She must have been partly stunned by her sorrow, for she sat, no longer impatient, nor watching eagerly for his return, but in a sort of half-lethargic state, gazing out unconsciously into the falling night that now closed in fast around her.
It is neither a weak nor an ignorant theory that ascribes, even to the most corrupt natures, moments of deepest remorse, sincere and true, aspirations after better things, and a willingness to submit to the severest penalties of the past, if only there be a “future” in store for them. Who can tell us what of these were now passing through the mind of her who sat at that window, brooding sorrowfully?
“Here 's a letter for you, Loo, and a weighty one too,” said Holmes, entering the room, and approaching her before she was aware. “It was charged half a dollar extra, for overweight. I trust you 'll say it was worth the money.”
“Fetch a light! get me a candle!” cried she, eagerly; and she broke the seal with hands all trembling and twitching. “And leave me, papa; leave me a moment to myself.”
He placed the candles at her side, and stole away. She turned one glance at the address, “To Mrs. Hawke,” and she read in that one word that the writer knew her story. But the contents soon banished other thoughts; they were her own long-coveted, long-sought letters; there they were now before her, time-worn and crumpled, records of a terrible season of sorrow and misery and guilt! She counted them over and over; there were twenty-seven; not one was missing. She did not dare to open them; and even in her happiness to regain them was the darkening shadow of the melancholy period when they were written,—the long days of suffering and the nights of tears. So engrossed was she by the thought that they were now her own again, that the long tyranny of years had ended and the ever-impending shame departed, that she could not turn to learn how she came by them, nor through whom. At length this seemed to flash suddenly on her mind, and she examined the envelope, and found a small sealed note, addressed, as was the packet, “Mrs. Hawke.” O'Shea's initials were in the corner. It contained but one line, which ran thus:—
“I have read the enclosed.—G. O'S.”
Then was it that the bitterness of her lot smote her with all its force, and she dropped down upon her knees, and, laying her head on the chair, sobbed as if each convulsive beat would have rent her very heart.
Oh, the ineffable misery of an exposed shame! the terrible sense that we are to meet abroad and before the world the stern condemnation our conscience has already pronounced, and that henceforth we are to be shunned and avoided! There is not left to us any longer one mood of mind that can bring repose. If we are depressed, it is in the mourning of our guilt we seem to be dressed; if for a moment we assume the air of light-heartedness, it is to shock the world by the want of feeling for our shame! It is written that we are to be outcasts and live apart!
“May I come in, Loo?” said a low voice from the half-opened doorway. It was her father, asking for the third time before she heard him.
She uttered a faint “Yes,” and tried to rise; but her strength failing, she laid her head down again between her hands.