Early the next morning Abel Stebbins made his appearance at Dudley
Veneer's, and requested to see the maan o' the haouse abaout somethin'
o' consequence. Mr. Veneer sent word that the messenger should wait
below, and presently appeared in the study, where Abel was making
himself at home, as is the wont of the republican citizen, when he hides
the purple of empire beneath the apron of domestic service.
“Good mornin', Squire!” said Abel, as Mr. Venner entered. “My name's
Stebbins, 'n' I'm stoppin' f'r a spell 'ith of Doctor Kittredge.”
“Well, Stebbins,” said Mr. Dudley Veneer, “have you brought any special
message from the Doctor?”
“Y' ha'n't heerd nothin' abaout it, Squire, d' ye mean t' say?” said
Abel,--beginning to suspect that he was the first to bring the news of
last evening's events.
“About what?” asked Mr. Veneer, with some interest.
“Dew tell, naow! Waal, that beats all! Why, that 'ere Portagee relation
o' yourn 'z been tryin' t' ketch a fellah 'n a slippernoose, 'n' got
ketched himself,--that's all. Y' ha'n't heerd noth'n' abaout it?”
“Sit down,” said Mr. Dudley Veneer, calmly, “and tell me all you have to
say.”
So Abel sat down and gave him an account of the events of the last
evening. It was a strange and terrible surprise to Dudley Veneer to find
that his nephew, who had been an inmate of his house and the companion
of his daughter, was to all intents and purposes guilty of the gravest
of crimes. But the first shock was no sooner over than he began to think
what effect the news would have on Elsie. He imagined that there was a
kind of friendly feeling between them, and he feared some crisis would
be provoked in his daughter's mental condition by the discovery. He
would wait, however, until she came from her chamber, before disturbing
her with the evil tidings.
Abel did not forget his message with reference to the equipments of the
dead mustang.
“The' was some things on the hoss, Squire, that the man he ketched
said he did n' care no gre't abaout; but perhaps you'd like to have 'em
fetched to the mansion-haouse. Ef y' did n' care abaout 'em, though,
I should n' min' keepin' on 'em; they might come handy some time or
'nother; they say, holt on t' anything for ten year 'n' there 'll be
some kin' o' use for 't.”
“Keep everything,” said Dudley Veneer. “I don't want to see anything
belonging to that young man.”
So Abel nodded to Mr. Veneer, and left the study to find some of the men
about the stable to tell and talk over with them the events of the
last evening. He presently came upon Elbridge, chief of the equine
department, and driver of the family-coach.
“Good mornin', Abe,” said Elbridge. “What's fetched y' daown here so
all-fired airly?”
“You're a darned pooty lot daown here, you be!”
Abel answered. “Better keep your Portagees t' home nex' time, ketchin'
folks 'ith slippernooses raoun' their necks, 'n' kerryin' knives 'n
their boots!”
“What 'r' you jawin' abaout?” Elbridge said, looking up to see if he was
in earnest, and what he meant.
“Jawin' abaout? You'll find aout'z soon 'z y' go into that 'ere stable
o' yourn! Y' won't curry that 'ere long-tailed black hoss no more; 'n'
y' won't set y'r eyes on the fellah that rid him, ag'in, in a hurry!”
Elbridge walked straight to the stable, without saying a word, found the
door unlocked, and went in.
“Th' critter's gone, sure enough!” he said. “Glad on 't! The darndest,
kickin'est, bitin'est beast th't ever I see, 'r ever wan' t' see ag'in!
Good reddance! Don' wan' no snappin'-turkles in my stable! Whar's the
man gone th't brought the critter?”
“Whar he's gone? Guess y' better go 'n ask my ol man; he kerried him off
lass' night; 'n' when he comes back, mebbe he 'll tell ye whar he's gone
tew!”
By this time Elbridge had found out that Abel was in earnest, and had
something to tell. He looked at the litter in the mustang's stall, then
at the crib.
“Ha'n't eat b't haalf his feed. Ha'n't been daown on his straw. Must ha'
been took aout somewhere abaout ten 'r 'levee o'clock. I know that 'ere
critter's ways. The fellah's had him aout nights afore; b't I never
thought nothin' o' no mischief. He 's a kin' o' haalf Injin. What is 't
the chap's been a-doin' on? Tell 's all abaout it.”
