Then, after a moment, she asked:
“Are the family at dinner?”
“Yes; that is, Mrs. Irving and Mr. Frank. Mr. Irving is in the library alone,” Celine said.
And then Magdalen sat up and asked the girl to gather up her hair decently, and give it a brush or two, and bring her a clean collar, and her other shawl.
Magdalen was going to the library to see Roger, who sat just where Frank had left him, with his head bowed upon the fatal paper which had done him so much harm. The blow had fallen so suddenly, and in so aggravating a form, that it had stunned him in part, and he could not realize the full extent of his calamity. One fact, however, stood out distinctly before his mind, “Magdalen was lost forever!” Frank had said openly that she was to be his wife! She had come to a decision. She would be the mistress of Millbank, without a doubt. But he who had once hoped to make her that himself, would be far away,—a poor, unknown man,—earning his bread by the sweat of his brow. Roger did not care for that contingency. He was willing to work; but he felt how much easier toil would be if it was for Magdalen’s sake that he grew tired and worn. He was thinking of all this when Magdalen came to his door, knocking so softly that he did not hear at first; then, when the knock was repeated, he made no answer to it, for he would rather be left alone. Ordinarily, Magdalen would have turned back without venturing to enter; but she was desperate now. She must see Roger that night, and she resolutely turned the door-knob and went into his presence.
Roger lifted up his head as she came in, and then sprang to his feet, startled by her white face and the change in her appearance since he saw her last. Then she had stood before him in the hall, winding the scarf around his neck, her face glowing with health and happiness and girlish beauty, and her eyes shining upon him like stars. They were very bright now, unnaturally so he thought, and there was a glitter in them which reminded him of the woman in the cars who had left her baby with him.
“Magdalen,” he said, as he went forward to meet her. “I did not think you had been so sick as your looks indicate. Let me lead you to the sofa.”
He laid his hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off and sank into a chair close beside the one he had vacated.
“Don’t touch me yet, Roger, oh Roger,” she began, and Roger’s heart gave a great leap, for never before had she called him thus to his face. “Excuse me for coming here to-night. I know it is not maidenly, perhaps, but I must see you, and tell you it was all a horrible mistake. I did not know what I was doing. Hester talked so much about that loose board in the garret and something hidden under it, that once, a week ago or more, it seems a year to me, I went up to shut a window; my curiosity led me to look under the floor, and I found it, Roger, and read it through, and Frank came and surprised me, and then the secret was no longer mine, and I—oh, Mr. Irving, I wanted to keep it from you, till—till—I cannot explain the whole, and I don’t know at all how it came into your hands. Can you forgive me, Roger? I could have burned it at once or had it burned, but I dared not. Would you have liked me better if I had destroyed it?”
She stopped speaking now, and held her hands toward Roger, who took them in his own and pressed them with a fervor which brought the blood back to her cheeks and made her very beautiful as she sat there before him.