Waiting for Sydney to come into the bedroom as usual and wish her
good-night, Kitty was astonished by the appearance of her grandmother,
entering on tiptoe from the corridor, with a small paper parcel in her
hand.
“Whisper!” said Mrs. Presty, pointing to the open door of communication
with Mrs. Linley’s room. “This is your birthday present. You mustn’t
look at it till you wake to-morrow morning.” She pushed the parcel under
the pillow--and, instead of saying good-night, took a chair and sat
down.
“May I show my present,” Kitty asked, “when I go to mamma in the
morning?”
The present hidden under the paper wrapper was a sixpenny picture-book.
Kitty’s grandmother disapproved of spending money lavishly on birthday
gifts to children. “Show it, of course; and take the greatest care of
it,” Mrs. Presty answered gravely. “But tell me one thing, my dear,
wouldn’t you like to see all your presents early in the morning, like
mine?”
Still smarting under the recollection of her interview with her
son-in-law, Mrs. Presty had certain ends to gain in putting this idea
into the child’s head. It was her special object to raise domestic
obstacles to a private interview between the husband and wife during
the earlier hours of the day. If the gifts, usually presented after the
nursery dinner, were produced on this occasion after breakfast, there
would be a period of delay before any confidential conversation could
take place between Mr. and Mrs. Linley. In this interval Mrs. Presty saw
her opportunity of setting Linley’s authority at defiance, by rousing
the first jealous suspicion in the mind of his wife.
Innocent little Kitty became her grandmother’s accomplice on the spot.
“I shall ask mamma to let me have my presents at breakfast-time,” she
announced.
“And kind mamma will say Yes,” Mrs. Presty chimed in. “We will breakfast
early, my precious child. Good-night.”
Kitty was half asleep when her governess entered the room afterward,
much later than usual. “I thought you had forgotten me,” she said,
yawning and stretching out her plump little arms.
Sydney’s heart ached when she thought of the separation that was to come
with the next day; her despair forced its way to expression in words.
“I wish I could forget you,” she answered, in reckless wretchedness.
The child was still too drowsy to hear plainly. “What did you say?” she
asked. Sydney gently lifted her in the bed, and kissed her again and
again. Kitty’s sleepy eyes opened in surprise. “How cold your hands
are!” she said; “and how often you kiss me. What is it you have come to
say to me--good-night or good-by?”
Sydney laid her down again on the pillow, gave her a last kiss, and ran
out of the room.
In the corridor she heard Linley’s voice on the lower floor. He was
asking one of the servants if Miss Westerfield was in the house or in
the garden. Her first impulse was to advance to the stairs and to answer
his question. In a moment more the remembrance of Mrs. Linley checked
her. She went back to her bed-chamber. The presents that she had
received, since her arrival at Mount Morven, were all laid out so that
they could be easily seen by any person entering the room, after she had
left the house. On the sofa lay the pretty new dress which she had worn
at the evening party. Other little gifts were arranged on either side of
it. The bracelet, resting on the pedestal of a statue close by, kept a
morsel of paper in its place--on which she had written a few penitent
words of farewell addressed to Mrs. Linley. On the toilet-table three
photographic portraits showed themselves among the brushes and combs.
She sat down, and looked first at the likenesses of Mrs. Linley and
Kitty.
Had she any right to make those dear faces her companions in the future?
She hesitated; her tears dropped on the photographs. “They’re as good as
spoiled now,” she thought; “they’re no longer fit for anybody but me.”
She paused, and abruptly took up the third and last photograph--the
likeness of Herbert Linley.
Was it an offense, now, even to look at his portrait? No idea of leaving
it behind her was in her mind. Her resolution vibrated between two
miseries--the misery of preserving her keep-sake after she had parted
from him forever, and the misery of destroying it. Resigned to one more
sacrifice, she took the card in both hands to tear it up. It would have
been scattered in pieces on the floor, but for the chance which had
turned the portrait side of the card toward her instead of the back. Her
longing eyes stole a last look at him--a frenzy seized her--she pressed
her lips to the photograph in a passion of hopeless love. “What does it
matter?” she asked herself. “I’m nothing but the ignorant object of his
kindness--the poor fool who could see no difference between gratitude
and love. Where is the harm of having him with me when I am starving in
the streets, or dying in the workhouse?” The fervid spirit in her that
had never known a mother’s loving discipline, never thrilled to the
sympathy of a sister-friend, rose in revolt against the evil destiny
which had imbittered her life. Her eyes still rested on the photograph.
“Come to my heart, my only friend, and kill me!” As those wild words
escaped her, she thrust the card furiously into the bosom of her
dress--and threw herself on the floor. There was something in the mad
self-abandonment of that action which mocked the innocent despair of her
childhood, on the day when her mother left her at the cruel mercy of her
aunt.
That night was a night of torment in secret to another person at Mount
Morven.
Wandering, in his need of self-isolation, up and down the dreary stone
passages in the lower part of the house, Linley counted the hours,
inexorably lessening the interval between him and the ordeal of
confession to his wife. As yet, he had failed to find the opportunity of
addressing to Sydney the only words of encouragement he could allow to
pass his lips: he had asked for her earlier in the evening, and nobody
could tell him where she was. Still in ignorance of the refuge which she
might by bare possibility hope to find in Mrs. MacEdwin’s house, Sydney
was spared the torturing doubts which now beset Herbert Linley’s mind.
Would the noble woman whom they had injured allow their atonement to
plead for them, and consent to keep their miserable secret? Might they
still put their trust in that generous nature a few hours hence? Again
and again those questions confronted Linley; and again and again he
shrank from attempting to answer them.