THE DOUBLE COMPACT.
Olive Henderson lay on a sofa in her bedroom, her face half buried among
the pillows, her cloud of tar-black hair all loose and disordered,
falling about her, and still wearing the out-door dress of yesterday.
Bright streaks of crimson glory, in the dull dawn sky, heralded the
rising of another sun, of another day to the restless, feverish little
planet below. Dressed in that uncomfortable attire for repose, Olive
Henderson, while the red morning broke, lay there and slept. Stuff! It
was more stupor than sleep, and she had only sank into it half an hour
before, from sheer physical exhaustion. Those in the cottage had been
disturbed all night long, by the sound of restless footsteps pacing up
and down the chamber where she now lay, up and down, up and down,
ceaselessly, the livelong night. When they had lifted her up, and
carried her home in that death-faint, and Dr. Leach had brought her to,
her first act had been to turn every soul of them out of her room, Laura
Blair included, to lock the door, and remain there alone by herself,
ever since. Everybody wondered; Catty Clowrie, most of all, and
tender-hearted Laura cried. That sympathizing confidante had gone to the
locked door, and humbly and lovingly entreated "Olly" to let her in; but
Olly turned a deaf ear to all her entreaties, and never even
condescended to reply. Mrs. Hill felt deeply on the subject of
refreshments--if her young lady would but partake of some weak tea and
dry toast, or even water-gruel, and go to bed comfortable, and sleep it
off, she would be all right to-morrow; but to shut herself up, and her
friends out, was enough to give her her death. Catty Clowrie said very
little, but she thought a good deal. She had remained all night at the
cottage, and had listened to that troubled footstep, and had mused
darkly, instead of sleeping. At day-dawn the restless pacing had ceased,
and Olive Henderson lay sleeping, a deep, stupor-like sleep. Her face,
lying among the pillows, contrasting with her black hair, looked ghastly
white in the pale dawn, and her brows were drawn, and her position
strangely wretched and unnatural.
Mrs. Hill came to the door several times and tried to get in, but in
vain. Her feeble knocks failed to awake her young mistress from that
deep sleep, and the sun was high in the purple arch outside, before the
dark eyes slowly opened to this mortal life again. She sat up feeling
stiff, and cold, and cramped, and unrefreshed, and put the black cloud
of hair away from her face, while memory stepped back to its post. With
something like a groan she dropped her face once more among the pillows,
but this time not to sleep. She lay so still for nearly half an hour,
that not a hair of her head moved, thinking, thinking, thinking. A
terrible fear came upon her, a horrible danger threatened her, but she
was not one easily to yield to despair. She would battle with the rising
tide, battle fiercely to the last, and if the black waves engulfed her
at the end, she would die waging war against relentless doom, to the
close.
Olive Henderson rose up, twisted her disordered tresses away from her
face, searched for her ink and paper, and sat down to a little rosewood
desk, to write. It was very short, the note she rapidly scrawled, but
the whole passionate heart of the girl was in it.
"For God's sake come to me!" (this abrupt note began) "every second
is an age of agony till I see you. I thought you were dead--as
Heaven is my witness, I did, or I should never have come here! By
the memory of all the happy days we have spent together, by the
memory of your dead father, I conjure you be silent, and come to me
at once!
"H."
The note had neither date, address, nor signature, save that one capital
letter, but when it was folded and in the envelope, she wrote the
address:--"Miss W. Rose, ---- House, Queen Street, Speckport."
Then, rising, she exchanged the crumpled robe in which she had slept for
one of plain black silk, hastily thrust her hair loose into a chenille
net, put on a long black silk mantle, a bonnet and thick brown vail,
placed the letter in her pocket, and went down stairs. There was no
possibility of leaving the house unseen; Mrs. Hill heard her opening the
front door and came out of the dining-room. Her eyes opened like full
moons at the sight of the street costume, and the young lady's white,
resolute face.
"My patience, Miss Olive, you're never going out?"
"Yes," Miss Henderson said, constraining herself to speak quietly. "My
head aches, and I think a walk in the air will do it good. I will be
back directly."
"But, do take something before you go. Some tea, now, and a little bit
of toast."
"No, no! not any, thank you, until I come back."
She was gone even while she spoke; the thick vail drawn over her face,
her parasol up, screening her effectually. Catty Clowrie, watching her
from the window, would have given considerable to follow her, and see
where she went. She had little faith in that walk being taken for the
sake of walking; some covert meaning lay hidden beneath.
