UNDER THE STARS.
"Can you spare me a moment, Frank?"
"Fifty moments, if you like, Edina," was the answer in the
ever-pleasant tones. "Come in."
The day had gone on to its close, and Edina had found no opportunity
of speaking to Frank alone. The secret of which she had unexpectedly
gained cognizance that morning was troubling her mind. To be a party
to it, and to keep that fact from Frank, was impossible to Edina. Tell
him she must: and the sooner the better. After tea, he and the doctor
had sat persistently talking together until dusk, when Frank had to go
out to visit a fever-patient in Bleak Row. Running upstairs to change
his coat, Edina had thought the opportunity had come, and followed him
to his chamber.
She went in after his hearty response to her knock. Frank, quick in
all his movements, already had his coat off, and was taking the old
one from the peg where it hung. Edina sat down by the dressing-table.
"Frank," she said, in low tones--and she disliked very much indeed to
have to say it, "I chanced to go into the church this morning soon
after eight o'clock. I--I saw you there."
"_Did_ you?" cried Frank, coming to a pause with his coat half on.
"And--did you see anything else, Edina?"
"I believe I saw all there was to see, Frank. I saw you standing with
Margaret St. Clare at the altar-rails, and Mr. Backup marrying you.
"Well, I never!" cried Frank, with all the amazing ease and equanimity
he might have maintained had she said she saw him looking on at a
christening. "Were you surprised, Edina?"
"Surprised, and a great deal more, Frank. Shocked. Grieved."
"I say, though, what took you to the church at that early hour,
Edina?"
"Chance, it may be said. Though I am one of those, you know, who do
not believe that such a thing as chance exists. I went after Mrs.
Trim, found her house shut up, and the thought she might be in the
church, cleaning. Oh, Frank, how could you do anything so desperately
imprudent?"
"Well, I hardly know. Don't scold me, Edina."
"I have no right to scold you," she answered. "And scolding would be
of no use now the thing is done. Nevertheless, I must tell you what a
very wrong step it was to take; lamentably imprudent: and I think you
must, yourself, know that it was so. I could never have believed it of
Margaret St. Clare."
"Do not blame Daisy, Edina. I persuaded her to take it. Mrs. St. Clare
has been talking of marching her off abroad; and we wanted, you see,
to secure ourselves against separation."
"And what are you going to do, Frank?"
"Oh, nothing," said easy Frank. "Daisy's gone back to The Mount, and I
am here as usual. As soon as I can make a home for her, I shall take
her away."
"Make a home where?"
"In some place where there's a likelihood of a good practice. London,
I dare say."
"But how are you to live? A good practice does not spring up in a
night, like a mushroom."
"That's arranged," replied Frank, as perfectly confident himself that
it was arranged as that Edina was sitting in the low chair, and he was
finally settling himself into his coat. "My plans are all laid, Edina,
and Uncle Hugh knows what they are. It was in pursuance of them that I
went over to Spring Lawn. I will tell you all about it to-morrow:
there's no time to do so now."
"Papa does not know of what took place this morning?"
"No. No one knows of that. We don't want it known, if we can help it,
until the time comes when all the world may know."
"Meaning until you have gained the home, Frank?"
"Meaning until I and Daisy enter upon it," said sanguine Frank.
Edina's hand--her elbow resting on her knee--was raised to support her
head: her fingers played absently with her soft brown hair: her dark
thoughtful eyes, gazing before her, seemed to see nothing. Whether it
arose from the fact that in her early days, when Dr. Raynor's means
were narrow, she had become practically acquainted with some dark
phases of existence, or whether it was the blight that had been cast
on her heart in its sweet spring-time, certain it was, that Edina
Raynor was no longer of a sanguine nature. Where Frank saw only
sunshine in prospective, she saw shadow. And a great deal of it.
"You should have made sure of the home first."
"Before making sure of Daisy? Not a bit of it, Edina. We shall get
along."
"That's just like you, Frank," she exclaimed petulantly, in her
vexation. "You would as soon marry ten wives as one, the law allowing
it, so far as never giving a thought to what you were to do with
them."
"But the law would not allow it," laughed Frank.
"It is your great fault--never to think of consequences."
"Time enough, Edina, when the consequences come."
She did not make any rejoinder. To what use? Frank Raynor would be
Frank Raynor to the end of time. It was his nature.
"It is odd, though, is it not, that you, of all Trennach, should just
happen to have caught us?" he exclaimed, alluding to the ceremony of
the morning. "But you'll not betray us, Edina? I must be off down, or
Uncle Hugh will be calling to know what I'm doing."
