Kitabı oku: «The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. 2», sayfa 19
CHAPTER XXIV. THE DOCTOR’S LAST DEVICE
“Tell Mister Bob – Mr. O’Reilly I mean – to come to me,” were the first words of old Dr. Hickman, as he awoke on the following morning.
“Well, sir, how have you slept?” said his son, approaching the bedside, and taking a chair; “have you rested well?”
“Middling, – only middling, Bob. The place is like a vault, and the rats have it all their own way. They were capering about the whole night, and made such a noise trying to steal off with one of my shoes.” “Did they venture that far?”
“Ay, did they! but I couldn’t let it go with them. I know you ‘re in a hurry to stand in them yourself, Bob, and leave me and the rats to settle it between us – ay!” “Really, sir, these are jests – ”
“Too like earnest to be funny, Bob; so I feel them myself. Ugh! ugh! The damp of this place is freezing the very heart’s blood of me. How is Nalty this morning?” “Like a fellow taken off a wreck, sir, after a week’s starvation. He is sitting at the fire there, with two blankets round him, and vows to heaven, every five minutes, that if he was once back in Old Dominick Street, a thousand guineas would n’t tempt him to such another expedition.”
The old doctor laughed till it made him cough, and when the fit was over, laughed again, wiping his weeping eyes, and chuckling in the most unearthly glee at the lawyer’s discomfiture.
“Wrapped up in blankets, eh, Bob?” said he, that he might hear further of his fellow-traveller’s misery.
O’Reilly saw that he had touched the right key, and expatiated for some minutes upon Nalty’s sufferings, throwing out, from time to time, adroit hints that only certain strong and hale constitutions could endure privations like these. “Now, you, sir,” continued he, “you look as much yourself as ever; in fact, I half doubt how you are to play the sick man, with all these signs of rude health about you.”
“Leave that to me, Bob; I think I’ve seen enough of them things to know them now. When I ‘ve carried my point, and all’s safe and secure, you ‘ll see me like the pope we read of, that looked all but dead till they elected him, and then stood up stout and hearty five minutes after, – we ‘ll have a miracle of this kind in our own family.”
“I suspect, sir, we shall have difficulty in obtaining an interview,” said O’Reilly.
“No!” rejoined the old man, with a scarcely perceptible twinkle of his fishy eyes.
“Nalty ‘s of my opinion, and thinks that Lady Eleanor will positively decline it.”
“No,” echoed he once more.
“And that, without any suspicion of our plan, she will yet refuse to receive you.”
“I ‘m not going to ask her, Bob,” croaked the old doctor, with a species of chuckling crow in his voice.
“Then you have abandoned your intention,” exclaimed O’Reilly, in dismay, “and the whole journey has been incurred for nothing.”
“No!” said the doctor, whose grim old features were lit up with a most spiteful sense of his superior cunning.
“Then I don’t understand you, – that’s clear,” exclaimed O’Reilly, testily. “You say that you do not intend to call upon her – ”
“Because she’s coming here to see me,” cried the old man, in a scream of triumph; “read that, it’s an answer to a note I sent off at eight o’clock. Joe waited and brought back this reply.” As he spoke, he drew from beneath his pillow a small note, and handed it to his son. O’Reilly opened it with impatience, and read: —
“Lady Eleanor Darcy begs to acknowledge the receipt of Dr. Hickman’s note, and, while greatly indisposed to accept of an interview which must be so painful to both parties without any reasonable prospect of rendering service to either, feels reluctant to refuse a request made under circumstances so trying. She will therefore comply with Dr. Hickman’s entreaty, and, to spare him the necessity of venturing abroad in this severe weather, will call upon him at twelve o’clock, should she not learn in the meanwhile that the hour is inconvenient.”
“Lady Eleanor Darcy come out to call upon you, sir!” said O’Reilly, with an amazement in part simulated to flatter the old man’s skill, but far more really experienced. “This is indeed success.”
“Ay, you may well say so,” chimed in the old man; “for besides that I always look ten years older when I ‘m in bed and unshaved, with my nightcap a little off, – this way, – the very sight of these miserable walls, green with damp and mould, this broken window, and the poverty-struck furniture, will all help, and I can get up a cough, if I only draw a long breath.”