"I declare to you, Catty," exclaimed Mrs. Hill, coming back, "she gave
me quite a turn! She was as white as a ghost, and those big black eyes
of hers looked bigger and blacker than ever. She is turning bilious,
that's what she's doing."
Miss Henderson walked to Queen Street by the most retired streets, and
passed before the hotel, where Major and Mrs. Wheatly boarded. She had
some idea of putting the letter in the post-office when she started, but
in that case Miss Rose would not receive it until evening, and how could
she wait all that time, eating out her heart with mad impatience? There
was a man standing in the doorway of the ladies' entrance, a waiter, and
quite alone. With her vail closely drawn over her face, Miss Henderson
approached him, speaking in a low voice:
"There is a young lady--a governess, called Miss Rose, stopping here--is
there not?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Is she in now?"
"Yes'm."
"Will you please give her this letter! give it into her own hand, and at
once!"
She gave him the letter, and a fee that made him stare, and was gone.
The man did not know her, and Olive reached home without once meeting
any one who recognized her.
Miss Catty Clowrie did not leave the cottage all that day. She was
sewing for Mrs. Hill; and, seated at the dining-room window, she
watched Miss Henderson furtively, but incessantly, under her white
eyelashes. That young lady seemed possessed of the very spirit of
restlessness, since her return from her walk. It had not done her much
good, apparently, for it had neither brought back color nor appetite;
and she wandered from room to room, and up-stairs and down-stairs, with
a miserable feverish restlessness, that made one fidgety to look at her.
And all the time in her dark colorless face there was only one
expression, one of passionate, impatient waiting. Waiting, waiting,
waiting! For what? Catty Clowrie's greenish-gray eyes read the look
aright, but for what was she waiting?
"I'll find it out, yet," Miss Clowrie said, inwardly. "She is a very
fine lady, this Miss Olive Henderson, but there is an old adage about
'All that glitters is not gold.' I'll wait and see."
There were a great many callers in the course of the morning, but Miss
Henderson was too indisposed to see any of them. Even Miss Blair was
sent away with this answer, when she came; but Miss Henderson had left
word, Mrs. Hill said, that she would be glad to see Miss Laura
to-morrow. Miss Henderson herself, walking up and down the drawing-room,
heard the message given, and the door closed on her friend, and then
turned to go up-stairs. She stopped to say a word to her housekeeper as
she did so.
"There is a person to call to-day, Mrs. Hill," she said, not looking at
the pilot's widow, "and you may send her up to my room when she comes.
It is Miss Rose, Mrs. Major Wheatly's governess!"
Her foot was on the carpeted stair as she said this, and she ran up
without giving her housekeeper time to reply. Catty Clowrie,
industriously sewing away, listened, and compressed her thin lips.
"Miss Rose coming to see her, and admitted to a private interview, when
every one else is excluded! Um--m--m! That is rather odd; and Miss Rose
is a stranger to her--or is supposed to be! I wonder why she fainted at
sight of Miss Rose, on the wharf, yesterday, and why Miss Rose's face
turned to pale amazement at sight of her. She did not ask any questions,
I noticed; but Miss Rose was always discreet; and no one observed her
but myself, in the hubbub. There is something odd about all this!"
She threaded her needle afresh, and went on with her sewing, with the
patient perseverance of all such phlegmatic mortals. Mrs. Hill came in,
wondering what Miss Henderson could possibly want of Miss Rose, but her
niece could throw no light on the subject.
"Perhaps she wants a companion," Miss Clowrie remarked; "fine ladies
like Miss Henderson are full of freaks, and perhaps she wants some one
to play and sing and read to her, when she feels too lazy to do it
herself."
Catty Clowrie had read a good many novels in her life, full of all sorts
of mysteries, and secret crimes, and wicked concealments, and
conspiracies--very romantic and unlike every-day life--but still liable
to happen. She had never had the faintest shadow of romance, to cover
rosily her own drab-hued life--no secret or mystery of any sort to
happen to herself, or any of the people among whom she mingled. The most
romantic thing that had ever occurred within her personal knowledge was
the fact of this new heiress, this Olive Henderson, rising from the
offal of New York, from the most abject poverty, to sudden and great
wealth.
Miss Clowrie sat until three o'clock, sewing at the dining-room window.
Luncheon-hour was two, but Miss Henderson would not descend, and asked
to have a cup of strong tea sent up, so Mrs. Hill and her niece partook
of that repast alone. As the clock was striking three, a young lady,
dressed in half-mourning, came down the street and rang the door-bell;
and Catty, dropping her work, ran to open it, and embrace with effusion
the visitor. She had not spoken to Miss Rose before since her return,
and kissed her now, as though she were really glad to see her.
