“Shall I always see her eyes?” she cried, holding Nelly fast. “She looked at me, and would not stop looking. Her eyes were terrible. She looked at me, yet she was dead. Oh, think! She was dead—and it was I who made her die——”
“Even if you did, oh, Innocent,” cried Nelly, worn out with excitement; “you did not mean it—it was an accident. She did it herself—it was an accident—it was not you.”
“But I wished her to die,” said Innocent, lifting her pale face with something of its old steadfastness of expression from her pillow. “I wished her to die.”
“But not like this—Innocent, you would not hurt any one, I know. I am sure you did not mean it. Oh, you must know you could not have meant it!” cried Nelly, and wept, leaning her head upon the bed. How she felt her loneliness in that terrible emergency! Her mother had left her, and there was no one else to stand by her; to none in the world dared she tell this tale. Oh, if Ernest had but been as he once was, as she had thought him to be; if she but dared to send for him as a girl might send for her affianced husband, and relieve herself of the burden which was too heavy for her to carry alone! How blessed, how happy must the women be who could do this, who could trust entirely in the love and faith of the men whom they had pledged their own faith to! But on the contrary, even while she realized so fully the happiness, the comfort of such confidence, Nelly’s prayer was that Ernest might be kept away from her—that he might not come to see her wretched suspense, or to spy into the terrible secret of the house. He did not love the house, though he had said he loved Nelly. The honour, the good name of the family, could never be trusted in his hands.
And so the lingering wretched day went on. I think Nelly was far more unhappy than Innocent was, though the girl’s whole being was shaken, for Innocent had Nelly to transfer her trouble to; and Nelly, poor Nelly, had no one. She had to bear up alone, and to bear up her cousin too; and with sickening fear she looked forward to the moment when her mother should return, and either relieve or intensify the strange suffering into which they had been suddenly plunged. It was about seven o’clock when Mrs. Eastwood came back, their usual dinner-hour—and Nelly had not ventured to neglect the dinner or to seem careless about it, lest the servants should suspect. Happily they were alone in the house, for Jenny had gone to his college, and Dick had accompanied the young freshman to Oxford, to see him off, according to his own phraseology, on his University career. “Thank God, the boys are away!” had been Mrs. Eastwood’s first exclamation; and Nelly had echoed it a hundred times during that terrible day. Thank God, they were out of the way altogether! Nelly ran down-stairs to meet her mother with an anxiety which was speechless and almost indescribable—feeling as if her own future, her own life, hung in the balance with Innocent’s. Mrs. Eastwood was giddy, and worn out with fatigue. She stumbled out of the cab into her daughter’s arms. There were lights in the little hall, and the housemaid stood about waiting to receive Mrs. Eastwood’s bag—the housemaid who had received Innocent—the one person in the house who shared their knowledge. Mrs. Eastwood was very pale, but the aspect of her countenance had changed.
“Oh, Nelly, let us thank God!” she said.
“Then it was all fancy—all delusion—it is not true!”
Nelly sank down upon a chair, feeling her limbs unable to sustain her. She had kept up till then—though for her too (she felt) it would have been death as well as Innocent. Now her head swam, her strength failed; she could scarcely see with her dim eyes her mother’s exhausted face.
“It is simple delusion,” said Mrs. Eastwood. “I cannot find even any foundation that she could have built such a fancy on—except that she was alone with—with poor Amanda, when the last paroxysm came on. Nelly, my darling, how pale you are! it has been too much for you——”
“You are pale too, mamma——”