Rupert acknowledged the merciful consideration. He put forth his thin emaciated hand, and moved his lips as though he would express his thanks. He could not, but he wept.
The nurse held up her finger for mild remonstrance and reproof. It was not wanting. The heart was elevated by the grateful flow. He slumbered more peacefully for that outpouring of his grateful soul.
The child was promised, as soon as leave could be obtained from the medical authorities to bring her to her father's presence. If he should continue to improve for two days, he knew his reward. If he suffered anxiety of mind and the thought of his calamity to retard his progress, he was told his punishment. He became a child himself, in his eagerness to render himself worthy of the precious recompense. He did not once refer to what had happened. Fortescue sat hour after hour at his side, and he heard no syllable of reproach against the woman who had wronged him—no further threat of vengeance against the villain who had destroyed her.
The looked-for morning came. Rupert was sitting up, and the sister of charity entered his humble apartment with the child in her hand. Why should that holy woman weep at human love and natural attachments? What sympathy had she with the vain expressions of delight and woe—with paternal griefs and filial joys? The lip that had been fortified by recent prayer, trembled with human emotion;—the soul that had expatiated in the passionless realms to which its allegiance was due, acknowledged a power from which it is perilous for the holiest to revolt. Nature had a moment of triumph in the sick-chamber of a broken-hearted man. It was brief as it was sacred. Let me not attempt to describe or disturb it!
The religious and benevolent sister was an admirable nurse, but she was not to be named in the same day with Alice. She learned her father's little ways with the quickness of childhood, and ministered to them with the alacrity and skill of a woman. She knew when he should take his drinks—she was not happy unless permitted to convey them from the hands of the good sister to those of the patient. She was the sweetest messenger and ambassadrix in the world: so exact in her messages—so brisk on her errands! She had the vivacity of ten companions, and the humour of a whole book of wit. She asked a hundred questions on as many topics, and said the oddest things in life. When Sinclair would weep, one passing observation from her made him laugh aloud. When his oppressed spirit inclined him to dulness, her lighter heart would lead him, against his will, to the paths of pleasantness and peace!
Was it Providence or chance that sealed upon her lips the name of one who must no longer be remembered in her father's house? Singularly enough, during the sojourn of Rupert Sinclair and his daughter in the roadside inn, neither had spoken to the other of the wickedness that had departed from them; and less singular was it, perhaps, that the acutest pang that visited the breast of Elinor was that which accompanied the abiding thought, that Rupert was ever busy referring to the mother's crime, and teaching the infant lip to mutter curses on her name.
In the vicinity of the inn was a forest of some extent. Hither, as Sinclair gathered strength, did he daily proceed with his little companion, enjoying her lively conversation, and participating in her gambols. He was never without her. He could not be happy if she were away: he watched her with painful, though loving jealousy. She was as unhappy if deprived of his society. The religious sister provided a governess to attend upon her, but the governess had not the skill to attach her to her person. At the earliest hour of the morning, she awoke her father with a kiss: at the last hour of the night, a kiss from his easily recognised lips sealed her half-conscious half-dreaming slumbers. Alice was very happy. She could not guess why her father should not be very happy too, and always so.
For one moment let us follow the wretched Elinor, and trace her in her flight. Whilst her own accusing conscience takes from her pillow the softness of its down, and the vision of her husband, as she last saw him, haunts her at every turn like a ghost—striking terror even to her thoughtless heart, and bestowing a curse upon her life which she had neither foreseen nor thought of, let us do her justice. Vice itself is not all hideousness. The immortal soul cannot be all pollution. Defaced and smirched it may be—cruelly misused and blotted over by the sin and passion of mortality; but it will, and must, proclaim its origin in the depths of degradation. There have been glimpses of the heavenly gift when it has been buried deep, deep in the earth—beams of its light in the murkiest and blackest day! Elinor was guilty—lost here beyond the power of redemption—she was selfish and unworthy; yet not wholly selfish—not utterly unworthy. I am not her apologist—I appear not here to plead her cause. Heaven knows, my sympathy is far away—yet I will do her justice. I will be her faithful chronicler.
Upon the fourth day of her elopement she had reached Lyons. Here, against the wish of the Earl of Minden, she expressed a determination to remain for at least a day: she desired to see the city—moreover, she had friends—one of whom she was anxious to communicate with, and might never see again. Who he was she did not say, nor did his lordship learn, before they quitted the city on the following day. The reader shall be informed.
It was on the afternoon of the day of their arrival in Lyons that Elinor paid her visit to the friend in question. He resided in a narrow street leading from the river-side into the densest and most populous thoroughfares of that extensive manufacturing town: the house was a humble one, and tolerably quiet. The door was open, and she entered. She ascended a tolerably-wide stone staircase, and stopped before a door that led into an apartment on the fourth floor. She knocked softly: her application was not recognised—but she heard a voice with which she was familiar.