Then, again, I went through the experiment of the preceding night, and strove to awaken her.
"Get up," I said, and yet without willing that she should do so. "Mrs. Raymond is here to show you her marriage-dress, and Mr. Bainrothe calls."
"Tell them to let me sleep; don't—don't—disturb me. I am so happy—so peaceful. It is sweet, too, to think that she will be married at last. Poor thing! it was no fault of hers, though—no fault. A young actress is exposed to so many temptations, and it was better so—Harry Raymond's mistress."
That secret would never have escaped her devoted lips had she been able to retain it.
As carefully as the eyes of the dead are closed, I drew down her gaping lids, and turned away. As I did so, the clock struck eight. Fatima never listened more anxiously to the toll of parting time than I did that night; but, alas for me! no sister Anne kept watch on the tower; no brother hastened to arrest the sword. I was deserted by all save God and desperation. One hour comprised my fate! Very quietly I closed the door between Mrs. Clayton's room and my own. The bolt was on the other side, so I could not secure my privacy, even for a moment, should she chance to wake, or should Mrs. Raymond or Dinah return unexpectedly. As rapidly as I could, I altered my dress—this time above my clothes—threw on the black silk frock and mantilla prepared for me on shipboard, tied a dark veil over my head, an old woolen scarf about my throat, provided for Ernie's sore-throat and croup, and stood equipped for my enterprise.
Neither bonnet, nor gloves, nor boots, did I possess—Mrs. Raymond's loan having long since been condoned on behalf of some one else, and my clothing, in my captivity, had been contrived to suit my circumstances.
Wheeling the bedstead very gently on its noiseless castors a few inches from the wall, I insinuated myself between them, and, sheltered by the head-board, loosened again the slightly-adhering covering of paper that concealed the door, and fitted into the key-hole the well-oiled wooden key, which once before had proved its efficiency. It did not fail me now, in my hour of extremity, for a moment later I had turned and removed it from its socket, stepped forth upon the landing, and relocked without the door of my prison; but, perhaps, with too much of nervous haste, too little caution, for, to my inexpressible confusion, the handle of the instrument of my emancipation remained in my hand, broken off at the lock, and useless forever more.
In delaying probable pursuit from within, I had cut off all possibility of my own retreat in case of failure. My bridges were literally burned behind me, and I had no alternative left between flight and detection. And yet there was something in the situation that, inconsistently enough, made me smile, albeit with a trembling heart.
I shook my head drearily, as a couplet from Collins's "Camel-Driver," with its strange appropriateness, irresistibly crossed my brain.
Why is it that, in times like these, such conceits beset us, such comparisons arise? Does the quality called presence of mind find root in the same source that impels us to apt quotation?—