"Good-night!" said Celeste, taking her lamp and quitting the room.
She staggered as she walked. On reaching her room she set the lamp on the table, and entwined her arms above her head, which dropped heavily upon it. Unaccustomed to excitement of any kind, she felt more as if heart and brain were on fire. Loving Louis with the strong affection of her loving heart, the sudden disclosure and jealous fury of Minnette stunned and stupefied her for a time. So she lay for nearly an hour, unable to think or realize what had happened—only conscious of a dull, dreary pain at her heart. Then the mist slowly cleared away from her mental vision—the fierce words of Minnette danced in red, lurid letters before her eyes. She started to her feet, and paced her chamber wildly.
"Oh! why am I doomed to make others miserable?" she cried, wringing her hands. "Oh, Louis, Louis! why have you deceived me thus? What have I done that I should suffer such misery? But it is wrong to complain. I must not, will not murmur. I will not reproach him for what he has done, but try to forget him. May he be as happy with Minnette as I would have striven to render him! To-morrow I will see him, and return all the gifts cherished for his sake; to-morrow I will bid him a last adieu; to-morrow—but, oh! I cannot—I cannot!" she exclaimed, passionately. "I cannot see him and bid him go. Oh, Father of the fatherless! aid me in my anguish!"
She fell on her knees by the bedside, and a wild, earnest prayer broke from her tortured lips.
By degrees she grew calm; her wild excitement died away; the scorching heat left her brain, and blessed tears came to her aid. Long and bitterly she wept; long and earnestly she prayed—no longer as one without hope, but trustful and resigned, bending her meek head to the blow of the chastening rod.
She arose from her knees, pale, but calm and resigned.
"I will not see him," she murmured. "Better for us both I should never see him again! I will write—I will tell him all—and then all that is past must be forgotten. In the creature I was forgetting the Creator; for the worship of God I was substituting the worship of man; and my Heavenly Father, tempering justice with mercy, has lifted me from the gulf into which I was falling, and set me in the narrow way once more. Henceforth, no earthly idol shall fill my heart; to Him alone shall it be consecrated; and I will live on in the hope that there is yet 'balm in Gilead' for me."
It was very easy to speak thus, in the sudden reaction from despair to joy—very easy to talk in this way in the excitement of the moment, after her heart had been relieved by tears. She thought not of the weary days and nights in the future, that would seem to have no end, when her very soul would cry out in wild despair for that "earthly idol" again.
And full of her resolution, with cheeks and eyes glowing with the light of inspiration, she sat down at the table, and, drawing pen and paper before her, began to write.
A long, earnest, eloquent letter it was. She resigned him forever, bidding him be happy with Minnette, and forget and forgive her, and breathing the very soul of sisterly love and forgiveness. Page after page was filled, while her cheek flushed deeper, and her eyes grew brighter, and her pen flew on as if inspired.