“She thought, perhaps, I should have blamed her for this long course of religious falsehood. I blame her! (Olive, for God's sake do not let my mother read all I write to you. She shall know everything soon, but not now.)
“'But you will not thwart me,' Christal said; 'though you are an English clergyman, you will find me some resting-place, some convent where I can hide, and no one ever hear of me any more.'
“I found that to oppose her was useless: little religion she ever seemed to have had, so that no devoteeism urged her to this scheme: she only wanted rest. You will agree with me that it is best she should have her will, for the time at least?”
... “I have just received your letter. Yes! yours is a wise and kindly plan; I will write at once to Aunt Flora about it. Poor Christal! perhaps she may find peace as a novice at St. Margaret's. Some little fear I had in communicating the scheme to her; for she still shudders at the very mention of her father's name, and she might refuse to go to her father's land. But she is so helpless in body and mind, that in everything she has at last implicitly trusted to my guidance.”
“I suppose you, too, have heard from Edinburgh? Dear Aunt Flora! who, despite her growing feebleness, is continually seeking to do good. I, like you, judged it better not to tell her the whole story; but only that Christal was an orphan who had suffered much. At St. Margaret's she will see no one but the good nuns, until, as your aunt proposes, you yourself go to Edinburgh. You may be your sister's saving angel still.”
“Christal is gone. Lady Arundale herself will take her safe to St. Margaret's, where your aunt has arranged all Olive, we must not fail both to go to Edinburgh soon. Something tells me this will be the last good deed done on earth by our noble aunt Flora. For what you say in your last letter, thank you! But why do you talk of gratitude? All I ever did was not half worthy of you. You ask of myself, and my plans? I have thought little of either lately, but I shall now. Tell my mother that all her letters came safe, and welcome—especially the first she wrote.”
“Lord Arundale stays abroad until the year's close. For me, in the early spring, when I have finished my duties with him, I shall come home. Home! Thank God!”
CHAPTER XLVI.
Night and day there rung in Olive's heart the last words of Harold's letter, “I shall come home!” Simple they were; but they seemed so strangely joyful—so full of hope. She could not tell why, but thinking of him now, her whole world seemed to change. He was coming back! With him came spring and sunshine, youth and hope!