"Tom—Tom Armstrong, save it, save it! For the love of Heaven, save it! It's from her—from your unfortunate wife! Oh, save it!"
Without a moment's hesitation he thrusts his hand into the fire, burning himself smartly; but he is too late—all that he rescues is a quivering sheet that crumbles to ashes in his grasp. Miss Darcy bursts into tears; she turns to Robert, her voice husky with bitterness and anger.
"Heaven will punish you—oh, Heaven will punish you, you wicked, heartless boy, for this morning's deed! Christmas morning, the morning of peace on earth and love and forgiveness, when that poor wandering sinner, probably weary of the ways of sin, thought she might reach your heart of stone—she, Robert Lefroy, who crept to your bedside, when you were thought to be dying of an infectious fever, and nursed you night and day! Oh, Heaven will punish you for this!"
"I can not help it," Robert sullenly replies. "I have done this before, and so has my sister Pauline, and I will do it again and again."
"Leave my house, leave my house, all of you! I will have no feasting here. This to me is a day of mourning, not of rejoicing. Thomas Armstrong, you came to me to-day against your will, I know. I thank you for your goodness in so humoring an old woman; but you may go now. I will not ask you to come here again. Good-by, good by! You are a just, generous, and honest man, and have treated me and mine well; but I wish I had never seen your face. I do not want to see it any more. The object of my life is taken from me to-day. I have no further motive in dragging out my weary life, or in struggling to—"
"My dear lady," breaks in Armstrong gently. "There is no reason for you to take so hopeless a view of the case; the disaster is not irretrievable. You will probably hear from—from your niece again."
But Miss Darcy, heedless of the interruption, goes on, in whining soliloquy—
"I loved her, I loved her! She was to me as my own child; her first cry was uttered in my arms, and I wanted to save her from eternal death, to bring her here and on her knees to receive your pardon, Thomas Armstrong, and then to take her away with me to some quiet corner of the world, where she could live down the memory of her sin and spend her days in preparation to meet her Judge. But my hope is gone. Something tells me that we shall never hear of her again, that she will sink too low for even a voice from heaven to reach her in the mist of coming death. We shall never hear of her again—never! Go from me now, all of you; you can say nothing, do nothing, to comfort me. Go and leave me to my grief!"
They obey her silently. Robert takes his brother back with him to town, where they dine with some military acquaintances. Lottie spends a merry evening at the house of a neighboring school-friend, winding up with snap-dragon and an impromptu dance. Armstrong, returning home to a solitary dinner, is met at the station by Everard, who carries him off to Broom Hill, where he is most heartily welcomed by its new mistress, the late Miss Cicely Deane, who makes a most charming hostess, and her husband the happiest man in the parish. The whole party from the rectory spend the day with the bride and bridegroom; and late in the evening, when the young people are tired of romping and laughing, Cicely sings some sweet old-fashioned carols breathing of love and fireside peace, and the music of her rare voice brings to Armstrong's hardened heart a softening touch; he thinks with gentleness, almost with pity, of her who has wronged him past retrieval.