Edina rose, with a sigh. "No, I will not betray you, Frank: you know
there is no danger of that: and if I can help you and Daisy in any
way, I will do it. I was obliged to tell you what I had seen. I could
not keep from you the fact that it had come to my knowledge."
As Frank leaped downstairs, light-hearted as a boy, Dr. Raynor was
crossing from the sitting-room to the surgery. He halted to speak.
"I forgot to tell you, Frank, that you may as well call this evening
on Dame Bell: you will be passing her door."
"Is Dame Bell ill again?" asked Frank.
"I fear so. A woman came for some medicine for her to-day."
"I thought she was at Falmouth."
"She is back again, it seems. Call and see her as you go along: you
have plenty of time."
"Very well, Uncle Hugh."
The Bare Plain might be said to specially deserve its name this
evening as Frank traversed it. In the morning the wind had been high,
but nothing to what it was now. It played amidst the openings
surrounding the Bottomless Shaft, going in with a whirr, coming out
with a rush, and shrieked and moaned fearfully. The popular belief
indulged in by the miners was, that this unearthly shrieking and
moaning, which generally disturbed the air on these boisterous nights,
proceeded not from the wind, but from Dan Sandon's ghost. Frank Raynor
of course had no faith in the ghost--Dan Sandon's, or any other--but
he shuddered as he hastened on.
The illness, more incipient than declared as yet, from which Mrs. Bell
was suffering, had seemed to cease with her trouble. Her husband's
mysterious disappearance was followed by much necessary exertion, both
of mind and body, on her own part; and her ailments almost left her.
Dr. Raynor suspected--perhaps knew--that the improvement was only
temporary; but he did not tell her so. Dame Bell moved briskly about
her house during this time, providing for the comforts of her lodgers,
and waiting for the husband who did not come.
Rosaline did not come, either. And her prolonged absence seemed to her
mother most unaccountable, her excuses for it unreasonable. As the
days and the weeks had gone on, and Rosaline's return seemed to be no
nearer than ever, Dame Bell grew angry. She at length made up her mind
to go to Falmouth and bring back the runaway with her own hands.
Easier said than done: as Mrs. Bell found. When after two days'
absence, she returned to her home on the Bare Plain, she returned
alone: her daughter was not with her. This was only a few days ago.
The dame had been ailing ever since, some of the old symptoms having
returned again--the result perhaps of the travelling--and she had that
day sent a neighbour to Dr. Raynor's for some medicine.
Frank Raynor made the best of his way across the windy plain, and
lifted the latch of Dame Bell's door. She stood at the table, ironing
by candle-light, her feet resting upon an old thick mat to keep them
from any draught. Frank, making himself at home as usual, sat down by
the ironing-board, telling her to go on with her occupation, and
inquired into her ailments.
"You ought not to have taken the journey," said Frank, promptly, when
questions and answers were over. "Travelling is not good for you."
"But I could not help taking it," returned Dame Bell, beginning upon
the wristbands of a shirt she was ironing. "When Rosaline never came
home, and paid no attention to my ordering her to come home, it was
time I went to see after her."
"She has not come back with you?"
"No, she has not," retorted Dame Bell, ironing away with a viciousness
that imperilled the wristband. "I couldn't make her come, Mr. Frank.
Cords would not have dragged her. Of all the idiots! to let those
Whistlers frighten her from a place for good, like that!"
"The Whistlers?" mechanically repeated Frank, his eyes fixed on the
progress of the ironing.
"It's the Whistlers, and nothing else," said Mrs. Bell. "I didn't send
word to her or her aunt that I was on my way to Falmouth: I thought
I'd take 'em by surprise. And I declare to you, Mr. Frank, I hardly
believed my eyes when I saw Rosaline. It did give me a turn. I was
that shocked----"
"But why?" interrupted Frank.
"She's just as thin as a herring. You wouldn't know her, sir. When I
got to the place, there was John Pellet's shop-window flaming away,
and lighting up the tins and fire-irons, and all that, which he shows
in it. I opened the side-door, and went straight up the stairs to the
room overhead, knowing I should most likely find Rosaline there, for
it's the room where my sister Pellet does her millinery work. My
sister was there, standing with her back to me, a bonnet on each of
her outstretched hands, as if she was comparing the blue bows in one
with the pink bows in the other; and close to the middle table,
putting some flowers in another bonnet, was a young woman in black. I
didn't know her at first. The gas was right on her face, but I declare
that I didn't know her. She looked straight over at me, and I thought
what a white and thin and pretty face it, was, with large violet eyes
and dark circles round 'em: but as true as you are there, Mr. Frank, I
didn't know her for Rosaline. 'Mother!' says she, starting up: and I
a'most fell on the nearest chair. 'What ever has come to you, child?'
