"'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 passion, 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 passion, 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.