“Not at this moment, my sweet, pretty maid; but they caught a different look a while ago from that presented to them now. Am I right in my conjecture that the course of true love does not run smooth? Pray believe, dear, that I do not ask from any vulgar curiosity, but from a sincere desire and hope to be able to give both sympathy and help,” she added, taking Miriam’s hand and pressing it affectionately in both of hers. “That Warren Charlton is deeply enamored of you I am positively certain, and as he, too, is looking woebegone without apparent reason, to what other conclusion can I come than that the roughness of true love’s course is making misery for you both?”
“Captain Charlton has never breathed a word of love to me,” Miriam said, blushing more vividly than before, “so of course there has been no lover’s quarrel between us; but surely the horrors of the last week are enough to account for a feeling of depression, especially in one who—Oh, Serena, I think you do not know that it was I who had put Bangs into such a rage that he shot poor Barney Nolan, and was lynched in consequence! Oh, I cannot yet get over the feeling that I—I am partly to blame—partly responsible for it all!” she added, averting her face, while the big tears rolled down her cheeks.
“And that was what made you look so overwhelmed when you heard the news of that lynching!” cried Serena, catching her friend in her arms and holding her close. “Ah! I knew very well it could not possibly be that you cared in the very least for that double-dyed villain and cowardly assassin; but I could not divest Warren Charlton of some slight lingering suspicion or fear that you might have had some little liking for him.”
“I knew it!” cried Miriam, her eyes filling with tears of mingled grief and indignation; “I felt how grossly he misunderstood my emotion on hearing of the awful fate of the man who was my worst enemy, and whom I so thoroughly detested. But, oh, how could he, how could he for a moment think that I could have any admiration for the man whose character you have so truly described?”
“It’s a perfect shame that he should,” said Serena; “but I’ll set him right on that point. Oh, you needn’t give me such a frightened, beseeching look, my child; I’ve no notion of compromising you by affording him the smallest excuse for imagining that you care for him in the least; and I’ll try to impress upon him that my friend, Miriam Heath, is a prize far beyond the deserts of any man of my acquaintance, barring one who is already appropriated,” she added, laughingly.
“Thank you. That is even more than I could ask,” Miriam said, with a smile. “Serena, you and the doctor must stay to tea.”
“Thank you, kindly, but we must hurry home on account of the children. Besides, the doctor has a call to make before tea,” Mrs. Jasper answered. Then, drawing out her watch, “Ah! it is time we were off now. I must run in again and remind Alonzo.”
CHAPTER XIX.
The doctor set his wife down at their own gate, then drove on to make the call she had spoken of. Serena stood still for a moment, sending glances up and down the street, debating in her own mind whether she should or should not run over to Charlton’s office, less than a square away, and say a few words that were burning on the tip of her tongue.