Mr. Grahame stayed away from London longer than was expected. Freed from embarrassments, he played the lord in his haughtiest and worst aspect. His harshness and his despotic tyranny had obtained for him an outward show of slavish deference, with a fierce under-current of mortal hatred. This bowing down and worshipping had re-inflated him, and he returned to his London mansion, swelled in feeling to the dimensions of a mighty noble.
It was not until he presided at the dinner table that he noticed the absence of his daughter Helen. It immediately occurred to him that she was still too ill to leave her chamber. Nature asserting her right to be heard, even in the icy dominion of pride’s stronghold, touched his heart. He felt the twinge, and immediately-asked Mrs. Grahame respecting her.
The servants waiting at table glanced at each other’s eyes; Margaret and Malcolm sat coldly immovable; Evangeline’s gentle bosom heaved and fell; she clasped her hands tightly together and looked down, striving to restrain the hot tears which sprang up to her trembling lids. Mrs. Grahame displayed not the slightest perceptible emotion, but replied to her husband’s question by saying in a tone which he knew was intended to preclude further inquiry at that time—
“Miss Grahame is from home.”
Mr. Grahame bent his head in acknowledgment, and removed the conversation to the scene of his recent visit. He enlarged upon the improved aspect of his estates, and upon the additions he intended to make—what accession of territory, and what increase of tenantry he had acquired, and was about to acquire. He described the torchlight procession to welcome his arrival, and the vast assemblage gathered to bid him farewell—nine-tenths of whom would have rejoiced at his downfall with savage joy.
All the while he spoke, there was ringing in his brain the words—“Miss Grahame is from home.” As he described the stately reception he gave his tenants in the hall of his Scotch castle, feeling second to no monarch in Europe, the words, “Miss Grahame is from home,” danced before his eyes. Not one passage in his description, illustrative of his own elevated position came gradually from his lips, but he heard those words as if every one was a note in a death-peal.
“Miss Grahame is from home.” he thought, as he took wine with his wife.
Where? under what circumstances? Why should no place, no name be mentioned? He dared not ask; he felt he durst not. He glanced furtively at all the faces at table; from Evangeline’s only could he gather aught to satisfy him that there was something unusual and unsatisfactory in the disappearance of Helen. He said to her abruptly, but not austerely—
“A little wine, Evangeline. You do not look well, child.”
She turned her large, clear eyes, glittering with tears upon him; he saw her small upper lip quiver, and he perceived that her heart was too full for her to articulate a word, as she returned his salutation.