Dr. Baxter secured her fluttering hands; looked steadfastly, yet not sternly, into her eyes.
"He may be here, my child! We cannot tell. Be sure he remembers and loves you still, he, who, while in the flesh, held you so dear. Believe this and be still under the mighty but loving hand of God!"
Her head sank upon his shoulder.
"You would not deceive me! You are a good man, and speak the truth always!" she sobbed, excitedly. "Is my father really dead? Oh, I remember it all now!"
With the resuscitation of the torpid intellect, came a flood of tears, mingled with anguished exclamations—an hysterical attack that only abated with her strength. By nine o'clock she was asleep, exhausted, but free from fever and the nervous spasms that had made the seizure alarming at first. The danger was tided over, for the present, and ere the rest separated for the night, Dr. Baxter returned thanks for "the signal deliverance," kneeling between the husband and sister; besought comfort and peace for the smitten household in fervent, affectionate words, which showed that however his thought might stray from the subjects to which his acquaintances would hold him, his heart was always in the right place.
"I cannot thank you as I should for all you have been to us—all you have done for us!" said Eunice, as they talked of the morrow's parting.
"Do not, my dear! The privilege and the gratitude have been and are mine. God sent me to you. I bless Him for it!"
It was after sunrise when Jessie unclosed her eyes. Eunice's chair was still by her pillow, but it was empty. Her mind was clear. She had no difficulty in recalling how the gentle hands had laid her to sleep; the mellow voice read to her from The Book—"A prayer of the afflicted, when he poureth out his heart before God." Dear Eunice! her love—tried as it had been by her perversity and reserve, her late violent and selfish distress—was more precious than ever before. She would arise and share, if she could not lighten, her labors and her burdens. As she sat up in bed, she espied upon a lounge near by, a gentleman's dressing-gown. The blood sprang to her cheeks in a burning torrent, for the truth flashed instantly upon her. Roy had asserted his right to the exclusive guardianship of his wife; had sent the weary sister to take the rest she needed, and himself kept watch over her through the night. There came to her no softening thought of the anxious affection that had held his eyes waking while others slept. She was only angry—desperately indignant that he had dared sit there and watch her without her knowledge or consent. The blind, mad moment passed, she stood, for many more—white as death—thinking! Then she locked the door. Roy might enter at any instant, or Eunice glide in to ask how she was, and she must be alone while she thought it all out! No mortal eye witnessed the fight of the next hour. The woman—torn and dashed by a legion of passions verily believed, while they had the mastery, that she would not survive it. She never told the tale of her hurts to her dearest earthly friend. It was something she would not renew by relating, even when time had almost worn away the scars.
She was made of sterner stuff than she knew. Ere she quitted her chamber, her resolution was taken—every trace of the strife put out of sight. She had "light enough to see the next step." If she were bound for life against her will and conscience, Roy was basely wronged—and through no fault he had committed against her. If her course were to be joyless—a strait and rough path, his was no smoother or more delightsome. Recompense him for what she had lost for him, she could not, but she could and she would appear dutiful and resigned.
Fordham coming in from the brisk walk in the early morning air by which he had tried to make up for his vigil, found her in the parlor, arranging the books upon bracket-shelves and dusting the rare old china bowl and vases which the sisters let no one but themselves handle. Her breakfast-toilette had been carefully made, contrasting strikingly with yesterday's négligé. Her rich hair was braided as she used to wear it, and banded with black ribbon; her white cambric dress was belted with the same, and loops of narrower hung from her mourning brooch. She comprehended all that had happened within the week; accepted the expediencies and proprieties of her position with its sorrows and duties, and he honored her for it. Her attire showed that she consulted his taste, wished to be fair in his eyes, and for this he loved her better than ever, if that could be. He did not know it, but the woman he had wedded never, in her previous or subsequent life, gave another equal proof of strength of mind and purpose, as when, physically faint and mentally distraught by the frightful ordeals she had already sustained, she lifted this, the heaviest cross of all, and adjusted it to her shoulders for a lifelong journey.