"He is not! I prefer your retiring. Sarah will call you at two."
"I shall not undress, to-night, Rachel," said Ida. "I have a presentiment I shall be wanted."
"Is he much worse?"
"No—but I may be called up. I shall sleep here, upon the lounge."
But sleep was coy to her wooing. If she had ever felt fear, she would have known that she was scared and excited. The south wind generally affected her unpleasantly, creating heat and nervousness; but to-night the breeze was from the north, and the moonbeams were spread in broad, white sheets upon the floor. "I must be sick!" she said, aloud. "I cannot ascribe this numb horror to anything else. They have a superstition that it is a precursor of death." Her mind rejected this explanation, but the utterance of that word had populated her soul with phantoms. Lynn's chill, damp hands again enfolded hers; and his glazed, upward look—still and fixed, moved not at her weeping; the clods rattled upon the coffin—frozen clods! and how warmly soever the sun smiled upon the swelling turf—down where he slept, it was frosty night still! Must he, the loved and gifted, rest there forever? would a tender mother's arms never more embrace her,—the dear lips, now turned to dust, never cling to hers, in speechless fondness? But the dead should rise! some to the resurrection of the just, some to everlasting shame and contempt. Oh! the unspeakable woe of a hopeless death! the dying strife of the finally impenitent! Was his end approaching? "My God! avert from him this doom!" His room was beneath hers. She could hear occasionally a groan, which she knew was an execration. He might be dying. She thrust her feet into a pair of felted slippers, and descended to his door. "Quiet—quiet as death!" "This is improper! irrational!" said she, severely, to herself. "I need repose and steadiness of nerve—there are watchers with him." But she would not go back to her room. She went, instead, to the parlor. The hall-lamp burned all night; and setting open a door, and unclosing a shutter, to dissipate the darkness, which suffocated her, as a thick pall, she stretched herself upon a sofa. She slumbered and dreamed—visions, like her waking fancies. She was in Mr. Read's chamber; writing to Carry, at her far window;—the door swung back, and his wife glided in. With a gesture of silence to her, she passed to his bedside, and poised a knife above his heart! Ida strove to scream—to move—but her mighty efforts only shifted the scene—did not awaken her. He was dead; and his friends had come to the funeral. They thronged the room where his corpse lay in its costly coffin; and the carriages, headed by the hearse, grated upon the pebbled gutter. The undertaker was tightening the silver screws—when, oh! horror! the lid was heaved up from within—crashing and splintering—and the dead sat upright! The distorted features were Mr. Ashlin's,—the yell, as he tossed his arms aloft,—Mr. Read's. "I will not die!" She was in the centre of the apartment; the cold beads dripping from her forehead, and her hair, dank and heavy, upon her face and neck. She put it back, and listened. The silence drove by her in waves—throbbed with the beatings of her heart. Hark! it was not all a dream! the pawing of hoofs rang upon the stones. The moon had set; and the lamp was brighter than the starlight. She had the presence of mind to creep to that side of the window hidden by the shutter, and looked out. A carriage was at the door—in appearance like the doctor's. He had been summoned—the sick man was worse. Something light and white sailed past her window, from overhead; as it fluttered to the ground, a tall figure stepped from the vehicle, and caught it to his bosom. The apparition of the Arch-Fiend himself would not have shaken Ida, as did that manly form. She was awake! A stealing step fell, softly as a snow-flake, upon the floor above—she heard it. With the speed of light, she flew to the front door—locked it—to that at the other extremity of the passage—hid both keys beneath the cushion of the hall-sofa, and back again to the street entrance, as Mrs. Read, dressed for travelling, had her foot upon the lowest stair. The fugitive leaned against the wall for support, faint with the terrors of detected guilt.
"Back!" said Ida—her cheek bloodless—her eyes flashing living fire. "False to your word! false to your sex! I will save you from public disgrace! Back! I say!"
"Not while I live!" was the answer.
"And you cross this threshold over my body!" cried the girl, passionately. "Oh! shame! shame! you—the pride and idol of your family and your husband! that you should break their hearts and disgrace his name!"
"It is not my name after I leave this—I shall forget and be forgotten. Let me go!"
"Forget! forgotten! you may! a false woman can forget the mother who reared her! but the stain upon them! your tears, nor his blood can cleanse it!"