Clara Clayton.”
The young lady read the letter over carefully once, sealed, directed, and despatched it without giving herself time for thought. The street door closed upon the footman who bore it.
“It is gone! Leslie! alas, poor Leslie! alas, that Fortune should have driven me to this step! But there was no alternative. No time for delay. If I had still visited him I should have been a hypocrite, and my prolonged absence would have required an explanation. It was necessary that I should write as I have. How will Leslie receive it?”
While she is fancying how the invalid received it, let us, dear reader, really know how he received it.
He had slept not quite an hour when his sleep was disturbed by the ringing of the street-door bell. Opening his eyes he looked round the chamber and called in a faint gentle voice—
“Clara!”
There was no reply and after waiting an instant he roused himself: “Ah, yes, I had forgotten! She has returned home. Poor girl! I sympathise with her in her overwhelming sympathy for me. So I am to be lame for life! ’Tis a sad, a heavy misfortune! Ah, mother, I am glad you have come in. Please draw aside the curtains and let in the light. It is so gloomy. I have slept well and feel refreshed. Have you heard from Clara?”
“Her footman has just left this note for you, Leslie,” said Mrs. Pierpoint, putting aside the curtains.
“Give it me, mother.”
Leslie hastily broke the seal, opened it, and ere he began to read pressed his lips to her name at the close. Have the kindness to turn back and re-read the letter, dear reader, with him, that you may enter into Leslie’s feelings as he perused it. He read to its close without betraying the least emotion in his expressive face. But when he had come to the end he slowly crushed the letter up in his left hand till the nails of the fingers met through it into the flesh. His teeth became set and his whole face stern and as rigid as marble. His alarmed mother caught the fearful expression of his fixed eyes and flew to him. He waived her away with a quiet movement of the hand.