“It was upon his head,” burst forth Christal, whose sympathies, as by some fatal instinct, seemed attracted by a case like this. “If I had been that girl, I would have hunted my vile father through the world. While he lived, I would have heaped my miseries in his path, that everywhere they might torture and shame him. When he died, I would have trampled on his grave and cursed him!”
She stood up, her eyes flashing, her hands clenched in one of those paroxysms which to her came so rarely, but, when roused, were terrible to witness. Her mother's soul was in the girl. Olive saw it, and from that hour knew that, whatever it cost her, the secret of Christal's birth must be buried in her own breast for evermore.
Most faithfully Miss Rothesay kept her vow. But it entailed upon her the necessity of changing her whole plans for the future. For some inexplicable reason, Christal refused to go and live with her in Edinburgh, or, in fact, to leave Farnwood at all. Therefore Olive's despairing wish to escape from Harbury, and all its bitter associations, was entirely frustrated. It would be hard to say whether she lamented or rejoiced at this. The brave resolve had cost her much, yet she scarcely regretted that it would not be fulfilled. There was a secret sweetness in living near Harbury—in stealing, as it were, into a daughter's place beside the mother of him she still so fervently loved. But, thinking of him, she did not suffer now. For all great trials there is an unseen compensation; and this last shock, with the change it had wrought, made her past sorrows grow dim. Life became sweeter to her, for it was filled with a new and holy interest. It could be so filled, she found, even when love had come and vanished, and only duty remained.
She turned from all repining thoughts, and tried to make for herself a peaceful nest in her little home. And thither, above all, she desired to allure and to keep, with all gentle wiles of love, her sister. Her sister! Often, yearning for kindred ties, she longed to fall on Christal's neck, and call her by that tender name! But she knew it could never be, and her heart had been too long schooled into patience, to murmur because in every human tie this seemed to be perpetually her doom—that—save one who was gone—none upon earth had ever loved her as much as she loved them.
Harold Gwynne wrote frequently from Rome, but only to his mother. However, he always mentioned Miss Rothesay, and kindly. Once, when Mrs. Gwynne was unable to write herself, she asked Olive to take her place, and indulge Harold with a letter.
“He will be so glad, you know. I think of all his friends there is none whom my son regards more warmly than you,” said the mother. And Olive could not refuse. Why, indeed, should she feel reluctance? He had never been her lover; she had no right to feel wounded, or angry at his silence. Certainly, she would write.
She did so. It was a quiet, friendly letter, making no reference to the past—expressing no regret, no pain. It was scarcely like the earnest letters which she had once written to him—that time was past. She tried to make it an epistle as from any ordinary acquaintance—easy and pleasant, full of everything likely to amuse him. She knew he would never dream how it was written—with a cold, trembling hand and throbbing heart, its smooth sentences broken by pauses of burning blinding tears.
She said little about herself or her own affairs, save to ask that, being in Rome, he would contrive to find out the Vanbrughs, of whom she had heard nothing for a long time. Writing, she paused a moment to think whether she should not apologise for giving him this trouble. But then she remembered his words—almost the last she had heard him utter—that she must always consider him “as a friend and brother.”
“I will do so,” she murmured. “I will not doubt him, or his true regard for me. It is all he can give; and while he gives me that, I shall endure life contentedly, even unto the end.”