"But there must be a cause for this pain!"
"A cause? Yes! every thing must have a cause, I dare say, if one could but find it out. I only know that the joy was perfect till that storm arose, and the ship came in with a woman on board, who seemed to disturb every thing she looked upon. Even Lady Phipps never seemed to draw a deep breath while she was in the house. As for me! Abby, Abby, you don't know what torment is, till you have given your whole heart to one person, and see another stealing him away from you!"
"This," said Abby, who had listened with thoughtful interest, "this is the feeling they call jealousy, I suppose. Is it so painful?"
"For a time," answered Elizabeth, turning pale with the very recollection of her suffering, "it seemed as if I must die. Shame, anger, a keen fear of losing him, kept me silent. But when I was alone, with the door shut, and the curtains of my bed drawn close, all this pride and strength gave way; my brain grew hot; the very breath choked me as it rose; I could neither sleep nor rest, but walked the room all night, wondering if she thought of him too, if he were watching the light in her window, or if both were asleep and dreaming of each other. Sometimes I saw them in the garden, conversing together with the deepest interest; sometimes they sat in the great portico till the dark crept around them like a veil; and all this time I was overlooked and forgotten. Once in a while Norman would seem to remember me with a start, and force himself to say a few kind words; but there was neither depth nor earnestness in what he said: the woman had bewitched him, I am sure of it."
"Bewitched? That is a fearful word," said Abby, looking around with a wild stare, as if the very foundations of her life had been disturbed by the word her cousin used.
"Yes, Abby, I solemnly believe she was a witch; for the moment she was gone all the beauty of my life came back; Norman was himself again; he seemed to wake up from a dream and wonder what he had been about; at first, he would not believe how much I suffered, and wondered that I had grown thin, and that blue shadows were creeping under my eyes, as if his own neglect had not been the cause; but when Lady Phipps told him how it was—I would have died fifty times rather than let him know—nothing could be more generous than his sorrow. He begged my pardon almost on his knees. There was no kind look or sweet word that he did not coin into a more loving expression, to win me back to our old happiness."
"And you were happy then?—you are happy now?" said Abby, looking wistfully into the bright face, over which smiles and blushes came and went like gleams of sunset on a summer cloud.
"Happy? yes, he parted with me so kindly—he was so earnest to make me forget that dangerous woman, who had disappeared from among us like a ghost—he seemed to love me again so much more than ever, that I could not help being happy. Besides, he is coming down to see us. I have told him all about you, darling cousin. Father has consented that in a year or two, if we do not change our minds, that is—"
"He will take you away altogether; and this has happened while I was ignorant of it all. Oh, Elizabeth! how many things can grow up to divide two souls, while one of the little wild-flowers yonder buds, blossoms, and fades away!"
"But no souls are divided here, Abby!" cried the young girl, earnestly. "The love that I feel for you and father only grows broader and deeper since I have known him. We are not parted, cousin."