A Noble Woman

by Ann S. Stephens

PLANS AND LETTERS.

All that day Elsie remained in bed, sleeping a good deal, but so nervous and shaken that she would not permit herself to be left alone for a single instant. Her brother's presence seemed to fill her with fear, and she shrank with a strange sort of timidity from every tender word or soothing caress; still she was wretched if he left her bedside, and there he watched the long day through.

Evening came. Mellen was compelled to go through the pretence of another meal; indeed he forced himself to eat, for he began to grow angry with his own weakness.

He had thought when the first struggle was over to feel only an icy, implacable resentment against the woman who had wronged him; he was ashamed of the tenderness in his own nature when he found that, stronger than his rage, more powerful than the horror with which he regarded her dishonor, was the love he had believed uprooted suddenly from his heart, as a strong tree is torn up by tornados.

Yes, he regretted her! It was not only that his life must be a desolate blank, he pined for her presence. But for his pride he would have rushed out in search of her, and taken her back to his heart, sweeping aside all memory of her sin.

He roused himself from what appeared to him such degrading weakness by one thought—the partner in her guilt was his old enemy; a man too vile for vengeance, even.

That memory brought all the hardness back to his face, all the insane passion to his soul, but it centered on the man now.

That night, in the woman's very presence, he could not take the vengeance that he meditated, but now he was prepared to force her from the villain's grasp—on to repentance.

Alone in his library, Grantley Mellen wrote several letters; it was impossible to tell how that meeting would end, and he must make preparations for the worst. When all was done he rose to go upstairs again; a sudden resolution made him pause. He sat down at his desk once more, and wrote these lines:

"Elizabeth—I said that even in your dying hour, I would never forgive you: I retract. If my pardon can console your last moments, remember that it is yours. I have made no alteration in my will; if you can accept the benefits which may accrue to you by my death, take them; but so surely as you ever attempt to approach the innocent girl who has been so long endangered by your companionship, my curse shall follow you, even from the grave to which you will have consigned me."