"I cannot understand, because Mr. Herriott loves you so devotedly he would forgive anything you might have done."
"You do not know him; neither did I before I left home. I made the mistake of presuming too far on his love. I wronged him, and he will never forgive me."
"I refuse to believe you wronged him."
"Yes, I did him a great wrong. I did not intend to wound him, and when I realized all that followed, it was too late for remedy. I don't wish to say anything more, even to you. The thought of the red coals scorches my heart. If the time should ever come when I feel I can talk freely, you will not need to question. Until then, love me and be patient, and leave me to myself. To-day Mr. Herriott is at sea—gone on his long voyage. O Ma-Lila! Ma-Lila, pray to God that he may never come home! Or that if he lives, I may die soon."
"You foolish, wicked girl! Are you crazy?"
"I have been, but my late tenants have gone into the swine. A week ago they possessed me, and wild work followed. Since their departure I find it impossible to regain my old self. I have, after frightful nightmare, awakened a very repentant, an exceedingly miserable woman, but the fault was all mine. Mr. Herriott was not to blame. He is even nobler than you know, nobler than I dreamed; but I wounded, injured him past pardon; and now I purpose to bear in silence, and as best I may, a sorrow that I alone have brought upon myself. No one can help me. I only ask to be spared all questions, all reference to my marriage. Father is calling me. Will you give him his tea? Ask him to excuse me. Good-night. I wish to be alone until breakfast."
When Eliza went downstairs next morning, Eglah was coming from the side garden with both hands full of dewy roses for the table vase, and, having listened until two o'clock to the restless footsteps in the room next to her own, the foster-mother glanced anxiously at her.
The cold, passionless repose that comes only after a fierce and vital struggle had settled upon her white, worn face, and the woman who knew her best could not determine whether it meant conquest or surrender.
As summer advanced, Eglah noticed the frequency with which her father fell asleep in the midst of conversation, and when he dozed one day with a bowl of sherbet in his hand, she became alarmed and sent for Dr. Plympton, an old friend of Judge Kent's, who had moved South and settled in Y—— during the dismal days of carpet bag rule.
He gave him tonics, diet regimen on which he laid much stress, and ordered the family away to certain springs in a distant State. Having secured a cottage, Eglah avoided the hotel and maintained complete seclusion. Her father keenly enjoyed the change, and gradually the tendency to drowse was less apparent, but the prohibition of alcoholic drinks fretted him, and that which was tabooed at the cottage was alluringly accessible at the hotel.