Edward was compelled to be satisfied and retire; but though he did feel sufficient physical exhaustion, for the comfort of his room to be unusually luxurious, his sleep was restless and disturbed by frightful dreams, in which, however varied the position, it always seemed that he was in danger, and Ellen sacrificing herself to save him.
On retiring for the night, Mrs. Hamilton discovered a note on her dressing-table. She thought she knew the writing, but from tremulousness it was so nearly illegible, that it was with great difficulty she deciphered the following words:
"I am so conscious I ought not to address you, know so well that I have no right to ask any favor from you, when I have given you so much trouble and pain, that I could not have asked it, if you had not been so very, very kind this morning. Oh! aunt Emmeline, if indeed you can feel any pity for me, do not, pray, do not tell Edward the real reason of my banishment from Oakwood; tell him I have been very wicked—have refused to evince any real repentance—but do not tell him what I have done. He is ill, unhappy at having to resign his profession even for a few months. Oh! spare him the misery of knowing my sin. I know I deserve nothing but severity from you—I have no right to ask this—but, oh! if you have ever loved me, do not refuse it. If you would but grant it, would but say, before I go, that in time you will forgive me, it would be such comfort to the miserable—Ellen."
Mrs. Hamilton's eyes filled with tears; the word "your" had evidently been written originally, but partially erased, and "the" substituted in its stead, and she could not read the utter desolation of one so young, which that simple incident betrayed, without increase of pain; yet to grant her request was impossible. It puzzled her—for why should she so persist in the wish expressed from the beginning, that Edward should not know it? unless, indeed—and her heart bounded with the hope—that she feared it would urge him to confess himself the cause, and her sacrifice be useless. She locked up the note, which she would not read again, fearing its deep humility, its earnest supplication, would turn her from her purpose, and in praying fervently for guidance and fitful sleep her night passed.
For some time after breakfast the following morning, Edward and his aunt were alone together in the library. It was with the utmost difficulty, he suppressed, sufficiently to conceal, the fearful agitation which thrilled through every nerve as he listened to the tale he had demanded. He could not doubt the use to which that money had been applied. His sister's silence alone would have confirmed it; but in that hour of madness—for what else is passion unrestrained by principle or feeling?—he was only conscious of anger, fierce anger against the unhappy girl who had borne so much for him. He had utterly forgotten the desperate words he had written. He had never received the intended relief. Till within a week, a short week of his return, he had been in Harding's power, and as Ellen's devotion had saved him nothing, what could it weigh against the maddening conviction, that if he had one spark of honor remaining, he must confess that he had caused her sin? Instead of saving, she had betrayed him; and he left his aunt to seek Ellen, so evidently disturbed and heated, and the interview itself had been so little satisfactory in softening him, as, she had hoped to win him to confession at once, for she had purposely spoken as indulgently of error and difficulty as she could, without betraying her strengthened suspicions, that if she had known how to do so, she would have forbidden his seeing Ellen till he was more calm.
Unhappily, too, it was that part of the day when Ellis was always most engaged, and she was not even in her own room, so that there was no check on Edward's violence. The control he had exercised while with his aunt but increased passion when it was removed. He poured forth the bitterest reproaches—asked how she could dare hope relief so obtained, would ever have been allowed to reach him?—what had she done but betrayed him? for how could he be such a dishonored coward as to let her leave Oakwood because she would not speak? and why had she not spoken?—why not betrayed him at once, and not decoyed him home to disgrace and misery? Passion had so maddened him that he neither knew what he said himself, nor heard her imploring entreaties not to betray himself and she never would. She clung to his knees as she kneeled before him, for she was too powerless to stand, reiterating her supplication in a tone that ought to have recalled him to his better self, but that better self had been too long silenced, and infuriated at her convulsive efforts to detain him, he struck her with sufficient force to make her, more by the agony of a blow from him, than the pain itself, loose her hold at once, and darted from the room.
The hall door was open, and he rushed through it unseen into the park, flying he neither knew where nor cared, but plunging into the wildest parts. How he arrived at one particular spot he knew not, for it was one which of all others, in that moment of excitement, he would gladly have avoided. It was a small glade in the midst of the wood, shelving down to the water's edge, where he and Percy, with the assistance of Robert, had been permitted to erect a miniature boat-house, and where Edward had kept a complete flotilla of tiny vessels. There were the trees, the glade, the boat-house still, aye, and the vessels, in such beautiful repair and keeping, that it brought back the past so vividly, so overpoweringly, from the voiceless proof which it was of the affectionate remembrance with which he and his favorite tastes had been regarded, even in his absence, that he could not bear it. He flung himself full length on the greensward, and as thought after thought came back upon him, bringing Ellen before him, self-sacrificing, devoted, always interposing between him and anger, as she had done from the first hour they had been inmates of Oakwood, the thought of that craven blow, those mad reproaches, was insupportable; and he sobbed for nearly an hour in that one spot, longing that some chance would but bring Mr. Howard to him, that he might relieve that fearful remorse at once; but utterly unable to seek him of himself.
Edward's disposition, like his mother's, was naturally much too good for the determined pursuit of evil. His errors had actually been much less grave, than from Harding's artful representations he imagined them. He never indulged in passion without its being followed by the most agonized remorse; but from having pertinaciously banished the religion which his aunt had so tried to instill, and been taught by Harding to scoff at the only safe guide for youth, as for every age, God's holy word, he had nothing whereon to lean, either as a comfort in his remorse, a hope for amendment, or strength for self-conquest; and terrible indeed might have been the consequences of Harding's fatal influence, if the influence of a home of love had not been still stronger.
Two hours after he had quitted his aunt, he rejoined the family, tranquil, but bearing such evident traces of a mental struggle, at least so Mrs. Hamilton fancied, for no one else noticed it, that she still hoped she did not exactly know what, for she failed in courage to ask the issue of his interview with Ellen. She contented herself with desiring Emmeline to tell her cousin to bring her work or drawing, and join them, and she was so surprised, when Emmeline brought back word that Ellen had said she had much rather not, that she sought her herself.
Ellen's cheeks, in general so pale, were crimson, her eyes in consequence unnaturally brilliant, and she looked altogether so unlike herself, that her aunt was more anxious than ever; nor did her manner when asked why she refused to join them, when Edward had so lately returned, tend to decrease the feeling.