I says, as she steps round to kiss me! 'you look as though you had one
foot in the grave.' At that she turns as red as a rose: and what with
the bright colour, and the smile she gave, she looked a little more
like herself. But there: if I talked till I tired you, sir, I could
make out no more than that: she's looking desperately ill and
wretched, and she won't come home again."
Frank made no rejoinder. The ironing went on vigorously: and Mrs.
Bell's narrative with it.
"All I could say was of no use: back with me she wouldn't consent to
come. All her aunt could say was of no use. For, when she found how
lonely I was at home, and how much I wanted Rosaline, my sister,
though loth to part with her, said nature was nature, and a girl
should not go against her mother. But no persuasion would bring
Rosaline to reason. She'd live with me, and glad to, she said, if I'd
go and stay at Falmouth, but she could not come back to Trennach.
Pellet and his wife both tried to turn her: all in vain."
"Did she give any reason for not coming back?" questioned Frank: and
one, more observant than Dame Bell, might have been struck with the
low, subdued tones he spoke in.
"She gave no reason of her own accord, Mr. Frank, but I got it out of
her. 'What has Trennach done to you, and what has the old house on the
Plain done to you, that you should be frightened at it?' I said to
her. For it's easy to gather that she is frightened in her mind, Mr.
Frank, and Pellet's wife had noticed the same ever since she went
there. 'Don't say such things, mother,' says she, 'it is nothing.'
'But I will say it,' says I, 'and I know the cause--just the shock you
had that Tuesday night from the Seven Whistlers, and a fear that you
might hear them again if you came back; and a fine simpleton you must
be for your pains!' And so she is."
"Ah, yes, the Seven Whistlers," repeated Frank, absently.
"She could not contradict me. She only burst into tears and begged of
me not to talk of them. Not talk, indeed! I could have shook her, I
could!"
"We cannot help our fears," said Frank.
"But for a girl to let they sounds scare her out of house and home and
country, is downright folly," pursued Dame Bell, unable to relinquish
the theme, and splitting the button of the shirt-collar in two at one
stroke of the angry iron. "And she must fright and fret herself into a
skeleton besides! But there," she resumed, in easier tones, after
folding the shirt, "I suppose she can't help it. Her father was just
as much afraid of 'em. He never had an atom o' colour in his face from
the Sunday night he heard the Whistlers till the Tuesday night when he
disappeared. It had a curious grey look on it all the while."
Frank rose. He remembered the grey look well enough. "If Rosaline
likes Falmouth best, she is better there, Mrs. Bell. I should not
press her to return."
"If pressing would do any good, she'd have her share of it," rejoined
Mrs. Bell, candidly. "But it won't. I did press, for the matter of
that. When I'd done pressing on my score, I put it on the score of her
father. 'Don't you care to be at home to welcome your poor lost father
when he gets back to it--for he's sure to come back, sooner or later,'
says I: and I'm sure my eyes ran tears as I spoke. But no: she just
turned as white as the grave, Mr. Frank, and shook her head in a
certain solemn way of hers, which she must have picked up at Falmouth:
and I saw it was of no use, though I talked till doomsday. There she
stops, and there she will stop, and I must make the best of it. And I
wish those evil Whistlers had been at the bottom of the sea!"
Frank was in a hurry to depart: but she went on again, after taking
breath.
"She is earning money, and her aunt is glad to have her, and takes
care of her, and she says she never saw any girl so expert with her
fingers and display so much taste in bonnets as Rosaline. But that
does not mend the matter here, Mr. Frank, and is no excuse for her
being such a goose. 'Come and take a room in Falmouth, mother,' were
her last words when I was leaving. But I'd like to know what a poor
lone body like me could do in that strange place."
"Well, good-evening, Mrs. Bell," said Frank, escaping to the door. But
the loquacious tongue had not quite finished.
"When I was coming back in the train, Mr. Frank, the thought kept
running in my mind that perhaps Bell would have got home whilst I'd
been away: and when I looked round the empty house, and saw he was not
here, a queer feeling of disappointment came over me. Do you think he
ever will come back, sir?"
Some "queer feeling" seemed to take Frank at the question, and stop
his breath. He spoke a few words indistinctly in answer. Mrs. Bell did
not catch them.
