It would have been better for Edith had she yielded; but her own clear reason, free from the mists of fanaticism, deluded her into the persuasion that, as nothing could appear against her, it would confirm the suspicions against her if she were to avoid by flight a full and open examination.
Before they retired for the night, they kneeled down to pray. Dinah could not subdue her sobs; but Edith's voice was calm and firm as she asked the protection of the Father of the fatherless, and committed her poor friend to him who is no respector of persons.
Dinah entreated her mistress to allow her to sit by her all night and watch, while she tried to sleep. This Edith refused: she wished to be alone. She had much to do to prepare herself for to-morrow, and she justly feared that Dinah's distress would soften her heart, and shake her firmness too much.
As they passed through the chamber, Dinah bearing the candle, the little Phoebe, restless in her sleep, had nearly thrown herself out of bed. Edith stopped, and, bending over, replaced the bedclothes, and said softly to Dinah, "If to-morrow should be fatal, if I should not live to keep my promise to the old woman, I can trust her to you: you will be to her, as you have been to me, a mother; O, more than a mother?"
She stopped; her voice choked. She removed the thick hair from the brow of the sleeping child, but even in sleep her face wore the frown that so often marred its beauty. "Dinah," she said, "she is yours; you will love her as you have me."
"That I can never promise; but I will do my duty," said Dinah.
Edith pressed her lips—thirsting as they ever did for a return of love—on the fair brow, and then, taking the candle from Dinah, entered her own room. Her heart was oppressed with apprehension, and she would not trust herself to say good night to her faithful servants.
CHAPTER XV.
"But ye! ye are changed since ye met me last:
There is something bright from your features past;
There is that come over your heart and eye,
Which speaks of a world where the flowers must die.
Ye smile; but your smile has a dimness yet:
Oh! what have ye looked on since last we met?"