"You will not do anything in the settlement of this nonsensical matter until you confer with me?" requested Charley, on saying "Good bye."
"I shall not move in the affair," was the laconic rejoinder.
"You will acquaint me with Pemberton's proposals?"
"If I think proper—yes—you shall know in good time."
Charley was going out, and did not catch the exact import of these words. He proceeded with the business of the day, comparatively at ease. Knowing Pemberton to be an arrant coward at heart, bully as he was, he did not fear a renewal of the subject from him.
Ida was alone that evening. Mr. Read was in the country; and Josephine, having waited until visiting hours were over, went off to bed. Ida liked to sit up late, but she usually preferred the snug comfort of her room to the parlors. To-night she lingered over a book, reading and musing, with a tincture of gloom in her thought-pictures. She was pondering upon the instability of earthly plans and hopes. "How true that the brightest light produces the deepest shadows!" The words arose unexpectedly to her lips. In the loosely-linked chain of reverie, she did not know that they had their origin in the memory of a slighter circumstance than a word—in a look.
Rachel was coming to see after her, and hearing a ring as she tripped by the front door, opened it. A man handed her a package saying, briefly, "For Miss Ross," and instantly vanished. Ida saw Lynn's hand in the superscription of the bulky parcel, and broke the seal. Two letters were within it; one directed to Ellen Morris; the other,—enclosing a miniature—to herself.
"My best, truest friend!" she read, "I cannot trust myself to speak the farewell my heart indites to one who has been a loving and faithful sister to me. It would unman me, and I have occasion for all my manliness at this juncture. I have no regret in the prospect of leaving a world where my horoscope was cast in clouds and storm;—I cannot undergo the pangs of seeing your grief. Destiny will be accomplished, Ida, however insignificant the instrument with which it works. Charley will inform you of the baseness of that which has severed the one shining thread of my existence. Heaven grant you may never know the hatefulness of life, when that for which you thought, toiled, lived, is torn from you! I have struck the reptile who trailed over my Eden-flowers, and reared his head insultingly amid the ruin he helped to effect, and in his unspent malice he would sting me to death. The sting of death is gone! there will be unintentional mercy in the stroke that releases me. I have been mad—I am calmer now. If I know my own heart, I wish him no evil; I shall not attempt his life—I will not imbrue my hands in the blood of the murdered.
"You will give the enclosed to my poor Ellen—'my Ellen!' she has forbidden me to call her by that name. It may be, she will pity, when no more, the wretch she could not love when living.
"My sister and friend! what can I say to you? Forgive my ingratitude in being willing to die before I have made some feeble return for your goodness! Will you wear or keep this image of him, by whom you were never forgotten—not in the death-agony? I have written to Charley, but he will not receive the letter until all is over. I was unwilling to risk this—its contents are too sacred. You are dreaming in your innocent slumbers, of years of peace and joy—I shall not close my eyes but in the sleep that knows no awakening to care and woe. 'The blessing of him who is ready to perish' be upon you!
"Lynn."
Ida's impulse was to scream for help; but ere her palsied tongue did her bidding, the futility of all attempts to save him stared upon her; the hour—nearly midnight; the illness of their man-servant; Mr. Read's absence; her ignorance of Lynn's locality or plans beyond his suicidal intention—towered, frowning spectres, mountain-high, each with its sepulchral "Impossible!" Some women would have swooned—some sunk down to weep in impotent despair;—the shock over, her energetic spirit rallied to meet the emergency. He should be saved! at the peril of her life, if need be—what were personal convenience and safety?
Charley—the sagacious, collected friend—what mortal could do, he would—she must see him. Rachel had not spoken, terrified by her mistress' expression and manner. It was a relief to aid her in any way; she brought, without a second's parley, the cloak and hood Ida ordered, and equipped herself to attend her. "Take the key," said Ida, as they went out of the door; and they sped on their way. The night was dark, and for whole squares not a light was visible. Half of the distance to Mr. Dana's was traversed without encountering a single being, when they approached a lighted doorway, in which two gentlemen were standing. Fearing to attract their attention by her hurried gait, Ida slackened her pace, and pulled her hood over her face. She heard one say—"If the spasms do not return he may not want watchers to-morrow night;" and a feeling of security stole upon her. The friends of the suffering would not molest her, whose mission was one of mercy. A few squares further on, they were met by a watchman. Rachel made out his badge of office through the obscurity, and pressed to her mistress' side. The man stopped. His keen eye discerned her color.