"And whether it was through that--expecting to see him and the
consequent disappointment--I don't know, Mr. Frank; but since then I
can't get him out of my mind. Day and night, Bell is in it. I am
beginning to dream of him: and that's what I have not done yet. Nancy
Tomson says it's a good sign. Should you say it was, sir?"
"I--really don't know," was Frank's unsatisfactory reply. And then he
succeeded in making his final exit.
"I wish she wouldn't bring up her husband to me!" he cried, lifting
his hat that his brow might get a little of the fresh wind, which blew
less fiercely under the cottages. "Somehow she nearly always does it.
I hate to cross the threshold."
A week or two went on: a week or two of charming weather and calm blue
skies: The day fixed for the departure of Mrs. St. Clare from The
Mount came and passed, and she was still at home, and likely to be
there for some time to come. "Man proposes, but Heaven disposes."
Every day of our lives we have fresh proofs of that great fact.
On the very day of Daisy's impromptu wedding, her sister Lydia showed
herself more than usually ailing and grumbling. She felt cold and
shivery, and sat in the pink cloak all day. The next morning she
seemed really ill, not fancifully so, was hot and cold alternately.
Dr. Raynor was sent for. The attack turned out to be one of fever. Not
as yet of infectious fever--and Dr. Raynor hoped he should prevent its
going on to that. But it was rather severe, and required careful
watching and nursing.
Of course their departure for foreign lands was out of the question.
They could not leave The Mount. Mrs. St. Clare, who was very anxious,
for she dreaded a visitation of infectious fever more than anything
else, spent most of her time in Lydia's room. Once in a way, Frank
Raynor appeared at The Mount in his uncle's place. Dr. Raynor was
fully given to understand that his own attendance was requested, not
his nephew's: but he was himself getting to feel worse day by day; he
could not always go over, walking or riding; and on those occasions
Frank went instead. Mrs. St. Clare permitted what, as it appeared,
there was no remedy for, and was coldly civil to the young doctor.
But this illness of Lydia's, and Mrs. St. Clare's close attendance in
her room, gave more liberty to Daisy. Scarcely an evening passed but
she, unsuspected and unwatched, was pacing the shrubberies and the
secluded parts of that wilderness of a garden with Frank. There,
arm-in-arm, they walked, and talked together of the hopeful future,
and the enchanted hours seemed to fly on golden wings.
"Love took up the glass of Time, and turned it in his glowing hands,
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.
Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with
might,
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of
sight."
Whatever of reality, of fruition, the future might bring, it could
never be to them what this present time was, when they wandered
together in the sweet moonlight, with the scent of the night-flowers
around them, and the soft sighing wind, and the heart's romance.
Never an evening but Daisy stole out to watch from the sheltered gate
for the coming of her lover; scarcely an evening that Frank failed to
come. When he did fail, it was through no fault of his. Daisy would
linger and linger on, waiting and watching, even when all sensible
hope of his coming must have died out; and when compelled to return
indoors with a reluctant step, she would think fate cruel to her, and
sigh heavily.
"The time may come when we shall live with each other and be together
always, in place of just this little evening walk up and down the
paths--and oh, how I wish the time was come now!" poor Daisy would say
to her own heart.
One evening it was Daisy who failed to be at the trysting-place. Lydia
was getting better, was able to sit up a little, morning and evening.
The greater danger, feared for her, had been prevented: and under her
own good constitution--for she had one, in spite of her grumblings and
her imaginary ailments--and Dr. Raynor's successful treatment, she was
recovering rapidly. This evening, lying back in an easy-chair, it had
pleased her to order Daisy to read to her. Daisy complied willingly:
she was ever more ready to help Lydia than Lydia was to accept her
help; but when a long spell of reading had been got through, and the
room was growing dim, Daisy, coming to the end of a chapter, closed
the book.
"What's that for?" asked Lydia, sharply, whose peevishness was coming
back to her with her advance towards convalescence. "Read on, please."
"It is growing dusk," said Daisy.
"Dusk--for that large print!--nonsense," retorted Lydia. The book was
a popular novel, and she felt interested in it.
"I am tired, Lydia: you don't consider how long I have been reading,"
cried Daisy, fretting inwardly: for the twilight hour was her lover's
signal for approach, and she knew he must be already waiting for her.
"You have only been reading since dinner," debated Lydia: "not much
more than an hour, I'm sure. Go on."
