DRIVEN FROM HOME.
Exhausted by her wild outcries and her frenzied efforts to break down
the door, as well as by her long fast of twenty-four hours, Eva sank
unconscious to the floor, and lay there for a long time ere she revived.
When consciousness returned she was too spent and weary to do aught but
creep to her bed and lie there shivering with the chill of the cool
April night, and sobbing like a weary child that weeps all its tears
dry ere it falls asleep.
Everything was very quiet; not a sound broke the stillness but the loud
voice of Mr. Groves’ big Newfoundland, Link--short for Lincoln--as he
bayed at the moon, now low, now loud, but always in direst anguish, as
if convinced in the canine mind that some disaster was happening to the
ones he loved best, his old master and little Eva.
He knew that the exile had returned, for he had had a most affectionate
meeting with her outdoors when she came.
Though he howled and yelped most dismally under her window, he could
not coax her out again, but he heard her voice in those prolonged
shrieks that assured him she was in trouble.
So, even when all grew still, Link could not rest, but wandered round
and round the house, occasionally hurling his huge form against the
kitchen door in a vain attempt to force an entrance. Then he would sit
down on his haunches and dolorously bay at the moon again.
But despite these mournful sounds of honest canine woe, and despite her
own woes, the weary girl at last slept deep and dreamlessly, losing for
a while the bitter realization of her griefs.
When she awoke at last the sun rode high in the heavens, and for a
moment, as it shone in her face, she forgot her sorrows, and seemed to
be again the happy little Eva that used to spring up so eagerly to draw
back the curtains to look for the offering of love that so often lay
there mutely appealing to her in the name of the giver.
But the white ruffled curtain had been taken away now, and as the
midday sun glared on the bare floor that was streaked and stained with
dark spots that would not “out,” she gasped and remembered all.
The white matting had been removed, but the blood had soaked through
it, and remained to bear terrible witness against the two who had done
each other to death that fatal night.
Springing from the bed, she softly tried the door again, but it was
still tightly closed, and she wondered if her heartless cousins had
forgotten her existence, or intended to starve her to death.
She had not tasted food since her supper the previous night at the
asylum, and she was faint from fasting.
She went to the window, wondering if she would dare try to escape down
the honeysuckle vine, but it had been cut down by her jealous cousins,
who thought to thus circumvent her daring, unknown lover, if he ever
returned. The window, too, was tightly nailed down, having been left to
gloom and disuse since the night of the Hallowe’en tragedy.
The air was close and stifling, and full of dust motes, so she caught
up a book and dashed it against a pane of glass, shattering it, and
letting in a little of the fresh outer air of the morning.
She did not know that Nick observed her action, and reported at the
first opportunity that “that poor crazy gal was goin’ on dretful,
a-breakin’ out the panes of glass in the winder, and throwin’ out
things to hit people.”
The last statement was pure romance, but it added to the interest of
his story.
Then, as she sank wearily into a chair, Eva heard strange steps and
voices going into Mr. Groves’ room. As they went in another terrifying
sound came out to her ears, even through her own close-shut door--the
loud, hoarse breathing of the dying man.
Eva was no stranger to death. She had seen her grandmother die. She
knew the awful voice of the approaching destroyer.
“Gran’ther is dying--going away from his little Eva forever!” she burst
out in anguish, and flew to the door, beating on it with frenzied
little white hands, calling piteously:
“Let me out, let me out! Let me kiss gran’ther good-by!”
No one heeded or heard, and at length she comprehended the full
heartlessness of her cousins, who would not even let her approach her
grandfather’s deathbed and receive his blessing.
She knelt by the bed and buried her face in the pillows, praying that
God would let her die, too, if dear old gran’ther was going, for there
was no one else to love her in the wide, weary world.
She forgot in her despair the unknown lover she had adored. He seemed
so far away, and perhaps she would never know more of him than now. She
only wished to die.
And while she knelt there weeping, the old man passed away with her
name on his lips.
