Anna Katharine Green

“ At eight o'clock I shall be dead.'
"'Poison!' I shrieked, but in so choked a tone the word sounded like a smothered whisper.
"But he was alarmed by it for all that.
"'Do not tell the world,' he cried. 'It is enough that you know it. Are you pleased that you have driven your father to self-destruction? Will it make your life in this house, in which you have vowed to remain, any happier? I told you that your sin should be on your head; and it will be. For, listen to me: now in this last dreadful hour, I command you, heartless and disobedient one, to keep that vow. ”

“ Catching Frank by the arm, he whispered:
"Can they be trusted? Are they honest men? She had greenbacks, piles of greenbacks; I have caught her counting them. If they find them, will they save them all for me?"
"They will save them all for the heir," retorted Frank, severely. "Why do you say they are for you, when you know you will only get them in default of other heirs being found."
"Why? why? Because I feel that they are mine. Heirs or no heirs, they will come into my grasp yet, and you of the law cannot help it. Do I look like a man who will die poor? ”

“ She had held a long talk with Frank, but he had not touched upon a certain vital question, perhaps because he felt she had not yet the strength to argue it. He was her lover and anticipated marrying her, but he had not said whether he expected her to disobey her father and leave her home. She felt that he must expect this; she also felt that he had the right to do so; but when she thought of yielding to his wishes, the old horror returned to her, and a suffocating feeling of fear, as if it would never be allowed. The dead have such a hold upon us. ”

“ And if in her nature there lies a fault also, is not a man's first love potent enough to overlook even that? He begins to think so, and allows his glances to roam from window to window of the nearly darkened house, as if half expecting her sweet and melancholy head to look forth in quest of the stars—or him.
The living rooms are mainly on the side that overlooks the garden, and scarcely understanding by what impulse he is swayed, he passes around the wall to a second gate, which he perceives opening at right angles to the poplar walk. ”

“ She looks as if she had never known anything but the pleasures of life."
"On the contrary," returned Hermione, "she has never known much but its disappointments. But they have left no trace on her face, or in her nature, I think. She is an embodiment of trust, and in the great silence there is about her, she hears sounds and sees visions which are denied to others. But when did you come to Marston?"
He told her he had just arrived, and, satisfied with the slight look of confusion which mantled her face at this acknowledgment, launched into talk all tending to one end, his love for her. ”

“ My father's hate reaches higher than my prayers. There is no escape; no love, no light. Solitude is before me; solitude forever. Believing this, I cannot live; indeed I cannot!"
As if this had been the word for which he was waiting, Huckins suddenly straightened up his lean figure and began himself to talk, not as she did, in wild and passionate tones, but in low, abstracted murmurs, as if he were too intent upon a certain discovery he had made to know or care whether there was or was not any one present to overhear his words. ”

“ I see! I see! Forgive me, Edgar; passion is so blind to everything but its own object. Of course it is Emma; why shouldn't it be!"
Yet for all its assurance his voice had strange tones in it, and Edgar, already annoyed at his own self-betrayal, looked at him suspiciously as they drew away together towards the main street.
"I am glad to find this out," said Frank, with a hilarity slightly forced, or so thought his friend, who could not know what thoughts and hopes this discovery had awakened in the other's breast. ”

“ Would that anguish of the beloved one arouse her? Dr. Sellick and Emma drew near together in their anxiety and watched. Suddenly a murmur escaped from the former, and he bent rapidly forward. The close-locked lips were parting, parting so slowly, so imperceptibly, that only a physician's eye could see it. Waiting till they were opened enough to show the pearly teeth, he stooped and whispered in Frank's ear. Instantly the almost overwhelmed lover, roused, saw this evidence of existing life, and in his frenzied relief imprinted one wild kiss upon the hand he held. ”

“ I pity you, Hermione. It is hard to disappoint a father in his dearest hopes.'
"I stared at her in sudden fury.
"'Is that what you are thinking of?' I demanded, with reckless impetuosity. 'After all the cruel disappointment he has inflicted upon me——'
"But Emma had slipped from the room. She had no words now with which to meet my gusts of temper.
"A visit from my father came next. Though strong in my resolve not to be shaken, I secretly quaked at the cold, cruel determination in his face. A man after all is so much more unrelenting than a woman. ”

