There was a short silence.
"But where am I? Not at home, I know."
She did not reply, and he repeated the question more earnestly.
"You are in my house, Eugene; let that satisfy you."
His fingers closed over hers tightly, and soon he slept.
The sun was high in the sky when he again unclosed his eyes and found Dr. Asbury feeling his pulse. His mind was still bewildered, and he looked around him wonderingly.
"How do you feel, Graham?" said the doctor.
"Feel! as if I had been standing on my head. What is the matter with me, doctor? Have I been sick?"
"Well--yes; you have not been exactly well, and feel stupid after a long nap. Take a spoonful of this nectar I have prepared for you. No wry faces, man! It will clear your head."
Eugene attempted to raise himself, but fell back exhausted, while, for the first time, he noticed his arm firmly incased in wood and bandages.
"What have you been doing to my arm? Why, I can"t move it. I should- -"
"Oh, don"t trouble yourself, Graham; you injured it, and I bound it up, that is all. When gentlemen amuse themselves with such gymnastic feats as you performed, they must expect a little temporary inconvenience from crushed bones and overstrained muscles. Beulah, mind my directions about silence and quiet."
The doctor walked out to escape further questioning. Eugene looked at his useless, stiffened arm and then at Beulah, saying anxiously:
"What is the matter with me?"
"You were thrown out of a buggy and fractured your arm in the fall."
She thought it best to tell the truth at once.
Memory flew back to her deserted throne, and dimly the events of that evening"s revel pa.s.sed through his mind. A flush of shame rose to his temples, and, turning his head toward the wall, he hid his face in the pillow. Then Beulah heard a deep, shuddering sigh and a groan of remorseful agony. After a long silence, he said, in a tone of humiliation that drew tears to her eyes:
"How long have I been here?"
She told him the number of days, and he immediately asked,
"Have I been in any danger?"
"Yes; very great danger; out that has all pa.s.sed now, and if you will only be composed and careful you will soon be strong again."
"I heard my father talking to you. Who else is here?"
He looked at her with eager interest.
"No one else, except our kind matron. Mr. Graham came as soon as the letter reached him, and has not left the house since."
A look of indescribable sorrow and shame swept over his countenance as he continued bitterly:
"And did Antoinette know all at once? Stop, Beulah; tell me the miserable truth. Did she know all and still remain away?"
"She knew all that had been communicated to Mr. Graham when he came; and he has written to her every day. He is now writing to inform her that you are better."
She shrank from giving the pain she was conscious her words inflicted.
"I deserve it all! Yes, ingrat.i.tude, indifference, and desertion! If I had died she would have heard it unmoved. Oh, Cornelia, Cornelia, it is a fearful retribution; more bitter than death!" Averting his face, his whole frame trembled with ill-concealed emotion.
"Eugene, you must compose yourself. Remember you jeopardize your life by this sort of excitement."
"Why didn"t you let me die? What have I to live for? A name disgraced and a wife unloving and heartless! What has the future but wretchedness and shame?"
"Not unless you will it so. You should want to live to retrieve your character, to take an honorable position, which, hitherto, you have recklessly forfeited; to make the world respect you, your wife revere you, and your child feel that she may be proud of her father!
Ah, Eugene, all this the future calls you to do."
He looked up at her as she stood beside him, pale, thin, and weary, and his feeble voice faltered, as he asked:
"Beulah, my best friend, my sister, do you quite despise me?"
She laid her hands softly on his, and, stooping down, pressed her lips to his forehead.
"Eugene, once I feared that you had fallen even below my pity; but now I believe you will redeem yourself. I hope that, thoroughly reformed, you will command the respect of all who know you and realize the proud aspirations I once indulged for you. That you can do this I feel a.s.sured; that you will, I do most sincerely trust. I have not yet lost faith in you, Eugene. I hope still."
She left him to ponder in solitude the humiliating result of his course of dissipation.
CHAPTER x.x.xIV.
The hours of gradual convalescence were very trying to Beulah, now that the sense of danger no longer nerved her to almost superhuman endurance and exertion. Mr. Graham waited until his adopted son was able to sit up, and then returned to the watering-place where his wife remained. Thus the entire charge of the invalid devolved on the tireless friends who had watched over him in the hour of peril.
Beulah had endeavored to banish the sorrow that pressed so heavily on her heart, and to dispel the gloom and despondency which seemed to have taken possession of the deserted husband. She read, talked, sang to him, and constantly strove to cheer him by painting a future in which the past was to be effectually canceled. Though well-nigh exhausted by incessant care and loss of sleep, she never complained of weariness, and always forced a smile of welcome to her lips when the" invalid had his chair wheeled to her side, or tottered out into the dining room to join her. One morning in August she sat on the little gallery at the rear of the house, with a table before her, engaged in drawing some of the cl.u.s.ters of blue, white, and pink convolvulus which festooned the pillars and bal.u.s.trade. Eugene sat near her, with his thin face leaning on his hand, his thoughts evidently far removed from flowers. His arm was still in a sling, and he looked emaciated and dejected. Mrs. Williams had been talking to him cheerfully about some money matters he had promised to arrange for her so soon as he was well enough to go to his office; but, gathering up her working materials, the old lady went into the kitchen, and the two sat for some time in silence. One of his long- drawn sighs arrested Beulah"s attention, and she said kindly:
"What is the matter, brother mine? Are you tired of watching my clumsy fingers? Shall I finish that essay of Macaulay"s you were so much interested in yesterday, or will you have another of Bryant"s poems?" She laid down her pencil, quite ready to divert his mind by reading.
"No; do not quit your drawing; I should not enjoy even Macaulay to- day."
He threw his head back, and sighed again.
"Why, Eugene? Don"t you feel as well as usual this morning? Remember your family will arrive to-day; you should be the happiest man living."
"Oh, Beulah! don"t mock me. I cannot bear it. My life seems a hopeless blank."
"You ought not to talk so despondingly; you have everything to live for. House your energies. Be indeed a man. Conquer this weak, repining spirit. Don"t you remember the motto on the tombstone at St. Gilgen?
""Look not mournfully on the past--it comes not back; Enjoy the present--it is thine.
Go forth to meet the shadowy future With a manly heart, and without fear.""