“Yes, miss, quite alone.”
“Indeed!”
Helen felt surprised and annoyed to hear this. She did not stay to inquire why. Upon the first blush, it seemed to her that Lester Vane had no right to be alone with her sister. She was irritated and vexed; not, as she suggested to herself, that she cared, because she had a contempt for the man; but then, to preserve merely the harmony of consistency, he ought to be alone with no one else but her, and look into no other eyes than her own. Evangeline, too, so reserved—so shy. She shook her head. Perhaps there was more art and depth in that apparently timid girl than any of them had ever dreamed of. She determined, instantly, to observe her more closely. Evangeline hitherto had passed as a stupid, harmless, nervous child, yet beneath such an exterior might lurk much shrewd sagacity, and a power to think and act for herself for which she had not previously received credit.
Helen rather prided herself upon her own perceptive faculties, and, like many of her sex, she was so exceedingly keen-sighted as to be at times precipitated into forming erroneous conclusions. It occurred to her that it would not be altogether impolitic to put in an appearance, rather unexpectedly, in the drawingroom, where Vane was tête-à-tête with her sister. A glance at the faces of both, she assured herself, would suffice to tell her what course Vane was pursuing, and it would serve to direct her future conduct.
She rose with this intention, and, as she moved past her little table, her eye fell upon the letter which the sudden communication by Chayter, respecting her sister and Lester Vane, had caused her to forget.
She turned her eyes hastily around the apartment, Chayter was no longer there. She was alone.
She took up the letter and held it to the lamp, so that she might see the superscription clearly. She started as she recognised the handwriting.
“Heaven! I thought so,” she ejaculated. “It is from Hugh. How thoughtless to address to me here!”
She examined the post-mark, which bore the name of Southampton. She drew a long breath, as though to nerve herself to meet the contents of the letter, which she felt would have a marked influence upon her future destiny, and then she broke the seal.
The contents were penned by a hurried and trembling hand; the very character of the scrawled letters betrayed the workings of a mind convulsed by passion and sorrow—the words themselves only too emphatically proved what the ill-formed characters suggested. She read, with burning eyes, what follows—