in circles around him, shows where the blood is flowing from a wound upon the forehead. The batteries of the engine are directed toward him now, and they saturate his clothes with water, for the most fearful, most dangerous part is yet to come, the treading that single beam. Will he do it? Can he do it? Untrammeled he might, but with that heavy form he hugs so carefully to him, never! So the crowd decide, and they shout to him, "Leave him; he is dead. Save yourself, young man;" but the brave Arthur answers, "No," and half wishes he were blind, so as to shut out the seething vortex into which one mistep would plunge him. And while he stood there thus, amid the roaring of the flames, and the din of the multitude, there floated up to him a girlish voice,

"Shut your eyes, Arthur, make believe you are blind, and maybe you can walk the beam."

It was Edith. He saw her where she stood, apart from all the rest, her long black hair unbound just as she sprang from her pillow, her arms outstretched toward him, and the sight nerved him to the trial. He looked at her once more, it might be for the last time, but he would carry the remembrance of that clear face even to eternity, and with a longing, wistful glance he closed his eyes and prepared to do her bidding. Then it seemed to him that another presence than Edith's was around him, another voice than hers was whispering words of courage, Nina, who went before, guiding his footsteps, and lightening his load, screening him from the scorching heat and buoying him up, while he walked the blackened beam, which shook and bent at every tread, and at last fell with a crash, but not until the ladder was reached, and a dozen friendly arms were outstretched for Richard, and for him, too, for sight and strength had failed him when they were no longer needed. With countless blessings on the noble young man, they laid him on the grass at Edith's side, wounded, burned, smoke-stained, and totally unconscious.

It was well for Richard that the entire household of Collingwood were there to care for him, for Edith's thoughts were all bestowed on Arthur. She hardly looked at Richard, but kneeling down by Arthur, kissed, and pitied, and wept over his poor, raw, bleeding hands, wiped the blood from the wound on the forehead, thinking even then how it would be concealed by the brown hair—the hair all singed and matted, showing how fiercely he had battled for his life. Many gathered around her as she sat there with his head pillowed on her lap, and from the anguish written on her face learned what it was about which the curious villagers had so long been pondering.

"He must go home with me," Grace Atherton said, "My carriage will soon be here."

This reminded Edith that she too must act, and beckoning to Victor, she bade him hasten to Collingwood and see that his masters room was made comfortable.

This was the first token she had given that she knew of Richard's presence near her. She had heard them say that he still lived; that not a hair of his head was singed or a thread of his night garments harmed, and for this she was glad, but nothing could have tempted her to leave Arthur, and she sat by him until the arrival of the carriages which were to convey the still unconscious men to their respective homes.

At Collingwood, however, her whole attention was given to Richard, who, as he began to realise what was passing around him, seemed so much disturbed at having her near him that Victor whispered to her, "Hadn't you better go out? I think your presence excites him."

Edith had fancied so too, and wondering much why it should, she left him and going to her own room, sat down by the window, gazing sadly across the fields, to where Grassy Spring lay in the morning sunshine a blackened, mouldering ruin.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE SACRIFICE.

For a few days Edith hoped that the fire might defer her marriage a little longer but almost the first thing which Richard addressed directly to her was, "Let the preparations go on as usual; there need be no delay."

So the dressmakers were recalled and bridal finery tossed about until the whole was finished and the last sewing woman departed, taking with her, as her predecessors had done, a large budget of items touching the cool indifference of the bride elect and the icy reserve of the bridegroom, who was greatly changed, they said. It is true he was kind and considerate, as of old, and his voice, whenever he spoke to Edith, was plaintively sad and touching, but he preferred to be much alone, spending his time in his chamber, into which few save his valet was admitted. And thus no one suspected the mighty conflict he was waging with himself, one moment crying out, "I cannot give her up," and again moaning piteously, "I must, I must."

The first meeting between himself and Arthur after the fire had been a most affecting one, Richard sobbing like a child, kissing the hands wounded so cruelly for him, and whispering amid his sobs, "You saved my life at the peril of your own, and I shall never forget it. God help me to do right."

Many times after this he rode down to Brier Hill whither Edith had frequently preceded him; but Richard never uttered a word of reproach when near the window he heard a rustling sound and knew who was sitting there. Neither would he ask a single question when soft footsteps glided past him and out into the hall, but he always heard them until they died away, and he knew those little feet were treading the verge of the grave he had dug within his heart. It was not yet filled up—that grave—but his mighty love for Edith may coffined there, and he only waited for the needful strength to bury it forever by verbally giving her up.

