He lifted out the form, carefully shrouded in a large, warm robe, and, almost staggering under the burden, followed the lead of his sister into the sitting-room, depositing it on the long sofa, panting:
“Cinthia looked so slender, I did not suppose she was so heavy. My arms fairly ache. Now do you revive her, Rebecca, and soothe the poor girl as tenderly as you can until I return presently.”
“Well, I declare, I never saw such an unfeeling father in my life! There he rushes off again, without so much as glancing at her face to see if she is dead or alive. He doesn’t seem to bear one bit of love for the poor, neglected girl, and I wish in my heart she had got away with Arthur Varian and married him, that I do!” ejaculated the old lady, as she heard her brother drive away, her usually cold heart melting with sympathy for the hapless girl over whom she bent, drawing aside the folds of the heavy robe from her face, adding, sharply: “And a pretty how-d’ye-do there’ll be when she revives and finds herself parted from her lover. Not that I believe he can keep them apart, for there’s an old saying that true love always finds a way, and——Oh, my goodness gracious, what in the world——!”
With that dismayed exclamation, the Widow Flint dropped the corner of the robe, and recoiled as if she had encountered a nest of serpents.
It was not quite so bad as that, but she certainly had good reason for her surprise and dismay.
For instead of her beautiful niece, slender, golden-haired Cinthia, there lay a large woman of middle age, shabbily attired, with a pinched face, whose cadaverous hue was outlined by long, straggling locks of jet-black hair.
“Dead!” cried Mrs. Flint, in horror; and the shock to her nerves was so great that she rushed from the room and banged open the front door, calling wildly down the road: “Everard! Everard! Come back!”
But the homeless wind and vagrant snow blew mockingly in her face, and no other sound came back, so she knew it was all in vain to stand there shouting for one who could not hear.
She went in and shut the door, groaning loudly:
“What a night—what a night—and what a mistake Everard has made, or is he only playing a foolish joke on me? Who is the woman, anyway? I never saw her face in these parts before.”