And then both his children looked into Mr. Brownlow’s face. I can not tell what they saw there. I doubt whether they could have told themselves; but it was something that thrilled them through and through, which came back to them from time to time all their lives, and which they could never forget. Jack turned away from his father with a kind of horror, and went and placed himself beside Mrs. Preston at the head of the sofa. But Sara, though her dismay was still greater, went up to him and clasped his arm with both her hands. “Papa,” she said, “come away. Come with me. I don’t know what it means, but it is too much for you. Come, papa.”
Mr. Brownlow once more put her away with his hand. “Go to bed, Sara,” he said; and then freeing himself, he went across the room to the curtained windows, and stared out as if they were open, and came back again. The presence of his children was an oppression to him. He wanted them away. And then he stood again by the side of the sofa and looked at his visitor. “We can talk this over best alone,” he said; and at the sound of his voice, and a movement which she thought Jack made to leave her, she gave a sudden cry.
“He will kill me if you go away!” she said. “Oh, don’t leave me to him! I—don’t mean to injure you—I—But you’re in league with him,” she exclaimed rising suddenly with the strength of excitement, and rushing to the other end of the room; “you are all against me. I shall be killed—I shall be killed! Murder! murder!—though I don’t want to hurt you. I want nothing but my rights.”
She got behind the writing-table in her insane terror, and threw herself down there on her knees, propping herself up against it, and watching them as from behind a barricade, with her pallid thin face supported on the table. With her hands she drew a chair to each side of her. She was like a wild creature painfully barricading herself—sheltering her feeble strength within intrenchments, and turning her face to the foe. Mr. Brownlow stood still and looked at her, but this time with a stupefied look which meant nothing; and as for Jack he stood aghast, half frightened, half angry, not knowing if she were mad, or what it was. When either of them moved, she crouched together and cried out, thinking they were about to rush upon her. For the moment she was all but mad—mad with excitement, fright, evil-thinking, and ignorance—ignorance most of all—seeing no reason why, if they had done one wrong, they should not do another. Kill or defraud, which did it matter?—and for the moment she was out of her senses, and knew not what she did or said.
Sara was the only one who retained her wits at this emergency. She stepped behind the screen made by the table without pausing to think about it. “Mrs. Preston,” she said, “I don’t know what is the matter with you. You look as if you had gone mad; but I am not frightened. What do you mean by calling murder here? Come with me to my room and go to bed. It is time every body was in bed. I will take care of you. You are tired to death, and not fit to be up. Come with me.”
“You!” cried Mrs. Preston—“you! You that have had every thing my Pamela ought to have had! You that have been kept like a princess on my money! You!—but don’t let them kill me,” she cried out the next moment, shuddering and turning toward the other woman for protection. “You’re but a girl. Come here and stand by me, and save me, and I’ll stand by you. You shall always have a home. I’ll be as good to you—but save me! don’t let them kill me!” she cried, frantically throwing her arms round Sara’s waist. It was a curious sight. The girl stood erect, her slight figure swaying with the unusual strain upon it, her face lit up with such powerful emotions as she had never known before, looking wistful, alarmed, wondering, proud, upon her father and her brother at the other side, while the old woman clung to her, crouching at her feet, hiding her face in her dress, clasping her waist as for life and death. Sara had accepted the office thrust upon her, whatever it was. She had become responsible for the terrified, exhausted claimant of all Mr. Brownlow’s fortune—and turned round upon the two astonished men with something new to them, something that was almost defiance, in her eyes.
“I don’t know what it means,” she said, laying her long, soft, shapely hand upon Mrs. Preston’s shoulder like the picture of a guardian angel; “but it has gone past your managing, and I must take charge of her. Jack, open the door, and keep out of the way. She must come with me.”
And then, indeed, Mr. Brownlow within himself in the depths of his heart, uttered a groan, which made some outward echo. He was in the last crisis of his fate, and his cherished child forsook him and took his adversary’s part. He withdrew himself and sank down into a chair, clearing the way, as she had bidden. Sara had taken charge of her. Sara had covered the intruder for ever and ever with the shield of her protection; and yet it was for Sara alone that he could have found in his heart to murder this woman, as she said. When Sara stood forth and faced him in her young strength and pride, a sudden Lady of Succor, it cast him to the earth. And he gave that groan, and sank down and put himself aside, as it were. He could not carry on the struggle. When Sara heard it her heart smote her; she turned to him eagerly, not to comfort him but to defend herself.
“Well!” she said, “if it was nothing, you would not have minded. It must be something, or you would not have looked—” And then she stopped and shuddered. “I am going to take charge of her to-night,” she added, low and hurriedly. “I will take her to my room, and stay with her all night. To-morrow, perhaps, we may know what it means. Jack, she can walk, if you will clear the way.”
Then Mr. Brownlow looked up, with an indescribable pang at his heart, and saw his daughter lead, half carrying, his enemy away. “I will take her to my room, and stay with her all night.” He had felt the emphasis and meaning that was in the words, and he had seen Sara’s shudder. Good heavens! what was it for? Was he a man to do murder? What was it his child had read in his eye? In this horrible confusion of thought he sat and watched the stranger out. She had made good her lodgment, not only in the house, but in the innermost chamber, in Sara’s room—in Sara’s protecting presence, where nothing could get near her. And it was against him that his child had taken up this wretched woman’s defense! He neither moved nor spoke for some minutes after they had left the room. The bitterness had all to be tasted and swallowed before his thoughts could go forward to other things, and to the real final question. By degrees, however, as he came to himself, he became aware that he was not yet left free to think about the final question. Jack was still beside him. He did not say any thing, but he was moving and fidgeting about the room with his hands in his pockets in a way which proved that he had something to say. As Mr. Brownlow came to himself he gradually woke to a perception of his son’s restless figure beside him, and knew that he had another explanation to make.