"He has been here, she has refused him utterly, and he is furious. Oh, such words as he used, such cruel, hard truths as he told me! They pierce my heart like arrows poison-tipped. He does not love me—never did. This thought makes me hard as iron, resolute as a tigress.
"I am about to leave the Ridge. I have separated him from his household. It was the necessity of my position. Had these two women regained their influence over Mr. Lee, I should have lost him too. As it is, they will be left alone. I shall not be absent from his house twenty-four hours before he will depart also.
"He intends to leave home at once and travel in Europe. About the end of this year he will be in Paris. He asked no questions about my movements, but there was anxiety and deep distress in his eyes that I understood.
"I shall go at once to New York, sell my jewels, and hold myself in readiness for anything that comes. But one thing is certain—this man and I meet again."
Mrs. Dennison's journal closed here. I read it through, word by word, until my very heart grew cold with horror and dread. It is a terrible thing to be made the custodian of a great crime. It haunted me night and day, until the very burden of it threatened to undermine my health.
I hid the book away, and locked it close from all knowledge but my own. For the universe I would not have told Jessie one word of the awful crime it revealed. I think it would have killed her. But all this time my soul grew faint with apprehension. The year was wellnigh at its close. Would this woman carry out her project and meet Mr. Lee in Paris? The thought drove me wild. I resolved to leave home and cross the ocean rather than allow a noble and good man to be wiled on to a union with that terrible woman. But this was difficult. How could I leave Jessie to such perfect loneliness? These thoughts filled my mind day and night, haunting me almost into insanity.
Sometimes I thought of Lottie with a gleam of hope: possibly she had undertaken the daring enterprise which I contemplated with so much terror. I resolved to wait a while, hoping that she might send us some intelligence.
Weeks went by and we heard nothing of her. She had not promised to write—still we anxiously expected to hear of her welfare; but nothing came. Like Mr. Lee, Lottie seemed to have been swept out of our lives.
All this was very sad; but we received a little sunshine in the constant visits of young Bosworth, who was so happy now in his but half acknowledged engagement to our Jessie that all our troubles were chased away in his presence. As for the old lady—but it is impossible to explain what a protection and comfort her society proved to us at this time.