“I vow, sir, you beat us all; we are mere children compared to you. This is a master-stroke of policy.”
“What will Nalty say now – eh, Bob?”
“Say, sir? What can any one say, but that the move showed a master’s hand, as much above our skill to accomplish as it was beyond our wit to conceive? I should like greatly to hear how you intend to play the game out,” said O’Reilly, throwing a most flattering expression of mingled curiosity and astonishment into his features.
“Wait till I see what trumps the adversary has in hand, Bob; time enough to determine the lead when the cards are dealt.”
“I suppose I must keep out of sight, and perhaps Nalty also.”
“Nalty ought to be in the house if we want him; as my medical friend, he could assist to draw any little memorandum we might determine upon; a mere note, Bob, between friends, not requiring the interference of lawyers, eh?” There was something fiendish in the low laugh which accompanied these words. “What brings that fellow into the room so often, putting turf on, and looking if the windows are fast? I don’t like him, Bob.” This was said in reference to a little chubby man, in a waiter’s jacket, who really had taken every imaginable professional privilege to obtrude his presence.
“There, there, that will do,” said O’Reilly, harshly; “you needn’t come till we ring the bell.”
“Leave the turf-basket where it is. Don’t you think we can mind the fire for ourselves?”
“Let Joe wait, that will be better, sir,” whispered O’Reilly; “we cannot be too cautious here.” And with a motion of the hand he dismissed the waiter, who, true to his order, seemed never to hear “an aside.”
“Leave me by myself, Bob, for half an hour; I ‘d like to collect my thoughts, – to settle and think over this meeting. It’s past eleven now, and she said twelve o’clock in the note.”
“Well, I ‘ll take a stroll over the hills, and be back for dinner about three; you’ll be up by that time.”
“That will I, and very hungry too,” muttered the old man. “This dying scene has cost me the loss of my breakfast; and, faith, I ‘m so weak and low, my head is quite dizzy. There ‘s an old saying, Mocking is catching; and sure enough there may be some truth in it too.”
O’Reilly affected not to hear the remark, and moved towards the door, when he turned about and said, —
“I should say, sir, that the wisest course would be to avoid anything like coercion, or the slightest approach to it. The more the appeal is made to her feelings of compassion and pity – ”
“For great age and bodily infirmity,” croaked the old man, while the filmy orbs shot forth a flash of malicious intelligence.
“Just so, sir. To others’ eyes you do indeed seem weak and bowed down with years. It is only they who have opportunity to recognize the clearness of your intellect and the correctness of your judgment can see how little inroad time has made.”
“Ay, but it has, though,” interposed the old man, irritably. “My hand shakes more than it used to do; there ‘s many an operation I ‘d not be able for as I once was.”
“Well, well, sir,” said his son, who found it difficult to repress the annoyance he suffered from his continual reference to the old craft; “remember that you are not called upon now to perform these things.”
“Sorry I am it is so,” rejoined the other. “I gave up seven hundred a year when I left Loughrea to turn gentleman with you at Gwynne Abbey; and faith, the new trade isn’t so profitable as the old one! So it is,” muttered he to himself; “and now there ‘s a set of young chaps come into the town, with their medical halls, and great bottles of pink and blue water in the windows! What chance would I have to go back again?”
O’Reilly heard these half-uttered regrets in silence; he well knew that the safest course was to let the feeble brain exhaust its scanty memories without impediment. At length, when the old doctor seemed to have wearied of the theme, he said, —
“If she make allusion to the Dalys, sir, take care not to confess our mistake about that cabin they called ‘The Corvy,’ and which you remember we discovered that Daly had settled upon his servant. Let Lady Eleanor suppose that we withdrew proceedings out of respect to her.”
“I know, I know,” said the old man, querulously, for his vanity was wounded by these reiterated instructions.
“It is possible, too, sir, she ‘d stand upon the question of rank; if so, say that Heffernan – no, say that Lord Castlereagh will advise the king to confer the baronetcy on the marriage – don’t forget that, sir – on the marriage.”
