Never had a summer passed so slowly to Dora Freeman as had the last, and yet now that it was gone, it seemed to her scarcely more than a week since the night she had said words from which resulted all the busy preparations going on around her: the bridal dresses packed away in heavy travelling trunks, for they were going to Europe too,—the perfect happiness of Johnnie, who, twenty times each day, kissed her tenderly, whispering, “I am so glad that you are to be my mother”—the noisy demonstrations of the younger ones, and the great joy which beamed all over the Squire’s honest face each time he looked at his bride-elect and thought how soon she would be his. Gradually the pressure about Dora’s heart and brain had loosened, and she did not feel just as she had done when she first promised to be Squire Russell’s wife. She had accustomed herself to the idea, until each thought did not bring a throb of pain, while the excitement of getting ready, and the anticipated tour to places she had never expected to see, had afforded her some little satisfaction. She knew that the world generally looked at her in wonder, while Bell and Mattie totally disapproved, both framing some excuse for not being present at the wedding. But as is usually the case opposition only helped the matter by making her more determined to do what she really believed to be her duty. Besides this she was strengthened and upheld by Johnnie, who was to be the companion of her travels, and who always came between her and every sharp, rough point, smoothing the latter down and making all so bright and easy that she blessed him as her good angel. Owing to his constant vigilance, his father was not often very demonstrative of his affection, except by looks and deeds done for her gratification, but still there were times when, Johnnie being off guard, the father acted the fond lover to the pale, shrinking girl, who, shutting her teeth firmly together, suffered his caresses because she must, but gave him back no answering token of affection. Sometimes this quiet coldness troubled him, particularly as Letitia and Jimmie both asked him at different times why Auntie cried so much,—“did everybody just before they were married? Did mother?”
After Jessie came, Dora felt a great deal better, for Jessie made the future anything but gloomy. Jessie was like a brilliant diamond, flashing and sparkling, and singing and dancing and whistling until the house seemed like a different place, and even Squire Russell wished he could keep her there forever.
And now it was the day before the bridal. Every trunk was packed, and everything was ready for the ceremony, which was to occur at an early hour in the morning, as the bridal pair were to take the first train for New York. Jessie upon the grassy lawn was romping with the children, and occasionally addressing some saucy, teasing remark to the bridegroom-elect, who was smoking his cigar demurely beneath the trees, and wishing Dora would join them. But Dora was differently employed. With the quiet which had suddenly fallen upon the household, a terrible reaction had come to her, and as if waking from some horrid nightmare, she began to realize her position, to feel that only a few hours lay between herself and a living death. Vaguely, too, she began to see how, with every morning mail, there had come a shadowy hope that something might be received from Dr. West, that in some way he would yet save her from Squire Russell. But for months no news had been received of him by any one, and now the last lingering hope had died, leaving only a feeling of despair. She could not even write a line in her journal, and once she thought to burn it, but something stayed the act, and ’mid a rain of tears, she laid it away, resolving never to open its lids again until her heart ached less than it was aching now.
“I shall get over it, I know,” she moaned, as she seated herself by the window. “If I thought I should not, I would go to Squire Russell before the whole world, and on my knees would beg to be released; but I am tired now, and excited, and everything looks so dark,—even my pleasant chamber is so close that I can scarcely breathe. I wonder if the breeze from the lake would not revive me. I’ll try it,—I’ll go there. I’ll sit where Richard and I once sat. I’ll listen to the music of the waves just as I listened then, and if this does not quiet me, if the horror is still with me,—perhaps—”
There was a hard, terrible look in Dora’s eyes as the evil thought first flashed upon her, a look which grew more and more desperate as she began to wonder how deep the waters were near the shore, and if the verdict would be “accidental drowning,” and if Dr. West would care.
Alas for Dora! the tempter was whispering horrible things to her, and she, poor, half-crazed girl, was listening to him as she stole from the back door, and took her way across the fields to where the waters of the lake lay sparkling in the September sun now low in the western horizon.
CHAPTER XXII.
DOWN BY THE LAKE SHORE.
The shadowy woods which skirt the lake shore tell no tales of what they see, neither do the mossy rocks, nor yet the plashing waves kissing the pebbly beach, and so Dora was free to pour out her griefs, knowing there was no listening human ear, and forgetting for a time that there was an eye which kept watch over her, as with her face upon the yielding sand she moaned so piteously. She could not sit where she and Richard sat, and so she chose the projecting trunk of a fallen tree, and sat where her feet could touch the water below if she should wish it so, as once she did, dipping the tip of her thin slipper, and holding it there till it was wet through to see what the feeling was!