“ Edgar, weary, perhaps, of the conversation, did not answer.
"Why should she shut herself up?" mused Frank, too interested in the subject to note the other's silence.
"Women are mysteries," quoth Edgar, shortly.
"But this is more than a mystery," cried Frank. "Whim will not account for it. There must be something in the history of these two girls which the world does not know."
"That is not the fault of the world," retorted Edgar, in his usual vein of sarcasm. ”

“ The scar which disfigured me in other eyes had been, as I thought, no detriment in his. He loved me, and saw nothing in me but what was consistent with that love. And now I heard him with my own ears speak contemptuously of that scar. All that I had hoped, all that I had confided in, was gone from me in an instant, and I felt myself toppling into a misery I could neither contemplate nor fathom. For an hour I walked the paths of that small wood, communing with myself; then I took my resolve. Life, which had brought me nothing but pain and humiliation, was not worth living. ”

“ The Doctor, not hearing him, shouted out: "The antidote! the antidote! Why does not Frank come!"
At that instant Frank was heard below: "Am I in time?" he gasped. "Here it is; I ran all the way"; and he came rushing up the stairs just as Huckins slipped from the step where he was and fell against him.
"Oh," whimpered that old hypocrite, "I beg your pardon; I am so agitated!" But his agitation seemed to spring mainly from the fact that the antidote Frank brought was in powder and not in a bottle, which might have been broken in their encounter. ”

“ At first sight of the young lawyer Huckins flushed deeply, but he soon grew pale and obsequious, as if he had held bitter communing with himself through the last thirty-six hours, and had resolved to restrain his temper for the future in the presence of the man who understood him. But he could not help a covert sneer from creeping into his voice.
"Have you found the heirs?" he asked, bowing with ill-mannered grace, and pushing forward the only chair there was in the room.
"I shall find them when I need them," rejoined Frank. "Fortunes, however small, do not usually go begging." ”

“ Alarmed more by the woman's manner than her words, Dr. Sellick hurried forward and entered the open laboratory door almost without realizing that in another instant he would be in the presence of Emma. And when he did see her, and met the eyes he had not looked into since that night a year before when she listened to his vows with such a sweet and bashful timidity, he hardly felt the shock of the change observable in her, for the greater shock her sister's appearance inspired. ”

“ She seemed to understand him.
"Free Hermione," she whispered, "from the shackles she has wound about herself and you will free me."
"Miss Emma," he began, but she put her finger on her lips.
"Hush!" she entreated; "let us not talk any more about it. I have already said what I never meant should pass my lips; but the affection I bear my sister made me forget myself; she does so need to love and be loved." ”

“ When Edgar closed the front door of the Cavanagh mansion behind himself and Emma, the noise he made was slight, and yet it was heard by ears that were listening for it in the remote recesses of the kitchen.
"The gentlemen are gone," decided Doris, without any hesitation. "They could not move Miss Hermione from her resolves, and I did not think they could. Nothing can move her but fire, and fire there shall be, and that to-night." ”

“ Seeing my unmoved look she burst into sobs, then she cried suddenly:
"'I see I must prepare to die too. But not to-day, Hermione. Wait a month, just one month, and then if you choose to rush upon your fate, I will not seek to deter you, I will simply share it; but not to-day, not in this rush of maddened feeling. Life holds too much,—may yet give you too much, for any such reckless disregard of its prospects. ”

“ It was soon over, and Frank turned to kiss his wife; but just as Emma advanced with her congratulations, the front door burst open and a neighbor's voice was heard to cry in great excitement:
"The Cavanagh house is burning, and we are all afraid that the girls have perished in the flames."
It was Emma who gave the one shriek that responded to these words. Hermione seemed like one frozen. Edgar, dashing to the door, looked out, and came slowly back.
"Yes, it is burning," said he. "Emma will have to go with you to New York." ”

“ Will you not live for me? I have been careless, I know, happy in my own hopes and pleasures, and thinking too little, oh, much too little, of the possible griefs or disappointments of my only sister. But this shall be changed; I promise you shall all be changed. I will live for you henceforth; we will breathe, work, suffer, enjoy together. No sister shall be tenderer, no lover more devoted than I will be to you. If you do not marry, then will not I. No pleasure that is denied you shall be accepted by me. ”

“ The clock was striking ten when Frank's impatience was rewarded by the first glimpse of his bride. She came into the room with Emma and Mrs. Lothrop, and her beauty, heightened by her feelings to the utmost, was such as to fill him with triumph and delight.
To Edgar it was a revelation, for always before, he had seen the scar before he did her; but now he was compelled to see her first, for the scar was hidden under fold upon fold of lace.
[334] "No wonder Frank is daft over her," thought he, "if she always looks like this to him." ”