“Indeed, then, I’ll say nothing about it,” said he, with an energy almost startling. “It’s that weary baronetcy cost me the loan to Heffernan on his own bare bond; I ‘m well sick of it! Seven thousand pounds at five and a half per cent, and no security!”
“I only thought, sir, it might be introduced incidentally,” said O’Reilly, endeavoring to calm down this unexpected burst of irritation.
“I tell you I won’t. If I’m bothered anymore about that same baronetcy, I ‘ll make a clause in my will against my heir accepting it How bad you are for the coronet with the two balls; faix, I remember when the family arms had three of them; ay, and we sported them over the door, too. Eh, Bob, shall I tell her that?”
“I don’t suppose it would serve our cause much, sir,” said O’Reilly, repressing with difficulty his swelling anger. Then, after a moment, he added, “I could never think of obtruding any advice of mine, sir, but that I half feared you might, in the course of the interview, forget many minor circumstances, not to speak of the danger that your natural kindliness might expose you to in any compact with a very artful woman of the world.”
“Don’t be afraid of that anyhow, Bob,” said he, with a most hideous grin. “I keep a watchful eye over my natural kindliness, and, to say truth, it has done me mighty little mischief up to this. There, now, leave me quiet and to myself.”
When the old man was left alone, his head fell slightly forward, and his hands, clasped together, rested on his breast. His eyes, half closed and downcast, and his scarcely heaving chest, seemed barely to denote life, or at most that species of life in which the senses are steeped in apathy. The grim, hard features, stiffened by years and a stern nature, never moved; the thin, close-drawn lips never once opened; and to any observer the figure might have seemed a lifeless counterfeit of old age. And yet within that brain, fast yielding to time and infirmity, where reason came and went like the flame of some flickering taper, and where memory brought up objects of dreamy fancy as often as bygone events, even there plot and intrigue held their ground, and all the machinery of deception was at work, suggesting, contriving, and devising wiles that in their complexity were too puzzling for the faculties that originated them. Is there a Nemesis in this, and do the passions by which we have swayed and controlled others rise up before us in our weak hours, and become the tyrants of our terror-stricken hearts?
It is not our task, were it even in our power, to trace the strange commingled web of reality and fiction that composed the old man’s thoughts. At one time he believed he was supplicating the Knight to accord him some slight favor, as he had done more than once successfully. Then he suddenly remembered their relative stations, so strangely reversed; the colossal fortune he had himself accumulated; the hopes and ambitions of his son and grandson, whose only impediments to rank and favor lay in himself, the humble origin of all this wealth. How strange and novel did the conviction strike him that all the benefit of his vast riches lay in the pleasure of their accumulation, that for him fortune had no seductions to offer! Rank, power, munificence, what were they? He never cared for them.
No; it was the game he loved even more than the stake, that tortuous course of policy by which he had outwitted this man and doubled on that. The schemes skilfully conducted, the plots artfully accomplished, – these he loved to think over; and while he grieved to reflect upon the reckless waste he witnessed in the household of his sou, he felt a secret thrill of delight that he, and he alone, was capable of those rare devices and bold expedients by which such a fortune could be amassed. Once and only once did any expression of his features sympathize with these ponderings; and then a low, harsh laugh broke suddenly from him, so fleeting that it failed to arouse even himself. It came from the thought that if after his death his son or grandson would endeavor to forget his memory, and have it forgotten by others, that every effort of display, every new evidence of their gorgeous wealth, would as certainly evoke the criticism of the envious world, who, in spite of them, would bring up the “old doctor” once more, and, by the narrative of his life, humble them to the dust.
This desire to bring down to a level with himself those around him had been the passion of his existence. For this he had toiled and labored, and struggled through imaginary poverty when possessed of wealth; had endured scoffs and taunts, – had borne everything, – and to this desire could be traced his whole feeling towards the Darcys. It was no happiness to him to be the owner of their princely estate if he did not revel in the reflection that they were in poverty. And this envious feeling he extended to his very son. If now and then a vague thought of the object of his present journey crossed his mind, it was speedily forgotten in the all-absorbing delight of seeing the proud Lady Eleanor humbled before him, and the inevitable affliction the Knight would experience when he learned the success of this last device. That it would succeed he had little doubt; he had come too well prepared with arguments to dread failure. Nay, he thought, he believed he could compel compliance if such were to be needed.
