For some time Ida Mayhew neither heeded nor heard the choral music in the parlor below, but at last a clearer, louder strain, in which Van Berg's voice was pre-eminent, caught her attention and she started up and listened at the window.
"He is singing songs of Heaven with Jennie Burton, and I—can there be any worse perdition than this?" she said in a low, agonized tone.
As if by a sudden impulse she quietly unfastened the door that led to her father and mother's room. Perceiving that her mother was not there, she stole noiselessly in, and turned up the lamp.
Mr. Mayhew reclined upon a lounge in the deep stupor of intoxication, his dark hair streaked with gray falling across his face in a manner that made it peculiarly ghastly and repulsive.
"This is my work," she groaned. "Jennie Burton made a noble-looking man of him last evening. I have made him this." She writhed and wrung her hands over his unconscious form, appearing as might one of Milton's fallen angels that had lost Heaven and happiness but not the primal beauty of his birth-place.
"Well," she exclaimed with the sudden recklessness which was one of her characteristics, "if I have caused your degradation I can at least share in it;" and she took an opiate that she knew would produce speedy and almost as deep a lethargy as that which paralyzed her father; then threw herself, dressed, upon her couch, and did not waken until late the following day.
Stanton was sorely troubled over his rash promise that he would meet Sibley at daylight on Monday morning. After Miss Burton's words he felt that he could not keep his appointment, and yet he shrank from the ridicule he believed Sibley would heap upon him. His perturbation was so great that he hunted up Van Berg before retiring, and told him of his dilemma. The artist greatly relieved his mind by saying:
"I think we both have had a lesson, Stanton, in regard to quarreling with such fellows as Sibley, although I hardly see how we could have acted differently. But villains are usually cowards after their passion cools and they become sober. The case in hand is no exception. Burleigh tells me he has just learned that Sibley took a late boat to the city, and so does not mean to keep the appointment to-morrow. Therefore, sleep the sleep of the just, old fellow. Good-night."
The throbbing pain in Ida's head was so great when she awoke on Monday that she half forgot the ache in her heart. She found that her father had gone to the City and that the day was well advanced. Her mother sat looking at her with an expression in which anxiety and reproach were equally blended.
The unhappy woman had learned from her husband's habits to know what remedies to employ, and so was able gradually to relieve her daughter's physical distress; but Ida's weary lassitude and reticence were proof against all her questions and reproaches. It seemed as if nothing could rouse or sting her out of the dull apathy into which she had reacted after the desperate excitement of the preceding day. She pleaded illness, and stubbornly refused to go down to dinner. At last her mother, much to her relief, left her to herself, and went out to drive with Stanton, hoping that she might hit upon some plan of action in regard to the two difficult problems presented in her husband and daughter.