"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."