“I will try to do all you counsel,” responded Helen, excitedly, though speaking in the same hissing undertone; “but I must be left for a time to myself—be alone, quite alone! Above all, let not Eva come to me!”
“Miss Grahame?”
“No!—no!—no! Not Eva!—not Eva! I cannot now dare to look in her sinless face. I cannot bear the soft gaze of her innocent eyes, nor hear those affectionate words emanating from her pure heart, without acutely feeling each look, each tone of her dear voice, as a terrible reproach. I have so looked down upon her simplicity, taunted her guilelessness, scoffed at her singleness of heart, that the very sight of her seems to humble me to the dust.”
“She will be so very grieved, to be forbidden the usual seat by your bedside,” said Mrs. Truebody, deprecatingly.
“I know it—I feel it. I can see her turning sorrowfully away when you deny her access to me, but she is now to me an angel of such spotless purity, and I so foul, so black, so begrimed with wickedness, that were she to lay her tender hand upon me, and with those immaculate lips press my hot forehead, I should shrink from her, fearing to pollute her by the contact.”
“Whatever you may inwardly feel—and I would not have you repulse any such sense of your grievous fault—it will be necessary to obtain a control over your feelings, and to appear much as usual,” said Mrs. Truebody; “and I would suggest to you that by refusing to see your sister Eva—dear, sweet creature that she is—you will give rise to questions which it will be difficult to answer.”
“I will be guided by you, but pray let me be alone for the next day or two,” urged Helen. “You will tell her that, unless I am for a short time left entirely to myself, my recovery will be greatly retarded. She will not, after that, press her own kind desires in opposition to my recovery. And, now, if my beating brain will let me, I will try to sleep, and strive to gather strength; for, oh! I have a dreadful task to encounter—a desperate part to play. Good night, Mrs. Truebody; remember your promise!—not a word to mortal—not a word—not a word! as you hope hereafter for mercy from the Almighty!”
Mrs. Truebody slept in a small antechamber. Her room door was in Helen’s apartment, and this she always left open all night. Having performed a few necessary duties, and bade Helen farewell for the night, she retired to her bed.
At length Helen was quite alone. The slight hum of the gently-moving trees in the garden was broken only by the monotonous ticking of the time-piece over the fireplace. An hour passed, and not a sound broke the intense stillness which reigned throughout the house.
Suddenly Helen sat straight up in the bed. She stretched her arms out, and murmured, in accents of the keenest misery—