"None."
"Then carry this to her," said he, placing a small, folded letter in Mrs. Stanhope's hand, and turning dejectedly away.
Again she entered the mansion. Louise sat with head bowed between her hands, and did not raise her eyes. Mrs. Stanhope laid the missive on the table beside her, and silently left the apartment.
Twilight deepened into evening, and still the suffering woman sat there, in mute, unutterable agony. A servant entering with lights at length aroused her to consciousness, and her eye fell on the folded letter lying on the stand. Hastily tearing away the envelope, she dropped on her knees, and ran over its contents with devouring eagerness, while her features worked with strong, conflicting emotions, and tears rolled continually from her beautiful eyes and blistered the written page. "Why do you drive me from you?" it began. "If, in an unguarded moment, under the intoxicating influences which your bewitching presence, the quiet seclusion of the spot, and romantic hush and stillness of the hour threw around me, all combining to lap my soul in delicious forgetfulness of everything beyond the momentary bliss of having you at my side, I suffered words to escape my lips, which should have remained concealed in my own bosom, you might at least let the deep, overpowering love which forced their utterance, plead as some extenuation for my presumption and error. But it seems you have cast me from you forever—unpitied—unforgiven. O, Louise! I did not think you so implacable. The sin is mine, and I would come on bended knee to implore pardon for the suffering and sorrow my rashness has brought to your innocent heart; but you fly from my approach, and banish me from your presence. No mercy for one, who, though he may have erred, is surely atoning for his errors by anguish as deep, as poignant as your own. Night after night I walk the piazza beneath your windows. I know you hear my step and feel that I am near. But you will not open the casement and let me for a moment behold your features and crave your forgiveness. O, Louise, am I to die without a pitying word or look from you?
"I sit by my Edith's bed-side through long, weary midnight hours, and she wakes from her fitful slumbers and asks for you. 'Why does she never come to see me now? There's no arm raises me so lightly, no hand bathes my brow so gently, as hers. Will you not bring her, father?'
"O, what agony these words inflict! I have to feel my own rashness and folly have deprived my sick child of a tender nurse. Louise, do you not remember one dear, bright morning, long ago, when I was sitting at the piano in that pleasant parlor I'm forbidden to enter now, and you stood beside me in all your bewildering grace and beauty, that I sought from you a promise which was given? Still, still would I conjure you, as Steerforth said to David, think of me at my best. You will need to do it soon; for your contempt and scorn are hurrying me on to deeds of crime and wickedness. O, will you drive me to the wretch's doom, or win me to a life of happiness and virtue? It is yours to decide."
Such were the contents of the letter which remained clenched in the grasp of the agitated woman through the long hours of that woe-fraught night. When the first gray tints of dawn were visible, she started and hid it away in her bosom. Grasping a pen she traced a few lines with trembling hand, and placed them in an envelope directed to Mrs. Stanhope. Then unclosing her wardrobe, she selected a few articles of clothing, made them into a small bundle, and wrapping a heavy shawl round her slender form, and concealing her features in a large black bonnet with a long, thick veil, she opened softly the hall door, and stole forth into the cold, biting air, walking hurriedly over the frosty paths till she had gained the lonesome country road beyond the village.
As Mrs. Stanhope was sitting down to breakfast, a knock called her to the door, where she beheld Mrs. Edson's servant, who presented her with a letter, and said her mistress had gone away very suddenly, and she would like to know if she had left any word as to when she would return.
Mrs. Stanhope broke the seal, and read with surprise and astonishment depicted on her features. The girl stood waiting to learn its contents.
"I think," said Mrs. Stanhope, suddenly recollecting herself, "that your mistress will be absent some time. She informs me she has gone on a visit to the aunt with whom she resided previous to her marriage."