“Send for a carriage, and have her carried to the nearest dispensary; there should be plenty of doctors there; it is their duty to see to such persons.”
“But she is insensible, madam,” persisted the waiting-woman, who had some feeling.
“That is nothing,” was the reply; “we cannot leave a strange girl lying in the hall.”
The woman went out muttering to herself, and with angry moisture in her eyes.
The lady seated herself once more, and began to arrange the lace of her undersleeves with considerable nervousness. Something of human feeling was at work in her bosom, and from time to time she arose and looked out of the window, always with increasing agitation. At last, a carriage drove up; and grasping the silken curtain hard with her hand, she half dragged it over her, afraid to be seen watching. She saw, through the dim light, a group of persons carrying a prostrate form down the steps leading to her own door. The carriage-lamps flashed upon a pale face as it was lifted upward. The woman caught one glance and drew back with a thrill of dismay. The face gleamed upward so deathly in its whiteness that she crept from the window, and cowered down in her sofa-cushions, tormented with the vague fear that the dead was appealing to heaven against her cruelty. For the moment, that proud woman had the sensation of a murderess.
She shook off this uncomfortable sensation, with a great effort walking the floor up and down, and muttering to herself,—
“Bellevue—Bellevue. Another from that place! have they all turned paupers? Thank heaven, however, this girl is gone. I could not have endured another scene like that. I did right; no man or woman can blame me for refusing to be disgraced. How those De Markes haunt me!”
CHAPTER XIX.
MEMORIES AND RESOLUTIONS.
They carried Catharine Lacy to the station-house. A doctor was sent for, but it was a long time before he came, and when he did arrive, the poor girl refused all assistance, but lay upon her couch, which was worse than a beggar’s, racked with a sense of her utter desolation, till thought caused fever, and fired her whole system with artificial strength.
She spent the night without sleep, and in profound darkness, tortured with visions of her lost child, its pauper grave, and of its father. For the first time she thought of the latter with doubt and bitterness. Had he deserted her? She had read of these things. And her aunt, how cruelly she had taken up the belief of her unworthiness. What had she done to be thus treated by those who should have protected her? Why was she of all human beings selected out for wrong and insult?