She walked up and down uneasily for a while, and then sat down on the garden seat—that very seat where she had once been accustomed to come on Sunday afternoons to read her Bible, and tried to enjoy the prospect. There was the village spread out before her, with its peaceful homes sleeping in the moonlight, its graceful spires and towers pointing the way to heaven—nearer lay the still more peaceful city of the dead, the grave-stones and monuments glistening in the moonlight, and, conspicuous among them the tall white marble pillar, surmounted by a cross, which marked that portion of the ground appropriated to the Seminary. Far away stretched the lake, blue and beautiful, closed in by high hills, which might almost be called mountains.
But "all these things pleased not her eye," for it is only to the pure heart and tranquil spirit that great nature unveils her fair and awful beauty, and neither of these were Emily's. The wonderful creation might as well have been a blank for all her enjoyment of its glories, and the holy quiet of the hour brought her no peace, for there is no peace, saith God, to the wicked.
For a long, long hour, she sat in the arbor, or walked backward and forward upon the stones, shivering with the cold, terrified at every rustle of the branches, and wondering when the conference would be finished. At last, to her great delight, the pair separated. Mr. Hugo departed, and was heard softly to close the garden gate, and Delia returned to her companion, with something in her hand, which she slipped hastily into her pocket.
"You poor child!" said she, kissing Emily. "What a stupid time you have had here by yourself. It was too bad to serve you so, but I did not see how to help it, for come I must, and I dared not come alone."
"If I had had any idea of your object," Emily began, but Delia interrupted her—
"Do you mean to say that you really had no idea? Did you think I was going to take all that trouble only for the sake of a walk? Oh, Emily, what a little goose you are!"
"But how dare you do such a thing? If Mrs. Pomeroy should find you out—"
"Nothing venture, nothing have," said Delia. "Besides, I don't mean that she shall find me out. I wish I were as sure of another person as I am of her."
"Who do you mean?"
"Mr. Fletcher! I do fear that man in spite of myself. He never turns his eyes upon me, but I feel as though he could read me through and through. I wish he were a thousand miles off. Mr. Hugo fears him as much as I do, and hates him, too; I believe he would kill him, if he dared."