"No more now, but I shall try other lips, perhaps more persuasive than mine. Edith shall come—"
His words were suddenly arrested by the energetic speech and action of his companion. She put her hand on his wrist—grasped it—and exclaimed—
"Let her not come! Bring her not here, Ralph Colleton! I have no wish to see her—will not see her, I tell you—would not have her see me for the world!"
Ralph was confounded, and recoiled from the fierce, spasmodic energy of the speaker, so very much at variance with the subdued tone of her previous conversation. He little knew what an effort was required hitherto, on her part, to maintain that tone, and to speak coolly and quietly of those fortunes, every thought of which brought only disappointment and agony to her bosom.
She dropped his hand as she concluded, and with eyes still fixed upon him, she half turned round, as if about to leave the room. But the crisis of her emotions was reached. She sickened with the effort. Her limbs grew too weak to sustain her; a sudden faintness overspread all her faculties—her eyes closed—she gasped hysterically, and tottering forward, she sank unconscious into the arms of Ralph, which were barely stretched out in time to save her from falling to the floor. He bore her to the sofa, and laid her down silently upon it.
He was struck suddenly with the truth to which he had hitherto shown himself so blind. He would have been the blindest and most obtuse of mortals, did he now fail to see. That last speech, that last look, and the fearful paroxysm which followed it, had revealed the poor girl's secret. Its discovery overwhelmed him, at once with the consciousness of his previous and prolonged dullness—which was surely mortifying—as with the more painful consciousness of the evil which he had unwittingly occasioned. But the present situation of the gentle victim called for immediate attention; and, hastily darting out to another apartment, he summoned Mrs. Munro to the succor of her niece.
"What is the matter, Mr. Colleton?"
"She faints," answered the other hoarsely, as he hurried the widow into the chamber.
"Bless my soul, what can be the matter!"
The wondering of the hostess was not permitted to consume her time and make her neglectful; Colleton did not suffer this. He hurried her with the restoratives, and saw them applied, and waiting only till he could be sure of the recovery of the patient, he hurried away, without giving the aunt any opportunity to examine him in respect to the cause of Lucy's illness.