St. Martin's Eve: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

For one single moment--for one moment only--a wild sort of glare, of angry disappointment, shot from the eyes of Mrs. St. John. Honour drew back scared, shocked: it had betrayed to the attendant more than she ought to know.

But do not set down Charlotte St. John as a wicked woman. She was not wicked yet. The feeling--whatever its precise nature--had arisen unbidden: she could not help it; and when she became conscious of it, she shuddered at it just as much as Honour could have done. But she did not detect its danger.

The party dispersed. And Mrs. St. John, in a soft muslin wrapper, was watching by the cradle of Benja, who was in a sweet sleep now. She had kissed him and cried over him when they first met; and George St. John's heart throbbed with pleasure at these tokens of her affection for the child. Benja had slipped into the lake himself, and for two or three minutes was not observed; otherwise there had been no danger.

The danger, however, was over now, and Mr. Pym had gone home, loudly promising Benja a hatful of physic as a punishment for his carelessness. Mrs. St. John and the household went to rest at midnight, leaving Honour sitting up with the boy. There was not the least necessity for her sitting up, but she would not hear of his not being watched till morning. The child, in fact, was her idol.

Presently Mr. St. John came in, and Honour started and rose. She had been half asleep in her chair, and she had thought her master had gone to bed.

He lay with his little face, unusually flushed, on the pillow, his silken hair rather wild, and one arm outside the clothes; a charming picture, as most children are when asleep. Mr. St. John bent over the boy on the other side the crib, apparently listening to his breathing; but Honour thought her master was praying, for his eyes were closed, and she saw his lips moving.

"We should not have liked to lose him, Honour," he observed with a smile, when he looked up.

"To lose him! Oh, sir! I would rather have died myself."

"It might have been a care less for me to leave, though!" he resumed in an abstracted tone. "His mother gone, and I gone: the world may be a cold one for Benja."

"But you are not--you are not fearing for yourself, sir!" exclaimed Honour, quite forgetting, in the shock the words gave her, that it was no business of hers to answer the thoughts of her master.