Abel sat down on a meal-chest, picked up a straw and put it into his
mouth. Elbridge sat down at the other end, pulled out his jack-knife,
opened the penknife-blade, and began sticking it into the lid of the
meal-chest. The Doctor's man had a story to tell, and he meant to
get all the enjoyment out of it. So he told it with every luxury of
circumstance. Mr. Veneer's man heard it all with open mouth. No listener
in the gardens of Stamboul could have found more rapture in a tale heard
amidst the perfume of roses and the voices of birds and tinkling of
fountains than Elbridge in following Abel's narrative, as they sat there
in the aromatic ammoniacal atmosphere of the stable, the grinding of
the horses' jaws keeping evenly on through it all, with now and then the
interruption of a stamping hoof, and at intervals a ringing crow from
the barn-yard.
Elbridge stopped a minute to think, after Abel had finished.
“Who's took care o' them things that was on the hoss?” he said, gravely.
“Waal, Langden, he seemed to kin 'o' think I'd ought to have 'em,--'n'
the Squire; he did n' seem to have no 'bjection; 'n' so,--waal, I
calc'late I sh'll jes' holt on to 'em myself; they a'n't good f 'r much,
but they're cur'ous t' keep t' look at.”
Mr. Veneer's man did not appear much gratified by this arrangement,
especially as he had a shrewd suspicion that some of the ornaments of
the bridle were of precious metal, having made occasional examinations
of them with the edge of a file. But he did not see exactly what to do
about it, except to get them from Abel in the way of bargain.
“Waal, no,--they a'n't good for much 'xcep' to look at. 'F y' ever rid
on that seddle once, y' would n' try it ag'in, very spry,--not 'f y' c'd
haalp y'rsaalf.
“I tried it,--darned 'f I sot daown f'r th' nex' week,--eat all my
victuals stan'in'. I sh'd like t' hev them things wal enough to heng up
'n the stable; 'f y' want t' trade some day, fetch 'em along daown.”
Abel rather expected that Elbridge would have laid claim to the saddle
and bridle on the strength of some promise or other presumptive title,
and thought himself lucky to get off with only offering to think abaout
tradin'.
When Elbridge returned to the house, he found the family in a state of
great excitement. Mr. Venner had told Old Sophy, and she had informed
the other servants. Everybody knew what had happened, excepting Elsie.
Her father had charged them all to say nothing about it to her; he would
tell her, when she came down.
He heard her step at last,--alight, gliding step,--so light that her
coming was often unheard, except by those who perceived the faint rustle
that went with it. She was paler than common this morning, as she came
into her father's study.
After a few words of salutation, he said quietly, “Elsie, my dear, your
cousin Richard has left us.”
She grew still paler, as she asked,
“Is he dead?”
Dudley Venner started to see the expression with which Elsie put this
question.
“He is living,--but dead to us from this day forward,” said her father.
He proceeded to tell her, in a general way, the story he had just heard
from Abel. There could be no doubting it;--he remembered him as the
Doctor's man; and as Abel had seen all with his own eyes, as Dick's
chamber, when unlocked with a spare key, was found empty, and his bed
had not been slept in, he accepted the whole account as true.
When he told of Dick's attempt on the young schoolmaster, (“You know
Mr. Langdon very well, Elsie,--a perfectly inoffensive young man, as I
understand,”) Elsie turned her face away and slid along by the wall
to the window which looked out oh the little grass-plot with the white
stone standing in it. Her father could not see her face, but he knew
by her movements that her dangerous mood was on her. When she heard the
sequel of the story, the discomfiture and capture of Dick, she turned
round for an instant, with a look of contempt and of something like
triumph upon her face. Her father saw that her cousin had become
odious to her: He knew well, by every change of her countenance, by
her movements, by every varying curve of her graceful figure, the
transitions front passion to repose, from fierce excitement to the dull
languor which often succeeded her threatening paroxysms.
She remained looking out at the window. A group of white fan-tailed
pigeons had lighted on the green plot before it and clustered about one
of their companions who lay on his back, fluttering in a strange way,
with outspread wings and twitching feet. Elsie uttered a faint cry;
these were her special favorites and often fed from her hand. She threw
open the long window, sprang out, caught up the white fantail, and held
it to her bosom. The bird stretched himself out, and then lay still,
with open eyes, lifeless. She looked at him a moment, and, sliding in
through the open window and through the study, sought her own apartment,
where she locked herself in, and began to sob and moan like those that
weep. But the gracious solace of tears seemed to be denied her, and her
grief, like her anger, was a dull ache, longing, like that, to finish
itself with a fierce paroxysm, but wanting its natural outlet.
