"No better, ma'am; very bad indeed, I believe. But don't take on so, Miss Clare," her maid went on, affectionately. "She is not so bad as they say, perhaps; and, at all events, you'll knock yourself up, and be no comfort to Mr. Carruthers."
A light flashed upon Clare. She had only to keep silence, and no one would find her out; her tears, her anguish, would be imputed to her share of the family trouble. Her maid, who would naturally have noticed her appearance immediately, expressed no surprise. Mrs. Carruthers was very ill, then. Something new had occurred since the morning, when there had been no hint of anything serious in her indisposition. The maid evidently believed her mistress acquainted with all that had occurred. She had only to keep quiet, and nothing would betray her ignorance. So she allowed the girl to talk, while she made some trifling change in her dress, and soon learned all the particulars of Mrs. Carruthers's illness, and the doctor's visit, of her uncle's alarm, and Mrs. Brookes's devoted attendance on her mistress. Then Clare, trembling though relieved of her immediate apprehension of discovery, went down-stairs to join her uncle at their dreary dinner. He made no comment upon the girl's appearance, and, indeed, hardly spoke. The few words of sympathy which Clare ventured to say were briefly answered, and as soon as possible he left the dining-room. Clare sat by the table for a while, with her face buried in her hands, thinking, suffering, but not weeping. She had no more tears to-day to shed.
Presently she went to Mrs. Carruthers's room, and sat down on a chair behind the door, abstracted and silent. In the large dimly-lighted room she was hardly seen by the watchers. She saw her uncle come in, and stand forlornly by the bed; then the doctor came, and several figures moved about silently and went away, and then there was no one but Mrs. Brookes sitting still as a statue beside the sufferer, who lay in a state of stupor. How long she had been in the room before the old woman perceived her Clare did not know; but she felt Mrs. Brookes bending over her, and taking her hand, before she knew she had moved from the bedside.
"Pray go away and lie down, Miss Carruthers," the old woman said, half tenderly, half severely. "You can do no good here--no one can do any good here yet--and you will be ill yourself. We can't do with more trouble in the house, and crying your eyes out of your head, as you've been doing, won't help any one, my dear. I will send you word how she is the first thing in the morning."
The old woman raised the girl by a gentle impulse, as she spoke, and she went meekly away, Mrs. Brookes closing the door behind her with an unspoken reflection on the uselessness of girls, who, whenever anything is the matter, can do nothing but cry.
The night gradually fell upon Poynings--the soft, sweet, early summer night. It crept into the sick-room, and overshadowed the still form upon the bed--the form whose stillness was to be succeeded by the fierce unrest, the torturing vague effort of fever; it closed over the stern pompous master of Poynings, wakeful and sorely troubled. It darkened the pretty chamber, decorated with a thousand girlish treasures and simple adornments, in which Clare Carruthers was striving sorely with the first fierce trial of her prosperous young life. When it was at its darkest and deepest, the girl's swollen weary eyelids closed, conquered by the irresistible mighty benefactor of the young who suffer. Then, if any eye could have pierced the darkness and looked at her as she lay sleeping, the stamp of a great fear upon her face even in her slumber, and her breast shaken by frequent heavy sighs, it would have been seen that one hand was hidden under the pillow, and the fair cheek pressed tightly down upon it, for better security. That hand was closed upon three letters, severally addressed to the advertising department of three of the daily newspapers. The contents, which were uniform, had cost the girl hours of anxious and agonizing thoughts. They were very simple, and were as follows, accompanied by the sum which she supposed their insertion would cost, very liberally estimated:
"The gentleman who showed a lady a sprig of myrtle on last Saturday is earnestly entreated by her not to revisit the place where he met her. He will inevitably be recognized."
"God forgive me if I am doing wrong in this!" Clare Carruthers had said with her last waking consciousness. "God forgive me, but I must save him if I can!"