“ Emma, less filled with some dark memory, or more swayed by her anxiety to fathom his purposes, and read the secret of an intrusion which as yet was nothing but a troublous mystery to her, had entered the room with him, [176] and stood quietly watching his erratic movements, as if she half expected him to abstract something from the hoard of old chemicals or collection of formulas above which he hung with such a pretence of rapture.
"How good! how fine! how interesting!" broke in shrill ejaculation from his lips as he ambled hither and thither. ”

“ Meantime in the old house Hermione sat watching Emma as she combed out her long hair before the tiny mirror in their bedroom. Her face, relieved now from all effort at self-control, betrayed a deep discouragement, which deepened its tragic lines and seemed to fill the room with gloom. Yet she said nothing till Emma had finished her task and looked around, then she exclaimed:
"Another curse has fallen upon us; we might have been rich, but must remain poor. Do you think we can bear many more disappointments, Emma?" ”

“ Etheridge, I have told you all my story. If it strikes you with dismay and you shrink in your noble manhood from a woman whom, rightfully or wrongfully, is burdened with the weight of a father's death, do not try to overcome that shrinking or defy that dismay. We could never be happy if you did. Nothing but whole-souled love will satisfy me or help me to forget the shadows that bear so heavily upon my head. ”

“ She turned, she twisted, she tortured her hands in her endeavor to keep down the evidences of her desire and her anxiety.
"If—if this house should be blown down in a storm or—or a fire should consume it as you say, they would have to go elsewhere, have to marry these young men, have to be happy in spite of themselves."
"But what cyclones ever come here?" he asked, with his mockery of a smile. "Or where could a fire spring from in a house guarded by a Doris?"
She was trembling so she could not answer. "Come out here again at six o'clock," said she; "they will miss me if I stay too long now. ”

“ Old age and misery are not fit companions for youth and hope, are they, Mr. Etheridge?"
"I have already intimated what I thought about that."
"So you have, so you have. You are such a lawyer, Mr. Etheridge, such an admirable lawyer!"
Frank, disgusted, attempted to walk on, but Huckins followed close after him.
"You do not like me," he said. "You think because I was violent once that I envy these sweet girls their rights. But you don't know me, Mr. Etheridge; you don't know my good heart. ”

“ Yet as the eye lingered on her touching face, with its unmistakable lines of sadness, the slow assurance gained upon [93] the mind that beneath her quiet smile and gentle self-contained air lay the same force of will which spoke at once in the firm lip and steady gaze of the older woman. But her will was beneficent, and her character noble, while Hermione bore the evidences of being under a cloud, whose shadow was darkened by something less easily understood than sorrow. ”

“ My father might brood over his books, and bend his back over the retort and crucible; my sister might laugh and attract the liking of a crowd of foolish heads, but I would be the Sevigny, the Rambouillet of my time, and by the eloquence of my conversation and the grace of my manner win for myself that superiority among women which nature had designed for me, but of which cruel fate had robbed me, even before I knew its worth. ”

“ There is purity there, Hermione, and a deep sadness which is too near like sorrow to be the result of an evil action."
"What do you call evil?" she cried. Then suddenly, "I once did a great wrong—in a fit of temper—and I can never undo it, never, yet its consequences are lasting. Would you give your heart to a woman who could so forget herself, and who is capable of forgetting herself again if her passions are roused as they were then?" ”

“ Edgar did not follow his example but sat unmoved, looking fixedly at the last narrow strip of orange light that separated night from day on the distant horizon.
"I feel as if I had come upon something uncanny," murmured Frank. "Look at that double row of poplars stretching away almost as far as we can see? Is it not an ideal Ghost's Walk, especially in this hour of falling shadows. I never saw anything so suggestive in a country landscape before. Each tree looks like a spectre hob-nobbing with its neighbor. Tell me that this is a haunted house which guards this avenue. ”

“ And with a gasp that showed what this moment was to her, she flew from the room, just as Doris' step was heard in the hall on her way to the front door.
"Where is your sister?" were the first words uttered by Frank, as he came into the room.
"Upstairs," answered Emma. "She does not feel as if she can see you again till everything is clear between you. The letter she promised is written, and you shall have it to-night. Then if you wish to come again——" her smile completed the sentence. ”