"I cannot help it!" said Lucy, plaintively. "It seems so sad that I should be made the means of depriving her of happiness. I wish I had never known that she was attached to poor Philip. I can't tell you how awkward I feel when any allusion is made in her hearing to the dear fellow, or to our marriage."
"I meant it for the best, dear, in telling you of my discovery," replied Victoria, slightly hurt.
"I know that, my dear creature! And it is well that I should not be kept in the dark as to the state of her affections. I only hope that Philip never penetrated her secret. I should die of mortification for her if he were to find it out. It is a lamentable affair—and I am sure that he is not in fault. What did you say that you gave for that set of handkerchiefs you showed me yesterday?"
"The cheapest things you ever saw! I got them at Stewart's, and they averaged six dollars apiece! As to Mr. Benson, I trust, with you, that he is as unsuspecting as he seems; but he has remarkable discernment, you know. What I could not help seeing, before I had any other proof than her behavior, is not likely to have escaped him."
Half an hour later the twain were disturbed in their confidences by the sound of wheels stopping before the house, followed by a ring at the door. Victoria, ever on the alert, peeped, with feline caution and curiosity, around the edge of the curtain.
"What is going to happen? Look, Lucy! Mr. Hammond in a handsome light carriage, and driving a lovely pair of horses! I never thought to see him go in such style. How well he looks! Take care! he will see you!"
Both dodged as he glanced up at the upper windows; but resumed their lookout in time to see the light that was kindled in his face when Sarah emerged from the front door. He was at her side in a second, to lead her down the steps, and his manner in this movement, and in assisting her into the carriage, the more striking in one generally so self-contained and deliberate, inspired the pair of initiated observers with the same conviction. As the spirited horses disappeared into the avenue, the friends drew back from their loophole, and stared each other in the eyes, with the simultaneous exclamation—"They are engaged!"
They were engaged! Lewis felt it with a glad bound of the heart—but a minute before sickening in deadly suspense; felt, as he seated himself by her side, that the sorrows of a lonely and struggling youth, the years of manhood's isolation and unsatisfied longings, were swept from memory by this hour of abundant, unalloyed happiness.
And Sarah felt it! As her hand touched his, at their meeting upon the steps, a chill ran through her frame that told the consummation of the sacrifice which was to atone for past folly; to silence, and brand as a lying rumor, the fearful tale that bruited abroad the revelation of that weakness. In her mad horror at the knowledge of its discovery, she had rushed upon this alternative. Better an estate of honorable misery, than to live on, solitary, disgraced, condemned and pitied by her meanest foe! Now that the irreversible step was taken, she experienced no sharp regret, no wild impulse of retreat, but a gradual sinking of spirit into hopeless apathy.
Her veil concealed her dull eyes and stolid features, and to Lewis' happy mood there was nothing surprising or discouraging in her disposition to silence. With a tact for which she had not given him credit, and did not now value aright, he refrained from any direct reference to their altered relation until they were returning homeward. Then changing his tone of pleasant chat for one of deeper meaning, he said: