“Do not ring and expose her to the idle gaze of servants,” said he, to his mother, who had seized the bell-rope. “Bring some water from your bedroom, and we will take charge of her ourselves.”
There was something commanding in the tones of his voice, and Mrs. Graham, now really alarmed at the deathly appearance of ’Lena, hastened to obey. When he was alone, Durward bent down, imprinting upon the white lips a burning kiss—the first he had ever given her. In his heart he believed her unworthy of his love, and yet she had never seemed one-half so dear to him as at that moment, when she lay there before him helpless as an infant, and all unmindful of the caresses which he lavished upon her. “If it were indeed death;” he thought, “and it had come upon her while yet she was innocent, I could have borne it, but now I would I had never seen her;” and the tears which fell like rain upon her cheek, were not unworthy of the strong man who shed them. The cold water with which they profusely bathed her face and neck, restored her, and then Durward, who could bear the scene no longer, glided silently into the next room.
When he was gone, Mrs. Graham, who seemed bent upon tormenting ’Lena, asked “what she thought about it now?”
“Please don’t speak to me again, for I am very, very wretched,” said ’Lena softly, while Mrs. Graham continued: “Have you nothing to offer in explanation?”
“Nothing, nothing—it is a dark mystery to me, and I wish that I was dead,” answered ’Lena, sobbing passionately.
“Better wish to live and repent,” said Mrs. Graham, beginning to read her a long sermon on her duty, to which ’Lena paid no attention, and the moment she felt that she could walk, she arose to go.
The moon was shining brightly, and as Mr. Douglass lived not far away, Mrs. Graham did not deem an escort necessary. But Durward thought differently. He could not walk with her side by side, as he had often done before, but he would follow at a distance, to see that no harm came near her. There was no danger of his being discovered, for ’Lena was too much absorbed in her own wretchedness to heed aught about her, and in silence he walked behind her until he saw the door of Mr. Douglass’s house close upon her. Then feeling that there was an inseparable barrier between them, he returned to his hotel, where he found his mother exulting over the downfall of one whom, for some reason, she had always disliked.
“Didn’t she look confounded, though, when I showed her the picture?” said she; to which Durward replied, by asking “when and why she sent the letter.”
“I did it because I was a mind to, and I am not sorry for it, either,” was Mrs. Graham’s crusty answer, whereupon the conversation was dropped, and as if by a tacit agreement, the subject was not again resumed during their stay in Louisville.