This seemingly trifling incident of the death of her favorite appeared
to change all the current of her thought. Whether it were the sight
of the dying bird, or the thought that her own agency might have beep
concerned in it, or some deeper grief, which took this occasion to
declare itself,--some dark remorse or hopeless longing,--whatever it
might be, there was an unwonted tumult in her soul. To whom should
she go in her vague misery? Only to Him who knows all His creatures'
sorrows, and listens to the faintest human cry. She knelt, as she had
been taught to kneel from her childhood, and tried to pray. But her
thoughts refused to flow in the language of supplication. She could not
plead for herself as other women plead in their hours of anguish. She
rose like one who should stoop to drink, and find dust in the place of
water. Partly from restlessness, partly from an attraction she hardly
avowed to herself, she followed her usual habit and strolled listlessly
along to the school.
Of course everybody at the Institute was full of the terrible adventure
of the preceding evening. Mr. Bernard felt poorly enough; but he had
made it a point to show himself the next morning, as if nothing had
happened. Helen Darley knew nothing of it all until she hard risen, when
the gossipy matron of the establishment made her acquainted with all its
details, embellished with such additional ornamental appendages as
it had caught up in transmission from lip to lip. She did not love to
betray her sensibilities, but she was pale and tremulous and very
nearly tearful when Mr. Bernard entered the sitting-room, showing on
his features traces of the violent shock he had received and the heavy
slumber from which he had risen with throbbing brows. What the poor
girl's impulse was, on seeing him, we need not inquire too curiously. If
he had been her own brother, she would have kissed him and cried on
his neck; but something held her back. There is no galvanism in
kiss-your-brother; it is copper against copper: but alien bloods develop
strange currents, when they flow close to each other, with only the
films that cover lip and cheek between them. Mr. Bernard, as some of us
may remember, violated the proprieties and laid himself open to reproach
by his enterprise with a bouncing village-girl, to whose rosy cheek an
honest smack was not probably an absolute novelty. He made it all up by
his discretion and good behavior now. He saw by Helen's moist eye and
trembling lip that her woman's heart was off its guard, and he knew,
by the infallible instinct of sex, that he should be forgiven, if
he thanked her for her sisterly sympathies in the most natural
way,--expressive, and at the same time economical of breath and
utterance. He would not give a false look to their friendship by any
such demonstration. Helen was a little older than himself, but the
aureole of young womanhood had not yet begun to fade from around her.
She was surrounded by that enchanted atmosphere into which the girl
walks with dreamy eyes, and out of which the woman passes with a
story written on her forehead. Some people think very little of these
refinements; they have not studied magnetism and the law of the square
of the distance.
So Mr. Bernard thanked Helen for her interest without the aid of the
twenty-seventh letter of the alphabet,--the love labial,--the limping
consonant which it takes two to speak plain. Indeed, he scarcely let her
say a word, at first; for he saw that it was hard for her to conceal her
emotion. No wonder; he had come within a hair's-breadth of losing his
life, and he had been a very kind friend and a very dear companion to
her.
There were some curious spiritual experiences connected with his last
evening's adventure which were working very strongly in his mind. It was
borne in upon him irresistibly that he had been dead since he had seen
Helen,--as dead as the son of the Widow of Nain before the bier was
touched and he sat up and began to speak. There was an interval
between two conscious moments which appeared to him like a temporary
annihilation, and the thoughts it suggested were worrying him with
strange perplexities.
He remembered seeing the dark figure on horseback rise in the saddle and
something leap from its hand. He remembered the thrill he felt as the
coil settled on his shoulders, and the sudden impulse which led him to
fire as he did. With the report of the pistol all became blank, until
he found himself in a strange, bewildered state, groping about for
the weapon, which he had a vague consciousness of having dropped. But,
according to Abel's account, there must have been an interval of some
minutes between these recollections, and he could not help asking, Where
was the mind, the soul, the thinking principle, all this time?
A man is stunned by a blow with a stick on the head. He becomes
unconscious. Another man gets a harder blow on the head from a bigger
stick, and it kills him. Does he become unconscious, too? If so, when
does he come to his consciousness? The man who has had a slight or
moderate blow comes to himself when the immediate shock passes off and
the organs begin to work again, or when a bit of the skull is pried up,
if that happens to be broken. Suppose the blow is hard enough to spoil
the brain and stop the play of the organs, what happens them?
