"Stay," said Mrs. Lowndes, as the eager Norah was about to retire from the room; "of course your friend is not married?"
Norah was taken by surprise; in an unguarded moment the false "no" slipped from her tongue, and she passed through the doorway biting her lip, and wishing—fervently wishing that she had not been betrayed, even by friendship, into uttering a lie. "But I cannot go back now. Oh, no!" thought the conscience-stricken girl.
Mrs. Lowndes saw Milly that evening, liked her appearance and manner, and engaged her as housemaid at once. Norah could not feel as happy as she would have done had her mind been at rest, but dared not confess her fault, as she deemed that to do so would be cruelly wronging Milly. She resolved to be more careful in future; she hoped that this would be the very last time on which she would be guilty of speaking untruth. Alas! lies link themselves on one to another like the rings of a chain; and who that harbors one unconfessed, unforgiven sin dare hope that it will be the last?
Months passed quietly over. Norah now seldom thought of her falsehood. If she was colder in prayer, if she was less able to lift up her heart to God, if she took less pleasure in recalling the counsels of her uncle, she hardly traced these effects to their real cause,—peace of conscience forfeited by sin.
One morning Norah found Milly in her room weeping violently, and trembling with agitation. An open letter lay on her knee.
"What has happened?" cried Norah, anxiously.
"He's found,—my poor, poor lost one is found!" sobbed Milly; "but he's in the hospital dying; he wants to see me at once. O Norah, I must go to him this day! Ask mistress to give me leave for an hour; she's kind, she'll not have the heart to refuse it!"
"Do you wish me to ask her to let you go to the hospital to see your husband, when she does not know that you have one?" asked Norah, feeling extremely uneasy at the idea of her falsehood being found out at last.
"No, no; that would never do, that would get us both into trouble, and, oh, I've trouble enough already! Go and ask her to let me go to the hospital to visit a dying mother."