"I am so glad you are back again, dear Miss Rose!" the young lady cried,
holding both Miss Rose's hands in hers; "you cannot think how much we
have all missed you since you went away!"
Now, it was rather unfortunate for Miss Clowrie, but nature, who will
always persist in being absurdly true to herself, had given an insincere
look to the thin, wide mouth, and a false glimmer to the greenish-gray
eyes, and a clammy, limp moistness to the cold hand, that made you feel
as if you had got hold of a dead fish, and wished to drop it again as
soon as possible. Miss Rose had taken an instinctive aversion to Miss
Clowrie the first time she had seen her, and had never been quite able
to get over it since, though she had conscientiously tried; but she
never betrayed it, and smiled now in her own gentle smile, and thanked
Miss Clowrie in her own sweet voice. She turned to Mrs. Hill, though,
when that lady appeared, with a far different feeling, and returned the
kiss that motherly old creature bestowed upon her.
"It does my heart good to see you again, Miss Rose," the housekeeper
said. "I haven't forgotten all you did for me last year when poor, dear
Hill was lost, going after that horrid ship. You can't think how glad I
was when I heard you were come back."
"Thank you, Mrs. Hill," the governess said. "It is worth while going
away for the sake of such a welcome back. Is Miss--" she hesitated a
moment, and then went on, with a sudden flush lighting her face; "is
Miss Henderson in?"
"Yes, my dear; I will go and tell her you are here."
The housekeeper went up-stairs, but reappeared almost immediately.
"You are to go up-stairs, my dear," she said; "Miss Henderson is not
very well, and will see you in her own room."
Miss Rose ascended the stairs, entered the chamber of the heiress, and
Catty heard the door closed and locked after her. As Mrs. Hill
re-entered the dining-room, she found her gathering up her work.
"I left the yokes and wristbands in your room, aunt," she explained. "I
must go after them, and I'll just go up and finish this nightgown
there."
There were four rooms up-stairs, with a hall running between each two.
The two on the left were occupied by Miss Henderson, one being her
bedroom, the other a bath-room. Mrs. Hill had the room opposite the
heiress, the other being used by Rosie, the chambermaid.
Miss Clowrie (one hates to tell it, but what is to be done?) went
deliberately to Miss Henderson's door, and applied first her eye, then
her ear, to the key-hole. Applying her eye, she distinctly beheld Miss
Olive Henderson, the heiress of Redmon, the proudest woman she had ever
known, down upon her knees, before Miss Rose, the governess--the
ex-school-mistress; holding up her closed hands, in wild supplication,
her face like the face of a corpse, and all her black hair tumbled and
falling about her.
To say that Miss Catty Clowrie was satisfied by this sight, would be
doing no sort of justice to the subject. The first words she caught were
not likely to lessen her astonishment--wild, strange words.
"I thought you were dead! I thought you were dead!" in a passion of
consternation, that seemed to blot out every thought of prudence. "I
thought you were dead! As Heaven hears me, I thought you were dead, or I
never would have done it."
Miss Rose was standing with her back to the door, and the eavesdropper
saw her trying to raise the heiress up.
"Get up, Harriet," she distinctly heard her say, though she spoke in a
low voice; "I cannot bear to see you like this; and do not speak so
loud--some one may hear you."
If they had only known of the pale listener at the door, hushing her
very heart-beating to hear the better. But Miss Henderson would not
rise; she only knelt there, white and wild, and holding up her clasped
hands.
"I will never get up," she passionately cried. "I will never rise out of
this until you promise to keep my secret. It is not as a favor, it is as
a right I demand it! Your father robbed my mother and me. But for him I
would have never known poverty and misery--and God only knows the misery
that has been mine. But for him, I should never have known what it is to
suffer from cold and hunger, and misery and insult; but for him I would
have been rich to-day; but for him my mother might still be alive and
happy. He ruined us, and broke her heart, and I tell you it is only
justice I ask! I should never have come here had I not thought you dead;
but now that I have come, that wealth and comfort have been mine once
more, I will not go. I will not, I tell you! I will die before I yield,
and go back to that horrible life, and may my death rest forever on your
soul!"