It was in the very midst of these strangely confused musings that the doctor’s servant announced to him the arrival of Lady Eleanor Darey. The old man looked around him on the miserable furniture, the damp, discolored walls, the patched and mended window-panes, and for a moment he could not imagine where he was; the repetition of the servant’s announcement, however, cleared away the cloud from his faculties, and with a slight gesture of his hand he made a sign that she should be admitted. A momentary pause ensued, and he could hear his servant expressing a hope that her Ladyship might not catch cold, as the snow-drift was falling heavily, and the storm very severe. A delay of a few minutes was caused to remove her wet cloak. What a whole story did these two or three seconds reveal to old Hickman as he thought of that Lady Eleanor Darey of whose fastidious elegance the whole “West” was full, whose expensive habits and luxurious tastes had invested her with something like an Oriental reputation for magnificence, – of her coming on foot and alone, through storm and snow, to wait upon him!
He listened eagerly; her footstep was on the stairs, and he heard a low sigh she gave, as, reaching the landing-place, she stood for a moment to recover breath.
“Say Lady Eleanor Darey,” said she, unaware that her coming had been already telegraphed to the sick man’s chamber.
A faint complaining cry issued from the room as she spoke, and Lady Eleanor said: “Stay! Perhaps Dr. Hickman is too ill; if so, at another time. I ‘ll come this evening or to-morrow.”
“My master is most impatient to see your Ladyship,” said the man. “He has talked of nothing else all the morning, and is always asking if it is nigh twelve o’clock.”
Lady Eleanor nodded as if to concede her permission, and the servant entered the half-darkened room. A weak, murmuring sound of voices followed; and the servant returned, saying, in a cautious whisper, “He is awake, my Lady, and wishes to see your Ladyship now.”
Lady Eleanor’s heart beat loudly and painfully; many a sharp pang shot through it, as, with a strong effort to seem calm, she entered.
CHAPTER XXV. A DARK CONSPIRACY
Dr. Hickman was so little prepared for the favorable change in Lady Eleanor’s appearance since he had last seen her, as almost to doubt that she was the same, and it was with a slight tremor of voice he said, – “Is it age with me, my Lady, or altered health, that makes the difference, but you seem to me not what I remember you? You are fresher, pardon an old man’s freedom, and I should say far handsomer too!”
“Really, Mr. Hickman, you make me think my excursion well repaid by such flatteries,” said she, smiling pleasantly, and not sorry thus for a moment to say something that might relieve the awkward solemnity of the scene. “I hope sir, that this air, severe though it be, may prove as serviceable to yourself. Have you slept well?”
“No, my Lady, I scarcely dozed the whole night; this place is a very poor one. The rain comes in there, – where you see that green mark, – and the wind whistles through these broken panes, – and rats, bother them! they never ceased the night through. A poor, poor spot it is, sure enough!”
It never chanced to cross his mind, while bewailing these signs of indigence and discomfort, that she, to whom he addressed the complaint, had been reduced to as bad, even worse, hardships by his own contrivance. Perhaps, indeed, the memory of such had not occurred at that moment to Lady Eleanor, had not the persistence with which he dwelt on the theme somewhat ruffled her patience, and eventually reminded her of her own changed lot. It was then with a slightly irritated tone she remarked, —
“Such accommodation is a very unpleasant contrast to the comforts you are accustomed to, sir; and these sudden lessons in adversity are, now and then, very trying things.”
“What does it signify?” sighed the old man, heavily; “a day sooner, a few hours less of sunshine, and the world can make little difference to one like me! Happy for me, if, in confronting them, I have done anything towards my great purpose, the only object between me and the grave!”
Lady Eleanor never broke the silence which followed these words; and though the old man looked as if he expected some observation or rejoinder, she said not a word. At length he resumed, with a faint moan, – “Ah, my Lady, you have much to forgive us for.”
“I trust, sir, that our humble fortunes have not taught us to forget the duties of Christianity,” was the calm reply.