And while he waited the May-days glided by, and where the apple blossoms once had been, the green hard fruit was swelling now, the lilacs, purple and limp, had dropped from the tree, the hyacinths and daffodils were gone, and June with her sunny skies and wealth of roses, queened it over Collingwood. It lacked but a week now of the day appointed for the wedding, and Edith wished the time would hasten, for anything was preferable to the numb, apathetic feeling which lay around her heart. She had no hope that she should not be Richard's wife, and she wondered much at his manner, trying more than once to coax him from his strange mood by playful words, and even by caresses, which won from him no response—only once, when, he hugged her tightly to him, kissing her lips and hair, and saying to her, "God forgive me, Birdie, I never meant to wrong you and I am going to make amends." The next day when Victor went up to his room he was struck with the peculiar expression of his face—a subdued, peaceful expression which told that he was ready at last to make the great sacrifice—to fold the darkness more thickly around himself and give to Arthur the glorious daylight he once hoped would shine for him and Richard would make this sacrifice in his own way. Edith should read Nina's letter aloud to him, with Arthur sitting near, and then, when it was finished, he would ask if it were true, und why she had not told him before.

Dinner was over, and in the library, where Richard had asked Edith to be his wife, he sat waiting for her now, and for Arthur who had been invited to Collingwood that afternoon. The day was much like that other day when Victor alone sat with him, save that the south wind stealing through the casement was warmer, more fragrant than the breath of May had been. The robin was not now singing in the maple tree, but it would come home ere long, and Richard knew full well the chirping sounds which would welcome its approach. Once he had likened himself to the mated robin, but now, alas, he knew he was but the wounded bird, who finds its nest all desolate, its hopes all fled—I'm a tough old owl," he said, smiling bitterly as he remembered when first he used that term. Edith was right; she could not mate with the owl, he thought, just as Arthur stepped across the threshold, and Edith came flipping down the stairs.

"Sit on a stool at my feet, as you used to do," Richard said to her; "and you, Arthur, sit by me upon this sofa."

They obeyed him, and after a moment he began, "I have sent for you my children, not to inflict pain, but to remove it. Heaven forbid that through me you should suffer longer, or that any act of mine should embitter your young lives. Do not interrupt me," he continued, as Edith was about to speak. "I must hasten on, or my courage all will fail me. Arthur, give me your hands, the hands that saved my life. I will touch them as carefully, as tenderly as I am about to deal with you."

Arthur complied with his request, and pressing the right one, Richard continued,

"I joined this once with another, a tiny, little hand, now laid away beneath the Southern flowers; and you said after me, 'I, Arthur, take thee, Nina, for my wife.' You remember it, don't you?"

Arthur could not speak, and, save the violent start which Edith gave, there came no answer to Richard's question as he went on:

"It is only a few weeks since I learned who was that boy husband of eighteen and that girlish bride of fifteen and a half, but I know it now. I know it all, and this explains much that has been strange in me of late. Edith," and he felt for her bowed head, "Edith, I have here Nina's letter, written by stealth, and brought by Victor to me, and you must read it to us—then tell me, if you can, why I have so long been deceived?"

Edith had glanced at the beginning, and with a choking voice she said,

"No, no, oh, Richard, no. Don't require it of me. Anything but that. I never knew she wrote it. I never meant—oh, Richard, Richard!"

She laid her head now on his knee and sobbed aloud, while he continued:

"You must read it to me, 'Tis the only punishment I shall inflict upon you."

"Read it, Edith," Arthur said, withdrawing one of his hands from Richard's, and resting it upon her head thus to re-assure her,

Richard guessed his intention and laid his own on Arthur's. Edith felt the gentle, forgiving pressure, even through the wounded, bandaged hand, and this it was which gave her strength to read that message, which brought Nina before them all, a seemingly living, breathing presence. And when it was finished there was heard in that library more than one "great cry, like the breaking up of the ice on the Northern ponds."

Richard was the calmest of the three. The contents of the letter were not new to him, and did not touch so tender a chord as that which thrilled and quivered in Arthur's heart as he listened to the words of his sweet child-wife, the golden haired Nina. Though dead she was all powerful yet, and Nina, from her grave, swayed a mightier sceptre than Nina living could have done.

"Edith," Richard said, when her agitation had in a measure subsided, "you have read the letter, now tell me, is it true? Crazy people do not always see or hear aright. Did Nina? Has Arthur loved you all the time?"

"Spare Edith," Arthur cried; "And question me. I did love Edith Hastings, even when I had no right so to do."

"And would you ask her to be your wife if there were no Richard in the way, and she was free as when you first knew and loved her?"

Arthur knew the blind man was not trifling with him, and he answered promptly,

"I would, but she will bear me witness that never since Nina died, have I sought, by word or deed, to influence her decision."

"I believe you," Richard said; "and now, let us compare our love for her, one with the other. Let us see which is the stronger of the two. Do you love Edith so much that you would give her to another, if you knew she loved that other best? If she were promised to you by a vow she dared not break, would you give her to me, supposing I was preferred before you?"

Arthur was very white, as he answered,

"That would not be one-half so hard as the yielding her to one whom she did not love, and, Richard, I have done this. I have given her to you, even when I knew that a word from me would have kept her from you."

"That is hardly an answer to my question," Richard rejoined, "but it shows how honorable you have been. I question whether I could have done as much. Your sense of right and wrong was stronger than your love."