Ethel had never betrayed the slightest curiosity in regard to her aunt’s crippled condition, not only refraining from asking questions, but with delicate tact seeming utterly unconscious of it; but the Madame’s words to-night, and the slight accompanying gesture, so plainly indicating that the loss of her hand was in some way connected with that past which so filled her with remorse, kindled in the young girl’s breast a strong desire to learn the whole truth; and since her aunt had voluntarily promised to tell her all, she did not feel called upon to repress the wish.
Mary’s entrance with a light, and the announcement that tea was ready, prevented a reply to the remark with which the Madame supplemented her promise, and the subject was not broached again during the hour or two that they remained together after the conclusion of the meal.
But having withdrawn to the privacy of her own apartments, Ethel sat long over the fire in her boudoir lost in thought, vainly trying to conjecture what cruelty her aunt could have been guilty of toward the sister she seemed to remember with such tender affection.
“Hate her!” she exclaimed half aloud, thinking of the Madame’s sadly-spoken words. “No, no, I could not do that, whatever she has done! I should be an ingrate if I could,” she added, sending a sweeping glance about the elegantly-appointed room, and as she did so catching the reflection in an opposite mirror of a slight, graceful, girlish figure richly and tastefully attired, reclining at ease on the most comfortable of softly-cushioned chairs in front of a glowing, beautiful fire.
Without the storm was raging with increased violence; it seemed to have culminated in a furious tempest.
Absorbed in her own musings, Ethel had hardly been conscious of it before; but now the howling of the wind, the dashing of the waves on the shore, and the rattling of the sleet against the windows made her shiver and sigh as she thought of the homeless on land and the sailors on the water alike exposed to this wild war of the elements.
Ah, were Espy and her dear unknown mother among the number? What a throb of fear and pain came with that thought!
But she put it resolutely aside. She would hope for the best, and—there was One who knew where each of these loved ones was, and who was able to take care of them. To His kind keeping she would commit both them and herself, and go to her rest with the peaceful, confiding trust of a little child.
“Ah, little one, how did you rest?” was Madame Le Conte’s morning salutation.