LEOPOLD.
She re-entered her room with the gait of a new-born goddess treading
the air. Her brother was yet prostrate where she had left him. He
raised himself on his elbow, seized with trembling hand the glass
she offered him, swallowed the brandy at a gulp, and sank again on
the floor. The next instant he sprang to his feet, cast a terrified
look at the window, bounded to the door and locked it, then ran to
his sister, threw his arms about her, and clung to her like a
trembling child. But ever his eyes kept turning to the window.
Though now twenty years of age, and at his full height, he was
hardly so tall as Helen. Swarthy of complexion, his hair dark as the
night, his eyes large and lustrous, with what Milton calls "quel
sereno fulgor d' amabil nero," his frame nervous and slender, he
looked compact and small beside her.
She did her utmost to quiet him, unconsciously using the same words
and tones with which she had soothed his passions when he was a
child. All at once he raised his head and drew himself back from her
arms with a look of horror, then put his hand over his eyes, as if
her face had been a mirror and he had seen himself in it.
"What is that on your wristband, Leopold?" she asked. "Have you hurt
yourself?"
The youth cast an indescribable look on his hand, but it was not
that which turned Helen so deadly sick: with her question had come
to her the ghastly suspicion that the blood she saw was not his, and
she felt guilty of an unpardonable, wicked wrong against him. But
she would never, never believe it! A sister suspect her only brother
of such a crime! Yet her arms dropped and let him go. She stepped
back a pace, and of themselves, as it were, her eyes went wandering
and questioning all over him, and saw that his clothes were torn and
soiled--stained--who could tell with what?
He stood for a moment still and submissive to their search, with
face downcast. Then, suddenly flashing his eyes on her, he said, in
a voice that seemed to force its way through earth that choked it
back,
"Helen, I am a murderer, and they are after me. They will be here
before daylight."
He dropped on his knees, and clasped hers.
"O sister! sister! save me, save me!" he cried in a voice of agony.
Helen stood without response, for to stand took all her strength.
How long she fought that horrible sickness, knowing that, if she
moved an inch, turned from it a moment, yielded a hair's-breadth, it
would throw her senseless on the floor, and the noise of her fall
would rouse the house, she never could even conjecture. All was dark
before her, as if her gaze had been on the underside of her
coffin-lid, and her brain sank and swayed and swung in the coils of
the white snake that was sucking at her heart. At length the
darkness thinned; it grew a gray mist; the face of her boy-brother
glimmered up through it, like that of Dives in hell-fire to his
guardian-angel as he hung lax-winged and faint in the ascending
smoke. The mist thinned, and at length she caught a glimmer of his
pleading, despairing, self-horrified eyes: all the mother in her
nature rushed to the aid of her struggling will; her heart gave a
great heave; the blood ascended to her white brain, and flushed it
with rosy life; her body was once more reconciled and obedient; her
hand went forth, took his head between them, and pressed it against
her.
"Poldie, dear," she said, "be calm and reasonable, and I will do all
I can for you. Here, take this.--And now, answer me one question"
"You won't give me up, Helen?"
"No. I will not."
"Swear it, Helen."
"Ah, my poor Poldie! is it come to this between you and me?"
"Swear it, Helen."
"So help me God, I will not!" returned Helen, looking up.
Leopold rose, and again stood quietly before her, but again with
downbent head, like a prisoner about to receive sentence.
"Do you mean what you said a moment since--that the police are in
search of you?" asked Helen, with forced calmness.
"They must be. They must have been after me for days--I don't know
how many. They will be here soon. I can't think how I have escaped
them so long. Hark! Isn't that a noise at the street-door?--No,
no.--There's a shadow on the curtains!--No! it's my eyes; they've
cheated me a thousand times. Helen! I did not try to hide her; they
must have found her long ago."
"My God!" cried Helen; but checked the scream that sought to follow
the cry.
"There was an old shaft near," he went on, hurriedly. "If I had
thrown her down that, they would never have found her, for there
must be choke-damp at the bottom of it enough to kill a thousand of
them. But I could not bear the thought of sending the lovely thing
down there--even to save my life."
He was growing wild again; but the horror had again laid hold upon
Helen, and she stood speechless, staring at him.
"Hide me--hide me, Helen!" he pleaded. "Perhaps you think I am mad.
Would to God I were! Sometimes I think I must be. But this I tell
you is no madman's fancy. If you take it for that, you will bring me
to the gallows. So, if you will see me hanged,----"
He sat down and folded his arms.
"Hush! Poldie, hush!" cried Helen, in an agonized whisper. "I am
only thinking what I can best do. I cannot hide you here, for if my
aunt knew, she would betray you by her terrors; and if she did not
know, and those men came, she would help them to search every corner
of the house. Otherwise there might be a chance."
Again she was silent for a few moments; then, seeming suddenly to
have made up her mind, went softly to the door.
"Don't leave me!" cried Leopold.
"Hush! I must. I know now what to do. Be quiet here until I come
back."
Slowly, cautiously, she unlocked it, and left the room. In three or
four minutes she returned, carrying a loaf of bread and a bottle of
wine. To her dismay Leopold had vanished. Presently he came creeping
out from under the bed, looking so abject that Helen could not help
a pang of shame. But the next moment the love of the sister, the
tender compassion of the woman, returned in full tide, and swallowed
up the unsightly thing. The more abject he was, the more was he to
be pitied and ministered to.
"Here, Poldie," she said, "you carry the bread, and I will take the
wine. You must eat something, or you will be ill."
As she spoke she locked the door again. Then she put a dark shawl
over her head, and fastened it under her chin. Her white face shone
out from it like the moon from a dark cloud.
"Follow me, Poldie," she said, and putting out the candles, went to
the window.
He obeyed without question, carrying the loaf she had put into his
hands. The window-sash rested on a little door; she opened it, and
stepped on the balcony. As soon as her brother had followed her, she
closed it again, drew down the sash, and led the way to the garden,
and so, by the door in the sunk fence, out upon the meadows.