A British captain was struck by a cannon-ball on the head, just as
he was giving an order, at the Battle of the Nile. Fifteen months
afterwards he was trephined at Greenwich Hospital, having been
insensible all that time. Immediately after the operation his
consciousness returned, and he at once began carrying out the order
he was giving when the shot struck him. Suppose he had never been
trephined, when would his consciousness have returned? When his breath
ceased and his heart stopped beating?
When Mr. Bernard said to Helen, “I have been dead since I saw you,” it
startled her not a little; for his expression was that of perfect good
faith, and she feared that his mind was disordered. When he explained,
not as has been done just now, at length, but in a hurried, imperfect
way, the meaning of his strange assertion, and the fearful Sadduceeisms
which it had suggested to his mind, she looked troubled at first, and
then thoughtful. She did not feel able to answer all the difficulties he
raised, but she met them with that faith which is the strength as well
as the weakness of women,--which makes them weak in the hands of man,
but strong in the presence of the Unseen.
“It is a strange experience,” she said; “but I once had something like
it. I fainted, and lost some five or ten minutes out of my life, as much
as if I had been dead. But when I came to myself, I was the same person
every way, in my recollections and character. So I suppose that loss
of consciousness is not death. And if I was born out of unconsciousness
into infancy with many family-traits of mind and body, I can believe,
from my own reason, even without help from Revelation, that I shall be
born again out of the unconsciousness of death with my individual
traits of mind and body. If death is, as it should seem to be, a loss of
consciousness, that does not shake my faith; for I have been put into
a body once already to fit me for living here, and I hope to be in some
way fitted after this life to enjoy a better one. But it is all trust in
God and in his Word. These are enough for me; I hope they are for you.”
Helen was a minister's daughter, and familiar from her childhood with
this class of questions, especially with all the doubts and perplexities
which are sure to assail every thinking child bred in any inorganic
or not thoroughly vitalized faith,--as is too often the case with the
children of professional theologians. The kind of discipline they are
subjected to is like that of the Flat-Head Indian pappooses. At five or
ten or fifteen years old they put their hands up to their foreheads and
ask, What are they strapping down my brains in this way for? So they
tear off the sacred bandages of the great Flat-Head tribe, and there
follows a mighty rush of blood to the long-compressed region. This
accounts, in the most lucid manner, for those sudden freaks with which
certain children of this class astonish their worthy parents at the
period of life when they are growing fast, and, the frontal pressure
beginning to be felt as something intolerable, they tear off the holy
compresses.
The hour for school came, and they went to the great hall for study.
It would not have occurred to Mr. Silas Peckham to ask his assistant
whether he felt well enough to attend to his duties; and Mr. Bernard
chose to be at his post. A little headache and confusion were all that
remained of his symptoms.
Later, in the course of the forenoon, Elsie Venner came and took her
place. The girls all stared at her--naturally enough; for it was hardly
to have been expected that she would show herself, after such an event
in the household to which she belonged. Her expression was somewhat
peculiar, and, of course, was attributed to the shock her feelings had
undergone on hearing of the crime attempted by her cousin and daily
companion. When she was looking on her book, or on any indifferent
object, her countenance betrayed some inward disturbance, which knitted
her dark brows, and seemed to throw a deeper shadow over her features.
But, from time to time, she would lift her eyes toward Mr. Bernard, and
let them rest upon him, without a thought, seemingly, that she herself
was the subject of observation or remark. Then they seemed to lose their
cold glitter, and soften into a strange, dreamy tenderness. The deep
instincts of womanhood were striving to grope their way to the surface
of her being through all the alien influences which overlaid them.
She could be secret and cunning in working out any of her dangerous
impulses, but she did not know how to mask the unwonted feeling which
fixed her eyes and her thoughts upon the only person who had ever
reached the spring of her hidden sympathies.
The girls all looked at Elsie, whenever they could steal a glance
unperceived, and many of them were struck with this singular expression
her features wore. They had long whispered it around among each other
that she had a liking for the master; but there were too many of them of
whom something like this could be said, to make it very remarkable. Now,
however, when so many little hearts were fluttering at the thought
of the peril through which the handsome young master had so recently
passed, they were more alive than ever to the supposed relation between
him and the dark school-girl. Some had supposed there was a mutual
attachment between them; there was a story that they were secretly
betrothed, in accordance with the rumor which had been current in the
village. At any rate, some conflict was going on in that still, remote,
clouded soul, and all the girls who looked upon her face were impressed
and awed as they had never been before by the shadows that passed over
it.
