"No," I said; "but I want to speak to Aaron, directly. I'm going to my room one moment."
I went up. The tower-key was hanging where I had left it. I took it down, and made myself respectable by covering up my breezy hair with a hood, with the further precaution of a cloak. I had not long to wait for Aaron's coming; but it was long enough to remind me to carry some restorative with me. Aaron came.
"Miss Axtell is very ill," I said; "she is quite wild, and left the house in the night. She's up in the church-yard tower. Will you help her brother take her home, as soon as you possibly can?"
"How strange!" were his only words; and as I went the garden way, Aaron started to arouse his horse from morning sleep.
"No one need to know the church entrance," I thought; and as I went in, I tried to close down the heavy stone, which fitted in so well, that it seemed, like all the others, built to stay.
I could not stir it. Perhaps Aaron would not look, when he came in; but doubting his special blindness, I asked Mr. Axtell to put it back. He seemed to comprehend my meaning. I took his place beside Miss Axtell. She was no longer wilful or determined. Her strength was gone. Her head drooped upon my shoulder, and when I held a spoon, filled with the restorative that I had brought, to her lips, they opened, and she took that which I gave, mechanically. Her eyelids were down. I looked at the fair, beautiful face that lay so near to my eyes. It was full of the softest pencillings; little golden sinuosities of light were woven all over it; and the blue lines along which emotion flies were wonderfully arrowy and sky-like in their wanderings, for they left no trace to tell whence they came or whither led. I heard the heavy, ponderous weight let fall. It was the same sound as that which I heard on that memorable night. Miss Axtell shivered a little; or was it but the effect of the concussion?
The brother came up; he looked down, kindly at me, lovingly at his sister.
"Shall I relieve you?" he asked.
I folded my arm only a little more tightly for answer, and said,—
"Mr. Wilton will be here soon; he is getting the carriage, to take your sister home."