So Daisy was obliged to go on. She dared not display too much anxiety
to get away, lest it might betray that she had some motive for wishing
it. A secret makes us terribly self-conscious. But by-and-by it really
became too dark to see even the large print of the fashionable novel
of the day, and Lydia exhibited signs of weariness; and Mrs. St.
Clare, who had been dozing in another arm-chair, woke up and said
Lydia must not listen any longer. Daisy ran down to the yellow room,
and sped swiftly through the open glass-doors.
It was nearly as dark as it would be. The stars were shining; a lovely
opal colour lingered yet in the west. Frank Raynor, hands in pockets,
and whistling softly under his breath, stood in the sheltered walk. A
somewhat broad walk, where the trees met overhead. Daisy flung herself
into his arms, and burst into tears. Tried almost beyond bearing by
her forced detention, it was thus her emotion, combined perhaps with a
little temper, expended itself.
"Why, Daisy! What is the matter?"
"I could not get to you, Frank. Lydia kept me in, reading to her, all
this time."
"Never mind, my darling, now you have come."
"I thought you would go away; I feared you might think I forgot, or
something," sighed Daisy.
"As if I could think that! Dry your eyes, my dear one."
Placing her arm within his, Frank led her forward, and they began, as
usual, to pace the walk. It was their favourite promenade; for it was
so retired and sheltered that they felt pretty safe from intruders.
There, linked arm-in-arm, or with Frank's arm round her waist, as
might be, they paced to and fro; the friendly stars shining down upon
them through the branches overhead.
Their theme was ever the same--the future. The hopeful future, that to
their eyes looked brighter than those twinkling stars. What was it to
be for them, and how might they, in their enthusiasm, plan it out?
In what manner could Frank best proceed, so as to secure speedily a
home-tent, and be able to declare to the world that he and Margaret
St. Clare had spent a quarter-of-an-hour in the grey old church at
Trennach one windy morning, when he had earned the right to take her
away with him and cherish her for life?
To this end the whole of their consultations tended; on this one
desired project all their deliberations centred. The sooner Frank
could get away from Trennach, the sooner (as they both so hopefully
believed) would it be realized. Never a shadow of doubt crossed either
of them in regard to it. Frank was too sanguine, Daisy too
inexperienced, to see any clouds in their sky. The days to come were
to be days of brightness: and both were supremely unconscious that
such days never return after the swift passing of life's fair first
morning.
"You see, Daisy, the delay is not my fault," spoke Frank. "My uncle
has been so very unwell this last week or two, so much worse, that I
don't like to urge the change upon him. Only to-day I said to him,
'You know I am wanting to leave you, Uncle Hugh,' and his reply was,
'Do not speak of it just immediately, Frank: let things be as they are
a very little longer.' Whilst he is feeling so ill, I scarcely like to
worry him."
"Of course not," said Daisy. "And as long as I can walk about here
with you every evening, Frank, I don't care how long things go on as
they are now. It was different when I feared mamma was going to carry
me off to the end of the world. It was only that fear, you know,
Frank, that made me consent to do what I did that morning. I'm sure I
tremble yet when I think how wrong and hazardous it was. Any one might
have come into the church."
"Where's your wedding-ring, Daisy?" he asked: and it may as well be
said that he had never told her some one did come in.
"Here," she answered, touching her dress. "It is always there, Frank."
"I have written to-day to a friend of mine in London, Daisy, asking if
he knows of any good opening for me--or of any old practitioner in a
first-class quarter who may be likely to want some younger man to help
him. I dare say I shall receive an answer with some news in it in a
day or two."
"I dare say you will. Who is he, Frank?"
"A young fellow named Crisp, who has the best heart in the world.
He----"
A sudden grasping of his arm by Daisy, just after they had turned in
their walk; a visible shrinking, as if she would hide behind him; and
a faint idea that he saw some slight movement of the foliage at the
other end of the avenue, stopped Frank's further words.
"Did you see, Frank?" she whispered. "Did you see?"
"I fancied something stirred, down there. What was it?"
"It was Tabitha. I am certain of it. I saw her the moment we turned.
She might have been watching us ever so long; all the way up the walk;
I dare say she _was_ doing so. Oh, Frank, what shall I do? She will go
in and tell mamma."
"Let her," said Frank. "The worst she can say is, that we were walking
arm-in-arm together. I cannot think why you need be so fearful, Daisy.
Your mother must know that we do meet out here, and she must tacitly
sanction it. She used to know it, and sanction it too."