One of these girls was more strongly arrested by Elsie's look than the
others. This was a delicate, pallid creature, with a high forehead, and
wide-open pupils, which looked as if they could take in all the shapes
that flit in what, to common eyes, is darkness,--a girl said to be
clairvoyant under certain influences. In the recess, as it was called,
or interval of suspended studies in the middle of the forenoon, this
girl carried her autograph-book,--for she had one of those indispensable
appendages of the boarding-school miss of every degree,--and asked Elsie
to write her name in it. She had an irresistible feeling, that, sooner
or later, and perhaps very soon, there would attach an unusual interest
to this autograph. Elsie took the pen and wrote, in her sharp Italian
hand,
Elsie Venner, Infelix.
It was a remembrance, doubtless, of the forlorn queen of the “AEneid”;
but its coming to her thought in this way confirmed the sensitive
school-girl in her fears for Elsie, and she let fall a tear upon the
page before she closed it.
Of course, the keen and practised observation of Helen Darley could not
fail to notice the change of Elsie's manner and expression. She had long
seen that she was attracted to the young master, and had thought, as
the old Doctor did, that any impression which acted upon her affections
might be the means of awakening a new life in her singularly isolated
nature. Now, however, the concentration of the poor girl's thoughts upon
the one object which had had power to reach her deeper sensibilities
was so painfully revealed in her features, that Helen began to fear
once more, lest Mr. Bernard, in escaping the treacherous violence of
an assassin, had been left to the equally dangerous consequences of a
violent, engrossing passion in the breast of a young creature whose love
it would be ruin to admit and might be deadly to reject. She knew her
own heart too well to fear that any jealousy might mingle with her new
apprehensions. It was understood between Bernard and Helen that they
were too good friends to tamper with the silences and edging proximities
of lovemaking. She knew, too, the simply human, not masculine, interest
which Mr. Bernard took in Elsie; he had been frank with Helen, and more
than satisfied her that with all the pity and sympathy which overflowed
his soul, when he thought of the stricken girl, there mingled not one
drop of such love as a youth may feel for a maiden.
It may help the reader to gain some understanding of the anomalous
nature of Elsie Veneer, if we look with Helen into Mr. Bernard's
opinions and feelings with reference to her, as they had shaped
themselves in his consciousness at the period of which we are speaking.
At first he had been impressed by her wild beauty, and the contrast of
all her looks and ways with those of the girls around her. Presently
a sense of some ill-defined personal element, which half-attracted and
half-repelled those who looked upon her, and especially those on whom
she looked, began to make itself obvious to him, as he soon found it was
painfully sensible to his more susceptible companion, the lady-teacher.
It was not merely in the cold light of her diamond eyes, but in all her
movements, in her graceful postures as she sat, in her costume, and, he
sometimes thought, even in her speech, that this obscure and exceptional
character betrayed itself. When Helen had said, that, if they were
living in times when human beings were subject to possession, she should
have thought there was something not human about Elsie, it struck an
unsuspected vein of thought in his own mind, which he hated to put in
words, but which was continually trying to articulate itself among the
dumb thoughts which lie under the perpetual stream of mental whispers.
Mr. Bernard's professional training had made him slow to accept
marvellous stories and many forms of superstition. Yet, as a man of
science, he well knew that just on the verge of the demonstrable facts
of physics and physiology there is a nebulous border-land which what
is called “common sense” perhaps does wisely not to enter, but which
uncommon sense, or the fine apprehension of privileged intelligences,
may cautiously explore, and in so doing find itself behind the scenes
which make up for the gazing world the show which is called Nature.
It was with something of this finer perception, perhaps with some degree
of imaginative exaltation, that he set himself to solving the problem
of Elsie's influence to attract and repel those around her. His letter
already submitted to the reader hints in what direction his thoughts
were disposed to turn. Here was a magnificent organization, superb
in vigorous womanhood, with a beauty such as never comes but after
generations of culture; yet through all this rich nature there ran some
alien current of influence, sinuous and dark, as when a clouded streak
seams the white marble of a perfect statue.
It would be needless to repeat the particular suggestions which had come
into his mind, as they must probably have come into that of the reader
who has noted the singularities of Elsie's tastes and personal traits.
