SISTERHOOD.
"Well, Poldie, after all I would rather be you than she!" cried
Helen indignantly, when she had learned the whole story.
It was far from the wisest thing to say, but she meant it, and
clasped her brother to her bosom.
Straightway the poor fellow began to search for all that man could
utter in excuse, nay in justification, not of himself, but of the
woman he had murdered, appropriating all the blame. But Helen had
recognised in Emmeline the selfishness which is the essential
murderer, nor did it render her more lenient towards her that the
same moment, with a start of horror, she caught a transient glimpse
of the same in herself. But the discovery wrought in the other
direction, and the tenderness she now lavished upon Leopold left all
his hopes far behind. Her brother's sin had broken wide the
feebly-flowing springs of her conscience, and she saw that in
idleness and ease and drowsiness of soul, she had been forgetting
and neglecting even the being she loved best in the universe. In the
rushing confluence of love, truth, and indignation, to atone for
years of half-love, half-indifference, as the past now appeared to
her, she would have spoiled him terribly, heaping on him caresses
and assurances that he was far the less guilty and the more injured
of the two; but Leopold's strength was exhausted, and he fell back
in a faint.
While she was occupied with his restoration many things passed
through her mind. Amongst the rest she saw it would be impossible
for her to look after him sufficiently where he was, that the
difficulty of feeding him even would be great, that very likely he
was on the borders of an illness, when he would require constant
attention, that the danger of discovery was great--in short, that
some better measures must be taken for his protection and the
possibility of her ministrations. If she had but a friend to
consult! Ever that thought returned. Alas! she had none on whose
counsel or discretion either she could depend. When at length he
opened his eyes, she told him she must leave him now, but when it
was dark she would come again, and stay with him till dawn. Feebly
he assented, seeming but half aware of what she said, and again
closed his eyes. While he lay thus, she gained possession of his
knife. It left its sheath behind it, and she put it naked in her
pocket. As she went from the room, feeling like a mother abandoning
her child in a wolf-haunted forest, his eyes followed her to the
door with a longing, wild, hungry look, and she felt the look
following her still through the wood and across the park and into
her chamber, while the knife in her pocket felt like a spellbound
demon waiting his chance to work them both a mischief. She locked
her door and took it out, and as she put it carefully away, fearful
lest any attempt to destroy it might lead to its discovery, she
caught sight of her brother's name engraved in full upon the silver
mounting of the handle. "What if he had left it behind him!" she
thought with a shudder.
But a reassuring strength had risen in her mind with Leopold's
disclosure. More than once on her way home she caught herself
reasoning that the poor boy had not been to blame at all--that he
could not help it--that she had deserved nothing less. Her
conscience speedily told her that in consenting to such a thought,
she herself would be a murderess. Love her brother she must; excuse
him she might, for honest excuse is only justice; but to uphold the
deed would be to take the part of hell against heaven. Still the
murder did not, would not seem so frightful after she had heard the
whole tale, and she found it now required far less effort to face
her aunt. If she was not the protectress of the innocent, she was of
the grievously wronged, and the worst wrong done him was the crime
he had been driven to do. She lay down and slept until dinner time,
woke refreshed, and sustained her part during the slow meal,
neartened by the expectation of seeing her brother again and in
circumstance of less anxiety when the friendly darkness had come,
and all eyes but theirs were closed. She talked to her aunt and a
lady who dined with them as if she had the freest heart in the
world; the time passed; the converse waned; the hour arrived; adieus
were said; drowsiness came. All the world of Glaston was asleep; the
night on her nest was brooding upon the egg of to-morrow; the moon
was in darkness; and the wind was blowing upon Helen's hot forehead,
as she slid like a thief across the park.
Her mind was in a tumult of mingled feelings, all gathered about the
form of her precious brother. One moment she felt herself
ministering to the father she had loved so dearly, in protecting his
son; the next the thought of her father had vanished, and all was
love for the boy whose memories filled the shadow of her childhood;
about whom she had dreamed night after night as he crossed the great
sea to come to her; who had crept into her arms timidly, and
straightway turned into the daintiest merriest playmate; who had
charmed her even in his hot-blooded rages, when he rushed at her
with whatever was in his hand at the moment. Then she had laughed
and dared him; now she shuddered to remember. Again, and this was
the feeling that generally prevailed, she was a vessel overflowing
with the mere woman-passion of protection: the wronged, abused,
maddened, oppressed, hunted human thing was dependent upon her, and
her alone, for any help or safety he was ever to find. Sometimes it
was the love of a mother for her sick child; sometimes that of a
tigress crouching over her wounded cub and licking its hurts. All
was coloured with admiration of his beauty and grace, and mingled
with boundless pity for their sad overclouding and defeature! Nor
was the sense of wrong to herself in wrong to her own flesh and
blood wanting. The sum of all was a passionate devotion of her being
to the service of her brother.
I suspect that at root the loves of the noble wife, the great-souled
mother, and the true sister, are one. Anyhow, they are all but
glints on the ruffled waters of humanity of the one changeless
enduring Light.