Daisy sighed. Yes, she thought, her mother might, at any rate, suspect
that they met. It was not so much _that_ which Daisy feared. But, the
one private act she had been guilty of lay heavily on her conscience;
and she was ever haunted with the dread that any fresh movement would
lead to its betrayal.
Saying good-night to each other, for it was growing late, Frank
departed, and Daisy went in. Her mother was shut up in the
drawing-room, and she went on straight to her sister's chamber. There
an unpleasant scene awaited her. Lydia, not yet in bed--for she had
refused to go, and had abused Tabitha for urging it--lay back still in
the easy-chair. Could looks have annihilated, Daisy would certainly
have sunk from those cast on her by Lydia, as she entered.
And then the storm began. Lydia reproached her in no measured terms,
and with utter scorn of tone and manner, for the "clandestine
intimacy," as she was pleased to call it, that she, Daisy, was
carrying on with Frank Raynor.
It appeared that after the candles were lighted, and Mrs. St. Clare
had gone down, Lydia, declining to go to bed, and wanting to be
amused, required Daisy to read to her again. Tabitha was sent in
search of Daisy, and came back saying she could not find her anywhere:
she was not downstairs, she was not in her chamber. "Go and look in
the garden, you stupid thing," retorted Lydia: "you know Miss Daisy's
for ever out there." Tabitha--a meek woman in demeanour, who took
abuse humbly--went to the garden as directed, searched, and at length
came upon Miss Daisy in the avenue, pacing it on the arm of Mr.
Raynor. Back she went, and reported it to Lydia. And now Lydia was
reproaching her.
"To suffer yourself to meet that man clandestinely after night has
fallen!" reiterated Lydia. "And to stay out with him!--and to take his
arm! You disgraceful girl! And when, all the while, he does not care
one jot for _you!_ He loves some one else."
Daisy had received the tirade on herself in silence, but she fired up
at this. "You have no right to say _that_, Lydia," she cried. "Whether
he loves me, or not, I shall not say; but, at any rate, he does not
love any one else."
"Yes, he does," affirmed Lydia.
"He does not," fired Daisy. "If he does, who is it?"
"No one in his own station--more shame to him! It is that girl they
call so beautiful--who lost her father. Rose--Rose--what's the
name?--Rosaline Bell. Frank Raynor loves her with his whole heart and
soul."
"Lydia, how dare you say such a thing?"
"_I_ don't say it. I only repeat it. Ask Trennach. It is known all
over the place. They used to be always together--walking on the Bare
Plain by night. The girl has gone away for a time; and the gentleman,
during her absence, amuses himself with you. Makes love to you to keep
his hand in."
Daisy's heart turned sick and faint within her. Not at Lydia's supreme
sarcasm, but at the horrible conviction that there must be something
in the tale. She remembered the past evening at the dinner-table--and
the recollection came rushing into her mind like a barbed arrow--when
Sir Arthur Beauchamp and others were questioning Frank about this very
girl and her beauty, and she--Daisy--had been struck with the emotion
he betrayed; with his evidently shrinking manner, with the changing
hue of his face. Did he in truth love this girl, Rosaline Bell?--and
was she so very beautiful?
"How did you hear this, Lydia?" asked Daisy, in tones from which all
spirit was quenched.
"I heard it from Tabitha. She knows about it. You can ask her
yourself."
And Daisy did ask. As it chanced, the maid at that moment entered the
room with some beef-tea for Lydia; and Daisy, suppressing her pride
and her reticence, condescended to question her. Tabitha answered
freely and readily, as if there were nothing in the subject to
conceal, and with a palpable belief in its truth that told terribly
upon Daisy. In fact, the woman herself implicitly believed it. Mr.
Blase Pellet had once favoured her with his version of the story, and
Tabitha never supposed that that version existed in Mr. Pellet's own
imagination, and in that alone.
"I--don't think it can be _true_, Tabitha," faltered poor Daisy, her
heart beating wildly. "She was not a lady."
"It's true enough, Miss Margaret. Blase Pellet wanted her himself, but
she'd have nothing to say to him--or to any one else except Mr.
Raynor. Pellet is related to the Bells, and knew all about it. What he
said to me was this: 'Raynor is after her for ever, day and night, and
she worships the ground he treads on!' Those were his very words, Miss
Margaret."
Margaret, turning hot and cold, and red and white, made her escape
from the room, and took refuge in her own. In that first moment of
awakening, she felt as though her heart must break with its bitter
pain. Jealousy, baleful jealousy, had taken possession of her: and no
other passion in this life can prey upon our bosoms so relentlessly,
or touch them with so keen a sting.