Catty Clowrie, crouching at the door, turned as cold as death, listening
to these dreadful words. Was she awake--was she dreaming? Was this Olive
Henderson--the proud, the beautiful, the queenly heiress--this mad
creature, uttering those passionate, despairing words. She could not see
into the room, her ear was at the keyhole--strained to a tension that
was painful, so absorbed was she in listening. But at this very instant
her strained hearing caught another sound--Rosie, the chambermaid,
coming along the lower hall, and up-stairs. Swift as a flash, Catty
Clowrie sprang up, and darted into her aunt's room. She did not dare to
close the door, lest the girl should hear her, and she set her teeth
with anger and suppressed fury at the disappointment.
Rosie had come up to make her bed, and set her room to rights, and was
in no wise disposed to hurry over it. She sang at her work; but the
pale-faced attorney's daughter in the next room, furious with
disappointment, could have seen her choked at the moment with the
greatest pleasure. Half an hour passed--would the girl never go?
Yes--yes, there was Mrs. Hill, at the foot of the stairs, calling her,
and Rosie ran down. Quick as she had left it, Catty was back at her
post, airing her eye at the keyhole once more.
The scene she beheld was not quite so tragic this time. The heiress and
the governess were seated opposite one another, an inlaid table between
them. There was paper and ink on the table; Miss Henderson held a pen in
her hand, as if about to write, and Miss Rose was speaking. Her voice
was sweet and low, as usual; but it had a firm cadence, that showed she
was gravely in earnest now.
"You must write down these conditions, Harriet," she was saying, "to
make matters sure; but no one shall ever see the papers, and I pledge
you my solemn word, your secret shall be kept inviolable. Heaven knows
I have done all I could to atone for my dead father's acts, and I will
continue to do it to the end. He wronged your mother and you, I know,
and I am thankful it is in my power to do reparation. I ask nothing for
myself--but others have rights as well as you, Harriet, and as sacred.
Two hundred pounds will pay all the remaining debts of my father now.
You must give me that. And you must write down there a promise to pay
Mrs. Marsh one hundred pounds a year annuity, as long as she lives. Her
daughter should have had it all, Harriet, and neither you nor I; and the
least you can do, in justice, is to provide for her. You will do this?"
"Yes--yes," Miss Henderson cried; "that is not much to do! I want to do
more. I want you to share with me, Olly."
"No," said Miss Rose, "you may keep it all. I have as much as I want,
and I am very well contented. I have no desire for wealth. I should
hardly know what to do with it if I had possessed it."
"But you will come and live with me," Miss Henderson said, in a voice
strangely subdued; "come and live with me, and let us share it together,
as sisters should."
That detestable housemaid again! If Catty Clowrie had been a man, she
might have indulged in the manly relief of swearing, as she sprang up a
second time, and fled into Mrs. Hill's room. This time, Rosie was not
called away, and she sat for nearly an hour, singing, at her chamber
window, and mending her stockings. Catty Clowrie, on fire with impotent
fury, had to stay where she was.
Staying there, she saw Miss Henderson's door opened at last; and,
peeping cautiously out, saw the two go down-stairs together. Miss Rose
looked as if she had been crying, and her face was very pale, but the
fierce crimson of excitement burned on the dark cheeks and flamed in the
black eyes of Miss Henderson. It was the heiress who let Miss Rose out,
and then she came back to her room, and resumed the old trick of walking
up and down, up and down, as on the preceding night.
Catty wondered if she would never be tired. It was all true, then; and
there was a dark secret and mystery in Olive Henderson's life. "Olive!"
Was that her name, and if so, why had Miss Rose called her "Harriet."
And if the governess's name was Winnie, why did the heiress call her
"Olly?"
Catty Clowrie sat thinking while the April day faded into misty
twilight, and the cold evening star glimmered down on the sea. She sat
there thinking while the sun went low, and dipped into the bay, and out
of sight. She sat thinking while the last little pink cloud of the
sunset paled to dull gray, and the round white moon came up, like a
shining shield. She sat there thinking till the dinner-bell rang, and
she remembered she was cold and hungry, and went slowly
down-stairs--still thinking.
To her surprise, for she had been too absorbed to hear her come out of
her room, Miss Henderson was there, beautifully dressed, and in high
spirits. She had such a passion for luxury and costly dress, this young
lady, that she would array herself in velvets and brocades, even though
there were none to admire her but her own servants.
On this evening, she had dressed herself in white, with ornaments of
gold and coral in her black braids, broad gold bracelets on her superb
arms, and a cluster of scarlet flowers on her breast. She looked so
beautiful with that fire in her eyes, that flush on her cheek, that
brilliant smile lighting up her gypsy face, that Mrs. Hill and Catty
were absolutely dazzled. She laughed--a clear, ringing laugh--at Mrs.
