“Where is Mr. Noel—the gentleman you told me of who was so good to you on the steamer, and afterward came to see you and spoke to you so kindly?”
“He has forgotten me—at least I suppose so,” she said, shaking her head. “Yes, he was good to me. I think he would be sorry for me. He has gone back to Europe and taken his mother and sisters. Some one was speaking of them and said they all loved him so. You and I are more desolate than most people, Hannah. You have only your mother and me to love you—and I have only you.”
VI.
The clock on the mantel struck twelve. Christine rose to her feet with a little shiver. There was a mirror not far away, toward which she turned and surveyed herself from head to foot. As she did so the soft folds of her Greek drapery settled about her, severe and beautiful. The masses of her dark hair were drawn into a loose, rich knot pierced by a gold dagger, and her eyes—so remarkably beautiful in color and expression that no one ever saw them unimpressed—were clear and steady as they gazed at the reflected image in front of her.
“I wonder,” she said, lifting her bare arms with a sort of conscious unconsciousness and clasping her hands in a fine pose behind her head, which she turned slightly to one side, “I wonder if this is the very last of me—the very last of the Christine who loved to look beautiful and wear rich clothes and be admired, and who thought that she would one day be loved.”
Turning away from that long look she held out both fair arms to Hannah.
“Come close, close, Hannah,” she said, as the plain little teacher, in her rough dark gown, was drawn into her embrace. “I want to feel some living thing near my heart to-night, for I am frightened and lonely. I have told myself good-by. Christine is dead and gone and I have buried her. I want some one near me in these first moments of my strange new self. Oh, Hannah, if we could die! Not you—for your mother needs you—but me. Oh, Hannah,” she said, in a strained voice that sounded as if it were only by an effort that she kept her teeth from chattering, “if I hadn’t you to-night I don’t know what would become of me.”