She heard the people filing out of the room with noisy whispers of
comfort to the twins, who were seized with vociferous grief. She knew
that he was dead, and awed by the awful presence of death, sobbed on
softly and heartbrokenly, as though fearing she might disturb that
peaceful rest.
Moments of sorrow pass so slowly she could not realize that it was
but a few moments later that her door opened, admitting an asylum
attendant, accompanied by Patty, loudly urging that the dangerous
lunatic be taken at once away.
Poor Eva, pale from grief and fasting, her eyes red and swollen with
tears, her cheap gray gown crumpled and disordered, was a piteous sight
to the kind-hearted attendant, but her misery made no impression on
Patty, not even when she sobbed humbly:
“Oh, Cousin Patty, mayn’t I stay here, please, until after gran’ther’s
funeral? Oh, I want to see him again. Please, please, please!”
The pleading eyes, the trembling lips, might have moved a heart of
stone, but Patty only went on talking glibly to the attendant:
“I positively will not have her longer in the house! We are all in
terror of our lives! She has been breaking the window glass, and
throwing things out upon our heads, and screaming and disturbing
gran’ther’s last hours in her senseless malice! Indeed, I believe her
return and the fright she gave him has caused his death. The house is
mine and Sister Lydia’s now, and we will not permit her to stay longer.
But if you can get her to take some breakfast before she goes, I do not
object. She must be hungry, for she has thrown all we brought her out
of the window, even the plate and cup and saucer, hoping to kill some
of us.”
“Oh, Patty!” remonstrated the astonished girl; but the attendant took
her gently by the hand, saying:
“Come, dear, let us find your hat and go. I have a carriage waiting at
the door. But would you like some breakfast first?”
“Oh, yes, yes,” murmured the wretched victim, going docilely enough
out of the room, and downstairs to the kitchen, where Cousin Tab was
bustling about, giving orders to Nick, who stopped and stared in wonder.
“We would like some tea, please,” the attendant said civilly, sitting
down with Eva’s cold little hand still fast in her own.
How familiar the old place looked outdoors, with the lilacs swelling
and pushing out their purple buds in the sunshine. Eva remembered the
last time she had been in the dear old kitchen that fatal Hallowe’en,
when she had been refused leave to go on the hay ride. Oh, the changes
since that night!
And now gran’ther was dead, and she was being sent away, never to
return, because Stony Ledge belonged to the twins now. They had made
him disinherit her. He had told her so.
She stifled a bursting sob, because she was afraid of a sharp reproof
from the glowering spinster, and the tears brimmed over in her eyes and
rained down her cheeks.
A meal was soon spread, but Eva found it impossible to swallow
a mouthful. All her hunger had fled, thinking of her terrible
bereavement, and when the attendant had satisfied her appetite she
followed her in silent despair out to the closed carriage in which she
had come from Clarksburg.
Several of the neighbors who had heard of Eva’s flight from the asylum,
and her return, were waiting curiously about the door, and she looked
at them with a wistful glance, as if imploring their pity.
But no one spoke to her, no one held out a friendly hand, and in
silence she passed to the carriage with a mute farewell in her heart to
the dear old man lying dead upstairs.
The carriage was closed, and as it rolled away along the pleasant
country road she turned to the attendant with a passionate protest,
crying:
“I am not mad. Oh, no, no! I wish you would let me tell you all.”
“Tell me what you choose, little Eva,” she replied, in her soothing
way, and although she had believed the girl insane at first, she
listened now in wonder to her pathetic story, smiling kindly at her
vehement denial of the violent behavior Patty had laid at her door.
“Do you not see now that I am not crazy? That they are sending me away
through malice, not fear of me?” she cried.
The kind attendant thought to herself:
“How pitiful she talks! These lunatics they are deep ones, and could
fool many a one with their tale of woe.”
But aloud she only said:
“Yes, dear; you have been treated very bad, and we must lay the case
before the superintendent as soon as we get back to the asylum.”