"You forget--my aunt."
"Ay, but what security is there that she will not give you another uncle?"
"Oh, fie, Ralph!"
"Ay, she is too feeble of will, too weak, to be independent. She will marry again, Lucy, and is not the woman to choose wisely. Besides, she is not your natural aunt. She is so by marriage only. The tie between you is one which gives her no proper claim upon you."
"She has been kind to me, Ralph."
"Yet she would have seen you sacrificed to this outlaw!"
Lucy shuddered. He continued:--
"Her kindness, lacking strength and courage, would leave you still to be sacrificed, whenever a will, stronger than her own, should choose to a.s.sert a power over you. She can do nothing for you--not even for your security. You must not remain here, Lucy."
"Frankly, then, Ralph, I do not mean to do so long; nor does my aunt mean it. She is feeble, as you say; and, knowing it, I shall succeed in persuading her to sell out here, and we shall then remove to a more civilized region, to a better society, where, indeed, if you knew it, you would find nothing to regret, and see no reason to apprehend either for my securities or tastes. We shall seek refuge among my kindred--among the relatives of my mother--and I shall there be as perfectly at home, and quite as happy, as I can be any where."
"And where is it that you go, Lucy?"
"Forgive me, Ralph, but I must not tell you."
"Not tell me!"
"Better that I should not--better, far better! The duties for which the high Providence brought us together have been, I think, fairly accomplished. I have done my part, and you, Mr. Colleton--Ralph, I mean--you have done yours. There is nothing more that we may not do apart. Here, then, let our conference end. It is enough that you have complied with the dying wish of my uncle--that I have not, is not your fault."
"Not my fault, Lucy, but truly my misfortune. But I give not up my hope so easily. I still trust that you will think better of your determination, and conclude to go with us. We have a sweet home, and should not be altogether so happy in it, with the thought of your absence for ever in our minds."
"What!--not happy, and she with you!"
"Happy!--yes!--but far happier with both of you. You, my sister, and--"
"Say no more--"
"No more now, but I shall try other lips, perhaps more persuasive than mine. Edith shall come--"
His words were suddenly arrested by the energetic speech and action of his companion. She put her hand on his wrist--grasped it--and exclaimed--
"Let her not come! Bring her not here, Ralph Colleton! I have no wish to see her--_will not_ see her, I tell you--would not have her see _me_ for the world!"
Ralph was confounded, and recoiled from the fierce, spasmodic energy of the speaker, so very much at variance with the subdued tone of her previous conversation. He little knew what an effort was required hitherto, on her part, to maintain that tone, and to speak coolly and quietly of those fortunes, every thought of which brought only disappointment and agony to her bosom.
She dropped his hand as she concluded, and with eyes still fixed upon him, she half turned round, as if about to leave the room. But the crisis of her emotions was reached. She sickened with the effort. Her limbs grew too weak to sustain her; a sudden faintness overspread all her faculties--her eyes closed--she gasped hysterically, and tottering forward, she sank unconscious into the arms of Ralph, which were barely stretched out in time to save her from falling to the floor. He bore her to the sofa, and laid her down silently upon it.
He was struck suddenly with the truth to which he had hitherto shown himself so blind. He would have been the blindest and most obtuse of mortals, did he now fail to see. That last speech, that last look, and the fearful paroxysm which followed it, had revealed the poor girl"s secret. Its discovery overwhelmed him, at once with the consciousness of his previous and prolonged dullness--which was surely mortifying--as with the more painful consciousness of the evil which he had unwittingly occasioned. But the present situation of the gentle victim called for immediate attention; and, hastily darting out to another apartment, he summoned Mrs. Munro to the succor of her niece.
"What is the matter, Mr. Colleton?"
"She faints," answered the other hoa.r.s.ely, as he hurried the widow into the chamber.
"Bless my soul, what _can_ be the matter!"
The wondering of the hostess was not permitted to consume her time and make her neglectful; Colleton did not suffer this. He hurried her with the restoratives, and saw them applied, and waiting only till he could be sure of the recovery of the patient, he hurried away, without giving the aunt any opportunity to examine him in respect to the cause of Lucy"s illness.
Greatly excited, and painfully so, Ralph hastened at once to the lodgings of Edith. She was luckily alone. She cried out, as he entered--
"Well, Ralph, she will come with us?"
"No!"
"No!--and why not, Ralph! I must go and see her."
"She will not see you, Edith."
"Not see me!"
"No! She positively declines to see you."
"Why, Ralph, that is very strange. What can it mean?"
"Mean, Edith, it means that I am very unfortunate. I have been a blind fool if nothing worse."
"Why, what can _you_ mean, Ralph. What is this new mystery? This is, surely, a place of more marvels than--"
"Hear me, Edith, my love, and tell me what you think. I am bewildered, mortified, confounded."
He proceeded, as well as he could, to relate what had occurred; to give, not only the words, but to describe the manner of Lucy--so much of it had been expressed in this way--and he concluded, with a warm suffusion of his cheeks, to mention the self-flattering conclusion to which he had come:--
"Now, Edith, you who know me so well, tell me, can you think it possible that I have done, or said anything which has been calculated to make her suppose that I loved her--that I sought her. In short, do you think me capable of playing the scoundrel. I feel that I have been blind--something of a fool, Edith--but, on my soul, I can not recall a moment in which I have said or shown anything to this poor girl which was unbecoming in the gentleman."
The maiden looked at him curiously. At first there was something like an arch smile playing upon her lips and in her light lively eyes. But when she noted how real was his anxiety--how deeply and keenly he felt his own doubt--she felt that the little jest which occurred to her fancy, would be unseemly and unreasonable. So, she answered promptly, but quietly--
"Pshaw, Ralph, how can you afflict yourself with, any such notions? I have no doubt of the perfect propriety of your conduct; and I will venture to say that Miss Munro entertains no reproaches."
"Yet, feeling so grateful to her, Edith--and when I first came here, lonely, wounded and suffering every way--feeling so much the want of sympathy--I may have shown to her--almost the only being with whom I could sympathize--I may have shown to her a greater degree of interest, than--"
"My dear Ralph, you are certainly one of the most modest young men of the present generation; that is, if you do not deceive yourself now, in your conjectures touching the state of Miss Munro"s affections. After all, it may be a sudden illness from exhaustion, excitement, terror--which you have undertaken to account for by supposing her desperately in love."
"Heaven grant it be so," answered Ralph.
"Well, whether so or not, do not distress yourself. I will answer for it, you are not to blame. And here, let me whisper a little secret in your ears. However forbidden by all the wise, solemn, staid regulations of good society, there are young women--very few I grant you--who will, without the slightest call for it, or provocation, suffer their little hearts to go out of their own keeping--who will--I am ashamed to confess it--positively suffer themselves to love even where the case is hopeless--where no encouragement is given to them--where they can have no rights at all, and where they can only sigh, and mourn, and envy the better fortunes of other people. I have no doubt that Miss Munro is one of these very unsophisticated persons; and that you have been all the while, and only the innocent cause of all her troubles. I acquit you of _lese majeste_, Ralph, so put off your doleful faces."
"Don"t speak so carelessly of the matter, Edith. We owe this dear girl a heavy debt--I do, at least."
"And we shall try and pay it, Ralph. But you must leave this matter to me. I will go and see Lucy."
"But she refuses to see you."
"I will not be refused. I _will_ see her, and she _shall_ see me, and I trust we shall succeed in taking her home with us. It may be, Ralph, that she will feel shy in thinking of you as a brother, but I will do my best to make her adopt me as a sister."