""Pears like you is goin" to faint," answered the woman, who seemed reluctant to leave her.
"No, I am well--very well. Leave me."
The woman turned away, and, as she went forth, the disagreeable smile we have before mentioned, crept slowly across her mouth.
As the door closed, the fragments of her journal dropped from Mabel"s hand; her arms fell loosely downward, and shrinking to a pale heap in the chair, she fainted quite away.
CHAPTER LXXIII.
THE TWO BROTHERS.
Ralph had been away from home since the day before Mabel was taken ill.
He had left suddenly, after a conversation with Agnes in the breakfast-room; and, though the governess sat up till late at night, anxious and watchful, he did not return. Thus it happened that Mrs.
Harrington was, for the time, left completely in the hands of her servants.
But, where had Ralph gone, and why? To indulge in one strong pa.s.sion, and escape the meshes of another, the young man had left home. Spite of her craft, and that consummate self-control that seemed incompatible with her evil nature, Agnes had at last madly confessed her love to the young man. It is possible that some kindly expression on his part might have led to this unwomanly exposure, for Agnes had an amount of sullen pride in her nature which would have kept her silent, had not some misinterpreted word or action led her astray. Ralph"s unfeigned surprise, joined to the cold restraint with which he met her outgush of pa.s.sion, fell like cold lead upon her fiery nature. All that was bitter and hard in her soul, rose up at once to resent the indignity which her own uncurbed impulses had provoked. But, she was tenacious of an object once aimed at; and, instead of the hope that had filled her life till now, came a firm resolution, at any cost of truth or conscience, to win a return of her love, even though it were to cast it back in bitter retribution, for the shame under which she writhed.
This was a new source of distress to the young man, and he left home really without any definite object, but to escape the society of a person whose presence had become almost a reproach to him. He did not speak of his departure to Mrs. Harrington, because its object was indefinite in his own mind, and he had spent one night from home before she was aware of his absence.
By some attraction, which we do not pretend to explain, the young man went first to the house where he had seen Lina. He had no wish to enter it, and shrunk painfully from the thought of seeing her again; but still he lingered around the dwelling--left it--returned again, and could not tear himself away, so tenacious and cruel was his object.
His object--true it was not love; now the very word seemed enough to drive him mad. The unwelcome pa.s.sion of one woman heaped upon the wrongs done him by another, was enough to make the very remembrance repulsive.
No, love was lost to him, he madly thought, forever. But there is yet a fiercer and more burning pa.s.sion and that urged him forward. He would be revenged on the man who had torn all the joy from his life. He would meet that false brother face to face, beyond that Ralph had calculated nothing. It seemed to him that the very glances of his eyes would be enough to cover the traitor with eternal remorse. So he watched and waited before Zillah"s house, hoping, burning with impatience, that Harrington would pa.s.s in or out while seeking the presence of his victim, and thus they might meet. But he watched in vain.
Already had Ralph inquired at every hotel where James Harrington would be likely to stay, and now weary and full of smouldering rage, he resolved to go home, and there await some news of him.
On his way up town, a hotel carriage pa.s.sed him, filled with pa.s.sengers from some newly arrived train. In that carriage Ralph saw his brother.
The carriage stopped after a little. James Harrington, dusty, pale and travel-worn, stepped out, and stood face to face with his young brother.
For one instant his fine eye lighted up, and he grasped the youth"s hand.
"Ralph!"
Ralph wrenched his hand away, and James saw that his eyes were full of lurid fire.
"What is this, Ralph? You look strangely!" he said.
"I feel strangely," answered the youth, shuddering under the rush of tenderness that surged up through his wrath. "I have been searching for you, sir, waiting for you"----
"Why, it is not so long since I left home, Ralph."
"It seems an eternity to me," answered the boy; and spite of his wrathful manhood, tears sprang up, and spread like a mist over the smouldering fire of his eyes.
James looked at him with grave earnestness, his own face was pale and careworn, his eyes heavy with a potent sorrow, but it took an expression of deeper anxiety as he perused the working features before him.
"My dear boy, something is amiss with you; come into the hotel. I have a room here yet. Cheer up, it must be a bitter sorrow, indeed, if your brother cannot help you out of it."
Ralph ground his teeth, and the word "hypocrite" broke through them.
But James did not hear it, he had turned to enter the hotel. Ralph followed him, growing paler and paler as he walked. The bitter wrath that had been for a moment disturbed was concentrating itself at his heart again.
They entered James Harrington"s room, a small chamber in the highest story of the hotel, and both sat down.
"Now," said James, kindly, "tell me why it is that you are so changed. I scarcely know you with that look, Ralph."
"I scarcely know myself with these feelings," cried the youth, smiting his breast in a sudden storm of pa.s.sion. "Oh! James, James! how could you be so generous, so kind to a poor fellow only to plunder and crush him at last? What had I done that you should tear up my youth by the roots, just as it began to feel the warmth of life?"
"Ralph, are you mad?"
"It is not your fault or hers if I am not mad," was the bitter reply.
"Or hers!" repeated Harrington, turning deathly white, "or hers--who are you speaking of?"
"Of the woman we both love. I cannot speak her name to you. How dare you brand that n.o.ble creature with shame, after using the privileges of my father"s house to win her love? Was it not enough that you had stolen her heart from me--from us all? Could nothing but her disgrace content your horrible vanity?"
"Ralph, Ralph, in the name of Heaven, what is this?" cried Harrington, starting up with an outcry of terrible agony, which whitened his face to the lips.
"What is this!" thundered Ralph, "are you detected at last? arch hypocrite, that you are--desecrating the roof that you should have upheld, leaving traces of your wickedness on every thing that ever loved you. I ask you again, why did you seek her love? why, having won it, did you leave her to shame?"
"Ralph, speak briefly and clearly--what is it you mean? has your father put this cruel charge against me into your mind? No more hints, no more vague upbraidings--out with it at once--what do you charge me with?"
Ralph did not speak, there was a grandeur of pa.s.sion in the man that held him silent.
"In the name of G.o.d, speak!" cried the brother, "you are killing me."
He spoke truly; no human strength could long have withstood the strain of anxiety that cramped his features almost into half their size, and made his strong hands quiver like reeds.
"In the name of G.o.d, speak!" he cried out again; "of what do they charge me?"
"I charge you," said Ralph, in a faltering voice, for the power of that man"s innocence was upon him as he spoke; "I charge you with the ruin of the purest and n.o.blest"--
"Ruin!--who dares"----
"Yes, ruin--has she not left my father"s roof, followed you into this miserable city--left us all, refusing to go back"----
"Boy, boy, she has not--she has not. G.o.d help us all, she has not done this. Your father is pledged, solemnly pledged against it. Ralph, my dear boy, there is some mistake here; she cannot be so desperate."
"She left home on the very day with yourself, in the storm, when the snow and the ice cut one to the heart."
"Yes, I remember; the storm seemed of a piece with the rest; a hopeful heart would have frozen in it. I remember that storm well."
"But she has greater cause to remember it, for in its drifts was buried her good name forever; if it could have whitened over the infamy that fell on our house, I should have prayed the snows to be eternal!"