The images which certain poets had dreamed of seemed to have become a
reality before his own eyes. Then came that unexplained adventure of The
Mountain,--almost like a dream in recollection, yet assuredly real in
some of its main incidents,--with all that it revealed or hinted. This
girl did not fear to visit the dreaded region, where danger lurked in
every nook and beneath every tuft of leaves. Did the tenants of the
fatal ledge recognize some mysterious affinity which made them tributary
to the cold glitter of her diamond eyes? Was she from her birth one of
those frightful children, such as he had read about, and the Professor
had told him of, who form unnatural friendships with cold, writhing
ophidians? There was no need of so unwelcome a thought as this; she had
drawn him away from the dark opening in the rock at the moment when he
seemed to be threatened by one of its malignant denizens; that was all
he could be sure of; the counter-fascination might have been a dream, a
fancy, a coincidence. All wonderful things soon grow doubtful in our own
minds, as do even common events, if great interests prove suddenly to
attach to their truth or falsehood.
--I, who am telling of these occurrences, saw a friend in the great
city, on the morning of a most memorable disaster, hours after the
time when the train which carried its victims to their doom had left.
I talked with him, and was for some minutes, at least, in his company.
When I reached home, I found that the story had gone before that he was
among the lost, and I alone could contradict it to his weeping friends
and relatives. I did contradict it; but, alas! I began soon to doubt
myself, penetrated by the contagion of their solicitude; my recollection
began to question itself; the order of events became dislocated; and
when I heard that he had reached home in safety, the relief was almost
as great to me as to those who had expected to see their own brother's
face no more.
Mr. Bernard was disposed, then, not to accept the thought of any odious
personal relationship of the kind which had suggested itself to him
when he wrote the letter referred to. That the girl had something of the
feral nature, her wild, lawless rambles in forbidden and blasted regions
of The Mountain at all hours, her familiarity with the lonely haunts
where any other human foot was so rarely seen, proved clearly enough.
But the more he thought of all her strange instincts and modes of being,
the more he became convinced that whatever alien impulse swayed her will
and modulated or diverted or displaced her affections came from some
impression that reached far back into the past, before the days when the
faithful Old Sophy had rocked her in the cradle. He believed that she
had brought her ruling tendency, whatever it was, into the world with
her.
When the school was over and the girls had all gone, Helen lingered in
the schoolroom to speak with Mr. Bernard.
“Did you remark Elsie's ways this forenoon?” she said.
“No, not particularly; I have not noticed anything as sharply as I
commonly do; my head has been a little queer, and I have been thinking
over what we were talking about, and how near I came to solving the
great problem which every day makes clear to such multitudes of people.
What about Elsie?”
“Bernard, her liking for you is growing into a passion. I have studied
girls for a long while, and I know the difference between their passing
fancies and their real emotions. I told you, you remember, that Rosa
would have to leave us; we barely missed a scene, I think, if not a
whole tragedy, by her going at the right moment. But Elsie is infinitely
more dangerous to herself and others. Women's love is fierce enough, if
it once gets the mastery of them, always; but this poor girl does not
know what to do with a passion.”
Mr. Bernard had never told Helen the story of the flower in his Virgil,
or that other adventure--which he would have felt awkwardly to refer to;
but it had been perfectly understood between them that Elsie showed in
her own singular way a well-marked partiality for the young master.
“Why don't they take her away from the school, if she is in such a
strange, excitable state?” said Mr. Bernard.
“I believe they are afraid of her,” Helen answered. “It is just one of
those cases that are ten thousand thousand times worse than insanity. I
don't think from what I hear, that her father has ever given up hoping
that she will outgrow her peculiarities. Oh, these peculiar children for
whom parents go on hoping every morning and despairing every night! If
I could tell you half that mothers have told me, you would feel that the
worst of all diseases of the moral sense and the will are those which
all the Bedlams turn away from their doors as not being cases of
insanity!”
“Do you think her father has treated her judiciously?” said Mr. Bernard.
“I think,” said Helen, with a little hesitation, which Mr. Bernard did
not happen to notice,--“I think he has been very kind and indulgent,
and I do not know that he could have treated her otherwise with a better
chance of success.”
“He must of course be fond of her,” Mr. Bernard said; “there is nothing
else in the world for him to love.”
Helen dropped a book she held in her hand, and, stooping to pick it up,
the blood rushed into her cheeks.
“It is getting late,” she said; “you must not stay any longer in
this close schoolroom. Pray, go and get a little fresh air before
dinner-time.”