"Have you a desire to hide anything from me—can you love, when you refuse to trust me."
"Ralph, leave me! If you have any mercy, go away, and let me be alone." In her frenzy she threw up her arms with a gesture which seemed to him almost one of repulsion. He looked at her for a moment, his heart bursting with the first revelation of its woe, then muttering—
"Lina, has it come to this?" he sprang from the room, and the sound of his flying footsteps on the stair recalled her to a consciousness of what had befallen her.
She strove to utter his name, but it died husky and low in her parched throat. She must fly—anywhere to be out in the air, for the atmosphere of that close chamber seemed stifling her. She caught up a shawl which lay on a table, and rushed from the room and from the house. A sudden thought, which seemed instinct rather than reason, had made her start thus madly away to search for old Ben, the honest protector of her childhood, hoping that from him she could gather some explanation of the secret that seemed crushing the life from her frame.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE SLAVE AND HER MASTER.
The carriage which conveyed General Harrington, went at a rapid speed, till it entered the city. The General seemed unconscious of his unusual progress, and was lost in what seemed a disagreeable reverie, till he awoke amid a crash of omnibuses, and a whirl of carriages in Broadway. Here he checked the driver, and leaving the carriage, bade him proceed to the club, and await his return there. He paused upon the side-walk, till the man was out of sight, then turning into a cross street, he walked rapidly forward into a neighborhood that he had seldom, if ever, visited before.
The dwelling he sought, proved to be a common brick house, without any peculiar feature to distinguish it from some twenty others, which completed a block, that stood close upon the street, and had a dusty, worn appearance, without a picturesque feature to attract attention.
General Harrington advanced up the steps, after a little disgustful hesitation, and rang the bell. The door was promptly opened, and an ordinary maid-servant stood in the entrance. The General inquired for some person in a low voice, and the girl made room for him to pass, with a nod of the head.
The hall was dark and gloomy, lighted only by narrow sashes each side of the door, and the whole building so far, presented nothing calculated to remove the distaste with which the fastidious old man had entered it.