Mrs. Oliphant

“ Amy married him in her sorrow, and the little sisters thus gained a new home. "As for me, it does not matter," said Charlie. He wanted to go away to the end of the world, anywhere, only to forget and be forgotten. His heart he thought was broken; his head he could never hold up again—so he believed; but he had the broken remnants of his mother's property to gather together, and he was but twenty: his old friends stood by him warmly, and Rex Bayard was his brother. So by degrees he reconciled himself to the bitterness of his fate. ”

“ Scudamore, lifting up her eyes, saw a shadow behind him; then, dumb with horror, she had seen Charlie appear at the window. He stood still, and she in her misery could not move. She could not cry out. She stood and gazed wildly at him, paralyzed by boundless and hopeless despair.
"You have been listening, have you?" said Tom Furness with a sharp laugh. "Well, you've been wondering what attraction I had. Now you know." ”

“ It was as fate that the sentence was pronounced. Rex was sent away, never to return. It was impossible, impossible! Mrs. Scudamore said—neither now nor ever could he be allowed to come back. Amy had been kneeling, anxious and unhappy, by her mother's side. At this she sank down softly in her despair—which yet was more consternation than despair—and she, too, with her white lips, with her eyes hollowed out, and shining as from two white caves, demanded why?
"I cannot tell you why," her mother answered. "Amy, listen to me. That has come to you which comes to few people in this world. ”

“ Scudamore. "How dare you stand and threaten me at the open window? How can you tell who may hear you? And do you know that if you are overheard, if this slander is once spoken in anybody's ears but mine, you lose all your power?"
He turned his back to the window with a careless laugh. "Not much fear of any one hearing," he said. "We are not such agreeable society that people should follow us about to listen. But just look here; you know what will happen if I choose to speak. You know you have no more right to be mistress here than your housekeeper has. ”

“ Scudamore. "Oh, if I were but mad! Amy, there is only one that can do it—you can save us all from disgrace and ruin—his living to Charlie, my honor to me, an honest name to yourself and the rest. Without you we are outcasts—nameless, homeless. Amy, nothing we have is ours, unless you will buy them back. Amy, everything rests with you."
"Nameless! homeless! our honor! all we have! Oh, what do you mean? what do you mean?" said Amy. "Mother, if I am to do this, I ought to know at least." ”

“ Charlie, for his part, had been absorbed in his college life, and had thought little of home. He had received an indignant, amazed letter from Rex Bayard, which half astonished, half annoyed him. In it Rex informed him that he had been accepted by Amy, but sent away by her mother. "You must be dreaming or she must be out of her mind," Charlie had written back cheerfully, in return; "but never mind, old fellow, have patience only till I get home again." ”

“ She would be happy in heaven when the end came, and would have done her duty—and that end could not be far off.
Perhaps Amy was not entirely miserable in these thoughts. To die young, when your life has been cut short as hers had been, is not terrible—it is rather sweet to the imagination. ”

“ Let us take money and go away, and leave them at peace. She'll give money—enough to set you up—enough to make you comfortable; oh, Tom, if I was less good to you in my life——"
"Auntie, you're a fool," he said again, sharply. "Go to bed. Leave them in peace! a likely thing! Take money! Oh, yes, I'll take money and more than money. She knows what I will take. Auntie, hold your tongue and go to bed."
That was the end of one appeal. Another was being made in Mrs. Scudamore's room, with the door locked, and Amy at her mother's knee listening to her fate. ”

“ Scudamore, driven to her last resources, had promised her final decision in the afternoon. She was in the library, and her persecutor came in and joined her through the window, which was open. It was one of those mild, warm, languid days which sometimes come in the middle of winter, which people call unseasonable, yet enjoy. There was an enormous fire, as usual, in the library, and the window had been opened in consequence. Tom Furness came in by it, with his hands in his pockets and his hat on his head. ”

“ If my dying would have saved her, I think I would have killed myself; but it wouldn't, for Tom Furness knew. Oh, you poor dear, you are nearly dead of it. Give me leave to speak before it kills you."
There were other people in the room beside. Amy, who came to her mother like a ghost and put her wan arms round her—Amy, who was dying of it too, but without knowing what it was. Mrs. Scudamore turned her white face toward the little assembly, whom she saw but vaguely through the mist that was gathering over her brain. Her lips moved, but no sound came from them. ”

“ Who was talking of being happy?" he replied.
"I have not," she said, simply. "Do you think it is nice for me to be here, an interloper, poisoning the very air that poor woman breathes?"
"Then why the deuce do you do it?" cried the man. "It's your own fault. Turn them out and be done with it. You can if you like." ”

“ CHAPTER VIII. Things went on badly enough at Scudamore that autumn. Amy had consented, as her mother knew she would. And Mr. Tom Furness became a constant guest. It was an arrangement over which Mrs. Thomas shook her head, and against which she had protested in vain to both the mother and the lover. He and she were both steadfast. Mrs. Scudamore was almost more feverishly anxious than he to conclude the matter. But Charlie had not yet come home, and the whole household regarded his arrival with a vague apprehension. He would soon be twenty-one. ”