Hill's profuse congratulations on her magical recovery.
"You dear old Mrs. Hill!" she said, "when you are better used to mo, you
will cease to wonder at my eccentricities! It is a woman's privilege to
change her mind sixty times an hour, if she chooses--and I choose to
assert all the privileges of my sex!"
She rose from the table as she spoke, still laughing, and went into the
drawing-room. The gas burned low, but she turned it up to its full
flare, and, opening the piano, rattled off a stormy polka. She twirled
round presently, and called out:
"Mrs. Hill!"
Mrs. Hill came in.
"Tell Sam to go up to Miss Blair's, and fetch her here. Let him tell her
I feel quite well again, and want her to spend the evening, if she is
not engaged. He can take the gig, and tell him to make haste, Mrs.
Hill."
Mrs. Hill departed on her errand, and Miss Henderson's jeweled fingers
were flying over the polished keys once more. Presently she twirled
around again, and called out: "Miss Clowrie."
"I wish Laura would come!" Miss Henderson said, pulling out her watch,
"and I wish she would fetch a dozen people with her. I feel just in the
humor for a ball to-night."
She talked to Catty Clowrie vivaciously, and to Mrs. Hill, because she
was just in the mood for talking, and rattled off brilliant sonatas
between whiles. But she was impatient for Laura's coming, and kept
jerking out her watch every five minutes, to look at the hour.
Miss Blair made her appearance at last, and not alone. There was a
gentleman in the background, but Miss B. rushed with such a frantic
little scream of delight into the arms of her "dear, darling Olly," and
so hugged and kissed her, that, for the first moment or two, it was not
very easy to see who it was. Extricating herself, laughing and
breathless, from the gushing Miss Blair, Olive looked at her companion,
and saw the amused and handsome face of Captain Cavendish.
"I hope I am not an intruder," that young officer said, coming forward,
"but being at Mr. Blair's when your message arrived, and hearing you
were well again, I could not forbear the pleasure of congratulating you.
The Princess of Speckport can be ill dispensed with by her adoring
subjects."
Some one of Miss Henderson's innumerable admirers had dubbed her
"Princess of Speckport," and the title was not out of place. She laughed
at his gallant speech, and held out her hand with frank grace.
"My friends are always welcome," she said, and here she was interrupted
by a postman's knock at the door.
"Dear me! who can this be?" said Mrs. Hill, looking up over her
spectacles, as Rosie opened the door.
It proved to be Mr. Val Blake. That gentleman being very busy all day,
had found no time to inquire for Miss Henderson, until after tea, when,
strolling out, with his pipe in his mouth, for his evening
constitutional, he had stepped around to ask Mrs. Hill. Miss Henderson
appeared in person to answer his friendly inquiries, and Mr. Blake came
in, nothing loth, and joined the party.
Some one proposed cards, after a while; and Mr. Blake, and Miss Blair,
and Mrs. Hill, and Miss Clowrie, gathered round a pretty little
card-table, but Miss Henderson retained her seat at the piano, singing,
and playing operatic overtures. Captain Cavendish stood beside her,
turning over her music, and looking down into the sparkling, beautiful
face, with passionately loving eyes. For the spell of the sorceress
burdened him more this night than ever before, and the man's heart was
going in great plunges against his side. He almost fancied she must hear
its tumultuous beating, as she sat there in her beauty and her pride,
the red gold gleaming in her black braids and on her brown arms. It had
always been so easy before for him to say what was choking him now, and
he had said it often enough, goodness knows, for the lesson to be easy.
But there was this difference--he loved this black-eyed sultana; and the
fever called love makes a coward of the bravest of men. He feared what
he had never feared before--a rejection; and a rejection from her, even
the thought of one, nearly sent him mad.
And all this while Miss Olive Henderson sat on her piano-stool, and sang
"Hear me, Norma," serenely unconscious of the storm going on in the
English officer's breast. He had heard that very song a thousand times
better sung, by Nathalie Marsh. Ah! poor forgotten Nathalie!--but he was
not listening to the singing. For him, the circling sphere seemed
momentarily standing still, and the business of life suspended. He was
perfectly white in his agitation, and the hand that turned the leaves
shook. His time had come. The card-party were too much absorbed in
scoring their points to heed them, and now, or never, he must know his
fate. What he said he never afterward knew--but Miss Henderson looked
strangely startled by his white face and half incoherent sentences. The
magical words were spoken; but as the self-possessed George Cavendish
had never spoken thus before, and the supreme question, on which his
life's destiny hung, asked.
