“Have you nothing to say against it?” cried Herbert, with anguish in his voice. “Giovanna! Giovanna! is it true?”
Giovanna shrugged her shoulders impatiently. “Mon Dieu,” she said, “I did what I was told. They said to me, ‘Do this,’ and I did it; was it my fault? It was the old woman who did all, as Madame Suzanne says—”
“We are all involved together, God forgive us!” cried Miss Susan, bowing her head into her hands.
Then there was a terrible pause. They were all silent, all waiting to hear what Herbert had to say, who, by reason of being most deeply involved, seemed suddenly elevated into the judge. He went away from the sofa where Giovanna was, and in front of which Miss Susan was sitting, as far away as he could get, and began to walk up and down the room in his excitement. He took no further notice of Giovanna, but after a moment, pausing in his angry march, said suddenly, “It was all on Farrel-Austin’s account you plunged into crime like this? Silence, Reine! it is crime, and it is she who is to blame. What in the name of heaven had Farrel-Austin done to you that you should avenge yourself upon us all like this?”
“Forgive me, Herbert!” said Miss Susan, faintly; “he was to have married Augustine, and he forsook her, jilted her, shamed her, my only sister. How could I see him in this house?”
And then again there was a pause. Even Reine made no advance to the culprit, though her heart began to beat loudly, and her indignation was mingled with pity. Giovanna sat gloomy; drumming with her foot upon the carpet. Herbert had resumed his rapid pacing up and down. Miss Susan sat in the midst of them, hopeless, motionless, her bowed head hidden in her hands, every help and friendly prop dropped away from her, enduring to the depths the bitterness of her punishment, yet, perhaps, with a natural reaction, asking herself, was there none, none of all she had been kind to, capable of a word, a look, a touch of pity in this moment of her downfall and uttermost need? Both Everard and Reine felt upon them that strange spell which often seems to freeze all outward action in a great emergency, though their hearts were swelling. They had both made a forward step; when suddenly, the matter was taken out of their hands. Augustine, perhaps, was more slow than any of them, out of her abstraction and musing, to be roused to what was being said. But the last words had supplied a sharp sting of reality which woke her fully, and helped her to understand. As soon as she had mastered it, she went up swiftly and silently to her sister, put her arms round her, and drew away the hands in which she had buried her face.
“Susan,” she said, in a voice more real and more living than had been heard from her lips for years, “I have heard everything. You have confessed your sin, and God will forgive you. Come with me.”
“Austine! Austine!” cried poor Miss Susan, shrinking, dropping to the floor at the feet of the immaculate creature who was to her as a saint.
“Yes, it is I,” said Augustine. “Poor Susan! and I never knew! God will forgive you. Come with me.”
“Yes,” said the other, the elder and stronger, with the humility of a child; and she got up from where she had thrown herself, and casting a pitiful look upon them all, turned round and gave her hand to her sister. She was weak with her excitement, and exhausted as if she had risen from a long illness. Augustine drew her sister’s hand through her arm, and without another word, led her away. Reine rushed after them, weeping and anxious, the bonds loosed that seemed to have congealed her. Augustine put her back, not unkindly, but with decision. “Another time, Reine. She is going with me.”