“I am not raving! I speak the words of truth and soberness—very sad soberness, too! Believing as you do that Frederic was once the cause of much sorrow to you and to one you loved, and having no reason to care one iota for me, but rather to distrust me, you nevertheless obey my call upon you for service, as if I had every right to make it. And when here, you treat me just as you would Mabel, were her situation as deplorable, her need equal to mine.”
“Why shouldn't I?” questioned Mrs. Sutton, simply. “I have no ground for a quarrel with you. And if I had—well, the truth is, my dear, I have a poor memory for such things!”
Rosa caught at the scarcely perceptible emphasis upon the “YOU,” and disregarded the remainder of the remark.
“You cannot yet acquit Frederic of wrong-doing! Indeed, Mrs. Sutton, he has been foully wronged among you. It is not because he is my husband that I say this. Mabel's name has never passed his lips—-nor mine in his hearing, since I became his wife. And every one of the family has been equally guarded when he was by. I doubt, sometimes, if he has ever heard whom she married or where she lives—so carefully has he shunned every reference to her or any of the Ridgeley people. During the nine years we have lived together, he has given me no cause to suspect that he ever thinks of her, or laments the broken engagement. If I have made myself wretched by imagining the contrary, it was my fault, not his—my foolish, wicked jealousy. I would scorn to imply a doubt of his integrity, by reminding him of the charges proferred against him by Winston Aylett, and believed by his sister—much less ask him to contradict them. I never put any faith in them from the outset. It comforts me to recollect that my confidence in him stood fast when everybody else distrusted him—my noble, slandered darling! But my declaration of his innocence is founded upon his blameless life and upright principles. No one could be with him as I have been, and doubt him. He is a perfect man—if there was ever a sinless mortal—great-hearted, gentle, and sincere. Do not I know this? Have I not proved him to the utmost?”
Her rapid, impassioned declamation was ended by a copious flood of grief that provoked a frightful fit of coughing. When this was subdued she was weaker than a year-old infant, and lay between stupor and dreaming for so long a time, that Mrs. Sutton became alarmed.
There must be no repetition of this scene. She most ward off similar mishaps by whatever measures she could force or cajole her conscience into adopting. Rosa's state was more precarious than her account had led her friend to believe, or than the nurse's experienced eye had seen at their meeting. The main hope of her recovery was in the warmer climate and assiduous attendance. Above all, she should not be allowed to exhaust herself by talking, or hysterical paroxysms. She had no more self-control than a child, and she must be treated as such. Mrs. Sutton's jesuitical resolve was to humor her by every imaginable device, even to feigned friendship for Frederic Chilton.
Fortified by this resolution, she heard, without any show of pride or trepidation, the clatter of horses' hoofs in the yard; the sound of voices below stairs, as Mr. Chilton ushered the physician into the parlor, and the light, careful tread with which he mounted to his wife's apartment. His momentary pause at the entrance, and surprised look at beholding the other tenant of the chamber, were the best passport to her indulgence he could have desired. It was clear to her instantly that poor Rosa's passion for manoeuvring had survived the wreck of health and prostration of spirits. She had never chosen the straight path if she could find a crooked or a by-road, and her project for obtaining Mrs. Sutton's services and company had been put into execution, without consultation with her husband. However reprehensible this might be in the abstract, it was not in the kind old soul to betray her, as she advanced, placidly and civilly, to reassure the startled man.
“How are you, Mr. Chilton? You hardly expected to meet me here, I suppose? But I am a near neighbor of Mrs. Tazewell now, and hearing that Rosa was sick, I came over to see if I could do anything for her, knowing how infirm her mother is.”
“You are very kind!” He grasped her hand more tightly than he intended, or was conscious of. “We were ignorant ourselves of Mrs. Tazewell's true condition. Mrs. Chilton's sisters have forwarded more encouraging reports to her of her mother's illness than they would have been warranted in doing by anything except the fear that a faithful account would operate injuriously upon the daughter's health. I should have chosen some other home for my wife, had I known the actual state of affairs here. Change of scene and climate was imperatively demanded.”
He spoke low and rapidly—hardly above his breath; but the black eyes, unclosing, flashed upon him.