The piano stood in a sort of recess, with a lace-draped window to the
right, looking out upon Golden Row. Miss Henderson sat, all the time he
was speaking, looking straight before her, out into the coldly moonlit
street. Not once did her color change--no tremor made the scarlet
flowers on her breast rise and fall--no flutter made the misty lace
about her tremble. She was only very grave, ominously grave, and the
man's heart turned sick with fear, as he watched her unchanging face and
the dark gravity of her eyes. She was a long time in replying--all the
while sitting there so very still, and looking steadfastly out at the
quiet street; not once at him. When she did reply, it was the strangest
answer he had ever received to such a declaration. The reply was another
question.
"Captain Cavendish," she said, "I am an heiress, and you--pardon
me--have the name of a fortune-hunter. If I were penniless, as I was
before this wealth became mine--if by some accident I were to lose it
again--would you say to me what you have said now?"
Would he? The answer was so vehement, so passionate, that the veriest
skeptic must have believed. His desperate earnestness was written in
every line of his agitated face.
"I believe you," she said; "I believe you, Captain Cavendish. I think
you do love me; but I--I do not love you in return."
He gave a sort of cry of despair, but she put up one hand to check him.
"I do not love you," she steadily repeated, "and I have never loved any
one in this way. Perhaps it is not in me, and I do not care that it
should be: there is misery enough in the world, Heaven knows, without
that! I do not love you, Captain Cavendish, but I do not love any one
else. I esteem and respect you; more, I like you: and if you can be
content with this, I will be your wife. If you cannot, why, we will be
friends as before, and----"
But he would not let her finish. He had caught her hand in his, and
broke out into a rhapsody of incoherent thanks and delight.
"There, there!" she smilingly interposed, "that will do! Our friends at
the card-table will hear you. Of one thing you may be certain: I shall
be true to you until death. Your honor will be safe in my hands; and
this friendly liking may grow into a warmer feeling by-and-by. I am not
very romantic, Captain Cavendish, and you must not ask me for more than
I can give."
But Captain Cavendish wanted no more. He was supremely blessed in what
he had received, and his handsome face was radiant.
"My darling," he said, "I ask for no more! I shall think the devotion of
a whole life too little to repay you for this."
"Very well," said Miss Henderson, rising; "and now, after that pretty
speech, I think we had better join our friends, or my duty as hostess
will be sadly neglected."
She stood behind Miss Laura Blair for the rest of the evening, watching
the fluctuations of the game, and with no shadow of change in her
laughing face. She stood there until the little party broke up, which
was some time after ten, when Mr. Blair called around for Laura himself.
Miss Laura was not to say over and above obliged to her pa for this act
of paternal affection--since she would have infinitely preferred the
escort of Mr. Blake. That gentleman hooked his arm within that of
Captain Cavendish, and bade Miss Blair good-night, with seraphic
indifference.
Miss Henderson's bedroom windows commanded an eastward view of the bay,
and when she went up to her room that night, she sat for a long time
gazing out over the shining track the full moon made for herself on the
tranquil sea. "Gaspereaux month" had come around again, and the whole
bay was dotted over with busy boats. She could see the fishermen
casting their nets, now in the shadow, now in the glittering moonlight,
and the peaceful beauty of the April night filled her heart with a deep,
sweet sense of happiness. Perhaps it was the first time since her
arrival in Speckport she had been really happy--a vague dread and
uncertainty had hung over her, like that fabled sword, suspended by a
single hair, and ready to fall at any moment. But the fear was gone, she
was safe now--her inheritance was secure, and she was the promised wife
of an honorable gentleman. Some day, perhaps, he might be a baronet, and
she "my lady," and her ambitious heart throbbed faster at the thought.
She sat there, dreaming and feeling very happy, thinking of the double
compact ratified that most eventful day, but she never once thanked
God--never gave one thought to him to whom she owed it all. She sat
there far into the night, thinking, and when she laid her head on the
pillow and fell asleep, it was to act it all over in dreamland again.
Some one else lay awake a long time that night, thinking, too. Miss
Clowrie, in the opposite chamber, did not sit up by the window; Mrs.
Hill would, no doubt, not have permitted it, and Miss Clowrie was a
great deal too sensible a person to run the risk of catching cold. But,
though she lay with her eyes shut she was not asleep, and Olive
Henderson might not have dreamed quite such happy dreams had she known
how dark and ominous were the thoughts the attorney's pale daughter was
thinking.