But this morning, in the bitterness of her emotions, India could not endure the sad, wistful glances of poor Oriole; so she had left the small sitting-room impatiently, and passed into the parlour, where she paced up and down with the fearful, half-suppressed excitement of some caged lioness.
Disciplined and chastened as her heart certainly had been in the trials of her life, India was still very far from Christian perfection. And, perhaps, now she needed a little of the sunshine of happiness, as well as the long, long cloud of sorrow, to nurture the growth of goodness in her heart. At all events, she found it very difficult to bear with fortitude the mortification and grief of the night before. She had met him on the steps of one of those Fifth Avenue palaces, where her pupils resided. She had met him! he had passed her, brushing her dress as he went! Though her veil was down, she had recognized him. And she knew by the start that he made, he recognized her as well! Yet he had passed without speaking! Ah! all her thoughts of the future possibilities of a rencounter that she dreaded and shrunk from, had not shaped a meeting so humiliating as this! She had feared that he would seek her out, and, from his pride of place, presume to patronize her, by endeavouring to improve her circumstances, giving her advice, offering her assistance—humiliations which to escape she would have fled to an alms-house—or, perhaps, plunged into a river, “but for the grace of God,” for India was but half regenerated. But a rencounter so mortifying as this, she had never dreamed of. All the circumstances attending that chance meeting also combined to make it inexpressibly galling—he going into that house an honoured guest, for whom its saloons were illuminated and a feast prepared, and a choice company gathered: she creeping out of it, a sort of hired servant with her wages in her hand. So, in the present bitterness of her mood, she looked at herself. And they had so met upon the steps, and he had seen her, recognized her, and passed her without speaking! “Ah! fool!” so she thought; “there was little need to dread that he would seek me out to benefit me. The ‘great statesman’ evidently has no wish to be bored by his poor relations. But oh, Mark! Mark! that you should have done such an unworthy thing! you, my one saving idea of manly excellence—that prosperity should have corrupted, and the world hardened, even you! When you upbraided me so bitterly, in the midst of my sorrows at Cashmere, I bore it all with a meekness—not very like me! because—oh! because I saw and felt what you would never acknowledge to your own heart—the secret, unacknowledged feeling that gave point, sting, and acrimony to all the bitter reproaches you uttered. Oh! Mark, in that day I read your heart as a woman only can! But all this is over—over—and you pass me without recognition,” she said, sinking into a chair, dropping her head upon her hands, and giving way for the first time in years to a passionate flood of tears.
Hark! the bell rings—Oriole goes to the door. It is probably the postman, and India is too much depressed, and has too little to hope, to care much about the coming of that messenger of joy or of woe to so many households. But hark!
“Why, how do you do, Oriole? Do you recollect me, child? Yes? I am very glad to see you here! How is your mistress? Is she in?”
It is a rich, full-toned voice that speaks—a cordial, familiar, life-giving voice—a voice that has power to thrill every nerve in her frame—in a word, it is Mark Sutherland’s voice! and he is in the little hall, and in another moment he will be in the room.
Oh! Heaven! her face is pale, and bathed with tears—he must not see her thus! In a moment the blinds are drawn down, the curtains dropped, and the room obscured, and her chair is wheeled around with its back to the windows, so as to throw her face into deep shadow. So she will await him. But Oriole enters alone, with a card.
“It is Mr. Sutherland, madame, and if you are disengaged he will be glad to see you.”
She bows in assent—she can do no more; and Oriole goes out, returns, and ushers in Mr. Sutherland.
“Mrs. Ashley”——
She rises, and extends her hand.