"My dear master!" I exclaimed, and tears, such as glisten in the eyes of childhood, gathered in mine. I was a child again, in my mother's presence, and the shade-trees of the gray cottage seemed rustling around me.
The entrance of Margaret interrupted the conversation. She never appeared to better advantage than in her closely fitting riding dress, which displayed the symmetry of her round and elastic figure. I looked at her with interest, for I had seen those saucy, brilliant eyes suffused with tears, and those red, merry lips quivering with womanly sensibility. I hoped good things of Margaret, and though I could not regret her departure, I thought leniently of her faults, and resolved to forget them.
"Just like Margaret," said I, gathering up the beautiful drapery, on which she had trodden as she left the room, and rent from the shaft that confined its folds. She stopped not to see the mischief she had done, for she was so accustomed to hear a crash and dash behind her, it is not probable she even noticed it.
"Thank God!" exclaimed Ernest, before the echo of their departing footsteps had died on the ear. "Thank God! we are once more alone."
Mr. Harland had visited us but seldom since the words of passion which might have been followed by a scene of strife, but for woman's restraining presence, had fallen from the lips of Ernest. One evening, he called and asked a private interview with Ernest, and they immediately passed into the library. I saw that his countenance was disturbed, and vague apprehensions filled my mind. I could hear their voices in earnest, excited tones; and though I knew there was no revelation to be made which Ernest had not already heard from me, I felt a conviction amounting to certainty, that this mysterious interview had some connection with my unhappy father, and boded evil to me. Mr. Harland did not probably remain more than an hour, but every moment seemed an hour, drawn out by suspense and apprehension. He reëntered the parlor with Ernest, but left immediately; while Ernest walked silently back and forth, as he always did when agitated,—his brows contracted with stern, intense thought. He was excessively pale, and though his eyes did not emit the lightning glance of passion, they flashed and burned like heated metal.
I dared not ask him the cause of his emotion, I could only watch him with quick-drawn breath, and lips sealed with dread. Suddenly he put his hand in his bosom, and snatching thence the fatal casket I had left in my father's crime-stained hands, he hurled it to the floor, and trampled it under his feet.
"Behold," he cried, with inexpressible bitterness and grief, "my mother's gift, her sacred bridal gift,—desecrated, polluted, lost,—worse than lost! I will not upbraid you. I would spare you the pang I myself endure,—but think of the agonies in which a spirit like mine must writhe, to know that your name, that the name of my wife is blazoned to the world, associated with that of a vile forger, an abandoned villain, whose crimes are even now blackening the newspapers, and glutting the greedy appetite of slander! O rash, misguided girl! what demon tempted you to such fatal imprudence?"
I sat immovable, frozen, my eyes fixed upon the carpet, my hands as cold as ice, and my lips, as they touched each other, chill as icicles. In moments of sudden anguish I never lost consciousness, as many do, but while my physical powers were crushed, my mind seemed to acquire preternatural sensibility. I suffered as we do in dreams, intensely, exquisitely, when every nerve is unsheathed, and the spirit naked to the dagger's stroke. He stopped as he uttered this impassioned adjuration, and his countenance changed instantaneously as he gazed on mine.
"Cruel, cruel that I am!" he cried, sitting down by me, and wrapping his arms around me; "I did not know what I was saying. I meant to be gentle and forbearing, but strong passion rushed over me like a whirlwind. Forgive me, Gabriella, my darling, forgive me. Let the world say what it will, I know that you are pure and true. I care not for the money,—I care not for the jewels,—but an unspotted name. Oh! where now are the 'liveried angels' that will guard it from pollution?"