Miss Letitia went back to bed as obediently as a little child, and turning her face to the wall, in five minutes was fast asleep. But there was no more sleep that night for Miss Pengarvon. She made up the fire, wrapped a shawl round her shoulders, and sat there hour after hour, as upright as a mummy--and nearly as motionless--staring into the fire with unwavering eyes, and conjuring up in the glowing embers, who shall say what strange pictures of the past--pictures, some of them, which for years she had done her utmost to forget, but which the torch of memory, kindled by her sister's random words, now lighted up for her again, as vividly as though the events which they depicted were but those of yesterday. How thankfully she watched the breaking of the coming day! Then the shadows that haunt our thoughts and weigh upon our spirits during the dread watches of the night take to themselves wings, and vanish as though they had never been, before the first rays of the rising sun.
Day had not yet fully broken when Miss Letitia sat up suddenly in bed. In her eyes there was a light which seemed of another world than this. Stretching forth her arms, she said, "Oh, Barbara. The baby--the baby! So cold! So cold!"
They were her last words. She sighed softly, twice, and sank back on the pillows.
[CHAPTER XV.]
AFTER THE TRIAL.
Among those who had crowded round John Brancker in order to congratulate him the moment he was a free man was neither Mr. Edward Hazeldine nor Mr. Avison, and their absence caused him a little pang of disappointment. Edward had all along not only expressed his unflinching belief in John's innocence, but at his own cost had engaged Mr. Burgees to defend him, so that his absence on the day of the trial seemed doubly strange. John had seen Mr. Avison in court, and had looked for a word of congratulation from him when all was over, but he looked in vain. Besides, it was now Saturday evening, and he was anxious to know whether Mr. Avison would expect him to be in his place at the Bank at nine o'clock on the following Monday morning, just as if nothing had occurred to break the continuity of his service there. He was not, however, destined to be kept long in doubt on the latter point. Soon after he got home a note from Mr. Avison reached him, in which he was requested to see that gentleman in his private room at the Bank at half-past ten on Monday forenoon.
Next day was Sunday, and John stayed quietly indoors. It seemed to him the most blessed Sabbath he had ever spent. To feel that the prison walls no longer shut him in; that he was free to come and go even as other men were; to know that the foul charge which had hung over him for so long a time was at length dispelled, and that he was back once more in his dear little home with those he loved best on earth--all made up a sum of happiness which was almost oppressive in its fullness. One needs to go through some experience analogous to that of John Brancker before one learns to appraise at their real value those common blessings of everyday life which to most of us seem so much a matter of course.
Clement Hazeldine called at Nairn Cottage in the course of the afternoon. He and Mr. Kittaway were the only visitors that day. It must be recorded of the latter that he had made a prompt offer to Miss Brancker of pecuniary help in case funds should be needed to defray the cost of her brother's defence; but, as we have seen, thanks to the action of Edward Hazaldine, nothing of the kind was required.
"I thought that perhaps we should have seen Frank Derison to-day," said John to his sister, as they were on the point of sitting down to supper.
"Hem! We have not been troubled with much of Master Frank's company for some time past," replied Miss Charlotte, a little coldly.