“Much, indeed, to pardon,” continued he, “but far less, my Lady, than is laid to our charge. Lawyers and attorneys make many a thing a cause of bitterness that a few words of kindness would have settled. And what two men of honest intentions could arrange amicably iu five minutes is often worked up into a tedious lawsuit, or a ruinous inquiry in Chancery. So it is!”
“I have no experience in these affairs, sir, but I conclude your remarks are quite correct.”
“Faith you may believe them, my Lady, like the Bible; and yet, knowing these fellows so well, having dealings with them since – since – oh, God knows how long – upon my life, they beat me entirely after all. ‘T is like taking a walk with a quarrelsome dog; devil a cur he sees but he sets on him, and gets you into a scrape at every step you go! That ‘s what an attorney does for you. Take out a writ against that fellow, process this one, distrain the other, get an injunction here, apply for a rule there. Oh dear! oh dear! I ‘m weary of it for law! All the bitterness it has given me in my life long, all the sorrow and affliction it costs me now.” He wiped his eyes as he concluded, and seemed as if overcome by grief.
“It must needs be a sorry source of reparation, sir,” rejoined Lady Eleanor, with a calm, steady tone, “when even those so eminently successful can see nothing but affliction in their triumphs.”
“Don’t call them triumphs, my Lady; that’s not the name to give them. I never thought them such.”
“I ‘m glad to hear it, sir, – glad to know that you have laid up such store of pleasant memories for seasons like the present.”
“There was that proceeding, for instance, in December last. Now would you believe it, my Lady, Bob and I never knew a syllable about it till it was all over. You don’t know what I ‘m speaking of; I mean the writ against the Knight.”
“Really, Dr. Hickman, I must interrupt you; however gratifying to me to hear that you stand exculpated for any ungenerous conduct towards my husband, the pleasure of knowing it is more than counterbalanced by the great pain the topic inflicts upon me.”
“But I want to clear myself, my Lady; I want you to think of us a little more favorably than late events may have disposed you.”
“There are few so humble, sir, as not to have opinions of more consequence than mine.”
“Ay, but it’s yours I want, – yours, that I ‘d rather have than the king’s on his throne. ‘T is in that hope I ‘ve come many a weary mile far away from my home, maybe never to see it again! and all that I may have your forgiveness, my Lady, and not only your forgiveness, but your approbation.”
“If you set store by any sentiments of mine, sir, I warn you not to ask more than I have iu my power to bestow. I can forgive, I have forgiven, much; but ask me not to concur in acts which have robbed me of the companionship of my husband and my son.”
“Wait a bit; don’t be too hard, my Lady; I ‘m on the verge of the grave, a little more, and the dark sleep that never breaks will be on me, and if in this troubled hour I take a wrong word, or say a thing too strong, – forgive me for it. My thoughts are often before me, on the long journey I’m so soon to go.”
“It were far better, Dr. Hickman, that we should speak of something less likely to be painful to us both, and if that cannot be, that you should rest satisfied with knowing that however many are the sources of sorrow an humble fortune has opened to us, the disposition to bear malice is not among their number.”
“You forgive me, then, my Lady, – you forgive me all?”
“If your own conscience can only do so as freely as I do, believe me, sir, your heart will be tranquil.”
The old man pressed his hands to his face, and appeared overcome by emotion. A dead silence ensued, which at length was broken by old Hickman muttering broken words to himself, at first indistinctly, and then more clearly.
“Yes, yes, – I made – the offer – I begged – I supplicated. I did all – all. But no, they refused me! There was no other way of restoring them to their own house and home – but they would n’t accept it. I would have settled the whole estate – free of debt – every charge paid off, upon them. There ‘s not a peer in the land could say he was at the head of such a property.”
“I must beg, sir, that I may be spared the unpleasantness of overhearing what I doubt is only intended for your own reflection; and if you will permit me, to take my leave – ”
“Oh, don’t go – don’t leave me yet, my Lady. What was it I said, – where was my poor brain rambling? Was I talking about Captain Darcy? Ah! that was the most painful part of all.”
“My God! what is it you mean?” said Lady Eleanor, as a sickness like fainting crept over her. “Speak, sir, – tell me this instant!”
“The bills, my Lady, – the bills that he drew in Glee-son’s name.”
