He had put his arms silently and tenderly around her, and she leaned upon his breast with closed eyes, pale and still. No sound broke the hush. A sad peace filled the air, and the slow minutes ebbed away.
“Where am I?” she raised her head slightly, then let it sink again upon his bosom. “I am here—still here. I was gliding away—away. It was very comforting and sweet. I am better now. I think I must have slept a little. I feel so refreshed and light. Thank you, my brother, for this rest and strength. Now I must go. Kiss me, Harrington.”
She turned her pale mouth up to his as she whispered the words. Vaguely surprised at the strangeness of her request, and deeply touched by its dreamful and childlike innocence, he bent his head and kissed her. Her lips were not fevered, but cool and dewy, like the lips of a child. Wondering at this, he was about to unclasp his arms to release her, when her eyes closed and her head sank again upon his breast. Holding her so, with his gaze turned far away to the blue sky beyond the windows of the room, he heard her breathe gently, and looking at her face, he saw that a light dew had started out upon it, and that she was asleep. He knew at once that this strange sleep was magnetic, and that its blessed rain of healing would fall deep and long on the arid trouble of her brain. Grateful that so sweet an influence had been shed upon her through him, he held her for a few moments, and then gently lifting her in his arms, he laid her on a couch. The sumptuous pride and passion of her womanhood seemed to have fallen from her, and pale, with her long dark eyelash sleeping on her cheek, she lay in thrilling and exquisite marble beauty, slumbering with the restful innocence of childhood.
He was about to ring and ask for Mrs. Eastman; then reflecting that she might be in the parlor, he chose rather to go down to her on his way out from the house, but stepping on tiptoe to the door for this purpose, he saw Muriel clad in a white wrapper, just ascending to her chamber, and beckoned to her. She came instantly, all lily-fair from her bath, with her bright hair rippling back from a face serious with inquiry, and gazed with some astonishment on the reposing form of Emily. Briefly explaining to her in a whisper the nature of the sleep in which Emily lay, and advising that she should be covered, and left there to slumber undisturbed, Harrington softly quitted the room, promising to return as soon as he could, and tell Muriel more.
“But John,” murmured Muriel, in the corridor, “do give me a little information about this before you go. You say she fell asleep leaning on your breast, and that nature was overcome with suffering. What was her trouble? Surely what Wentworth said to her could not have affected her so terribly.”
“Muriel,” said Harrington, gently, after a pause, “this is a secret, but it is one, I think, you ought to know. Briefly, then—Emily imagined that she had won my heart from me, and was stricken with generous grief to think that she had no love but a sister’s to give me in return. It was easy to rectify her painful error, and I have done so.”
Muriel stood gazing at him, as if she had turned to stone.
“Good-bye,” said Harrington, after an awkward pause.
She slowly bent her head in reply, and stood motionless, with her lips parted in wonder, as he went down-stairs and out at the front door.
“Yes,” he murmured, as he strode off down the street, “and she loves Wentworth. That is her heartbreak—that is why she paid her desperate and reckless court to me. Oh, Muriel, I would not have you know it for the world!”