"But, Kitty," I exclaimed, clinging to a last hope, "was the dress much spoiled?"
"Oh dear, yes! muddied, torn, stained, as if you'd been dragged through the streets in it." Our conversation was again abruptly brought to a close by the advent of Mary, this time with a message to Kitty from Mrs. Arnold, desiring her help downstairs.
And again, turning my face to the pillow, with a miserable sigh, I was left alone.
[CHAPTER XII.]
"The very gentlest of all human natures
He joined to courage strong,
And love outreaching unto all God's creatures,
With sturdy hate of wrong."
WHITTIER.
Evening was closing in, and filling the little room where I lay with fitful shadows, which the tiny blaze of fire in the grate was incompetent to dispel. If it had been possible for me to be more miserable than I had been all day, I should indeed have "loathed the hour" when gloom and darkness so palpably and hopelessly descend, but the climax of misery and self-reproach had been reached by daylight, and outward dreariness could only increase, in a very slight degree, the inward gloom. The faults I had been guilty of, and the errors into which I had led, or allowed Kitty to go, seemed to me, and justly, the first steps in a most dangerous path. I fully realized the sins, and their effect upon my conscience, apart from their consequences and punishment. These last, I was aware, were hard enough. I knew I had done what must lower me in Mr. Rutledge's esteem; to be the accomplice in a deception, however slight, was to sink just that much in his regard, whose rigid truthfulness and honor were offended by the least prevarication. I knew I had given Mrs. Roberts grounds for all her former distrust and aversion, and placed myself lower than she could have estimated me. Above all, poor Kitty was the victim on whom it fell hardest, and how much of the blame of not checking her or guiding her right lay on my shoulders, I dared not think. I was really attached to the brave, quick-witted girl, and remembered, with humiliation, how ignorant and untaught she was, and how naturally and unavoidably her faults were the results of her unguided impetuosity, while mine were committed in the light of an instructed conscience and educated intellect.
But with me to suffer pain, was to seek some cure for it. My repentances were not often fruitless; I could no more have lain there, and endured that self-reproach, without resolving on some way to allay it, than I could have submitted to a dagger in my breast without attempting to draw it out. The only remedy I could see, was painful enough, but there was no help for it.
"Mrs. Arnold," I implored, "do put down your work, and come and sit by me; I want to ask you something."
Mrs. Arnold left her seat by the window, and laying down the knitting that her rapid fingers plied alike through daylight and darkness, came to my bedside and sat down. She saw I was excited and feverish, and in her gentle way strove to soothe and amuse me. She talked of a great many things about the parish that she thought might interest me—of the school children, and the Christmas festivities that were preparing, and in some way Rutledge was spoken of, and its dullness and gloominess.