But, oh! the tension it had been to every nerve of her frame, every fibre of her heart! Not until she was shut up in the quiet of her own room, did she know the strain it had been. She took her pretty dress off, threw a shawl on her shoulders, and sat down; her brain battling with its misery, her hands pressed upon her throbbing temples.
How long she thus sat she could not tell. I believe—I honestly and truly believe—that no sorrow the world knows, can be of a nature more cruel than was Mildred's that night; certainly none could be more intensely felt. "How can I bear it?" she moaned, "how can I bear it? To see them come back here in their wedded happiness, and have to witness it, and live. Perhaps—after a time, if God will help me, I shall be——"
"What on earth are you doing, Mildred?"
She started from her chair with a scream. So entirely had she believed herself secure from interruption, that in the first confused moments it seemed as if her thoughts and anguish had been laid bare. Mrs. Dan stood there in her night-dress, a candle in her hand.
"You were moaning, Mildred. Are you ill?"
"I—I am quite well, mamma," stammered Mildred, her words confused, and her face a fiery red. "Do you want anything?"
"But how is it you are not undressed? I had been in bed ever so long."
"I suppose I had fallen into a train of thought, and let the time slip away," answered Mildred, beginning to undo her hair in a heap, as if to make up for the lost time. "Why have you come out of your bed, mamma?"
"Child, I don't feel myself, and I thought I'd come and call you. It is well, as it happens, that you are not undressed, for I think I should like a cup of tea made. If I drink it very hot, it may take away the pain."
"Where is the pain?" asked Mildred, beginning to put up her hair again, as hurriedly as she had undone it.