“In Gleeson’s name! It is false, sir, a foul and infamous calumny; my son never did this thing, – do not dare to assert it before me, his mother.”
“They are in that pocket-book, my Lady, – seven of them for a thousand pounds each. There are two more somewhere among my papers, and it was to meet the payment that the Captain did this.” Here he took from beneath his pillow a parchment document, and held it towards Lady Eleanor, who, overwhelmed with terror and dismay, could not stretch her band to take it.
“Here – my Lady – somewhere here,” said he, moving his finger vaguely along the lower margin of the document – “here you’ll see Maurice Darcy written – not by himself, indeed, but by his son. This deed of sale includes part of Westport, and the town-lands of Cooldrennon and Shoughnakelly. Faith, and, my Lady, I paid my hard cash down on the nail for the same land, and have no better title than what you see! The Knight has only to prove the forgery; of course he could n’t do so against his own son.”
“Oh, sir, spare me, – I entreat of you to spare me!” sobbed Lady Eleanor, as, convulsed with grief, she hid her face.
A knocking was heard at this moment at the door, and on its being repeated louder, Hickman querulously demanded, “Who was there?”
“A note for Lady Eleanor Darcy,” was the reply; “her Ladyship’s servant waits for an answer.”
Lady Eleanor, without knowing wherefore, seemed to feel that the tidings required prompt attention, and with an effort to subdue her emotion, she broke the seal, and read: —
“Lady Eleanor, – Be on your guard, – there is a dark plot against you. Take counsel in time, – and if you hear the words, ‘T is eighty-six years have crept to your feet, to die,’ you can credit the friendship of this warning.”
“Who brought this note?” said she, in a voice that became full and strong, under the emergency of danger.
“Your butler, my Lady.”
“Where is he? Send him to me.” And as she spoke, Tate mounted the stairs.
“How came you by this note, Tate?”
“A fisherman, my Lady, left it this instant, with directions to be given to you at once and without a moment’s delay.”
“‘Tis nothing bad, I hope and trust, my Lady,” whispered the old man. “The darling young lady is not ill?”
“No, sir, she is perfectly well, nor are the tidings positively bad ones. There is no answer, Tate.” So saying, she once more opened the paper and read it over.
Without seeing wherefore, Lady Eleanor felt a sudden sense of hardihood take possession of her; the accusation by which, a moment previous, she had been almost stunned, seemed already lighter to her eyes, and the suspicion that the whole interview was part of some dark design dawned suddenly on her mind. Nor was this feeling permanent; a glance at the miserable old man, who, with head beut down and half-closed eyes, lay before her, dispelling the doubts even more rapidly than they were formed. Indeed, now that the momentary excitement of speaking had passed away, he looked far more wan and wasted than before; his chest, too, heaved with a fluttering, irregular action, that seemed to denote severe and painful effort, while his fingers, with a restless and fidgety motion, wandered here and there, pinching the bed-clothes, and seeming to search for some stray object.
While the conflict continued in Lady Eleanor’s mind, the old man’s brain once more began to wander, and his lips murmured half inarticulately certain words. “I would give it all!” said he, with a sudden cry; “every shilling of it for that – but it cannot be – no, it cannot be.”
“I must leave you, sir,” said Lady Eleanor, rising; “and although I have heard much to agitate and afflict me, it is some comfort to my heart to think that I have poured some balm into yours; you have my forgiveness for everything.”
“Wait a second, my Lady, wait one second!” gasped he, as with outstretched hands he tried to detain her. “I ‘ll have strength for it in a minute – I want – I want to ask you once more what you refused me once – and it is n’t – it is n’t that times are changed, and that you are in poverty now, makes me hope for better luck. It is because this is the request of one on his death-bed, – one that cannot turn his thoughts away from this world, till he has his mind at ease. There, my Lady, take that pocket-book and that deed, throw them into the fire there. They ‘re the only proofs against the Captain, – no eye but yours must ever see them. If I could see my own beautiful Miss Helen once more in the old house of her fathers – ”
“I will not hear of this, sir,” interposed Lady Eleanor, hastily. “No time or circumstances can make any change in the feelings with which I have already replied to this proposal.”
“Heffernan tells me, my Lady, that the baronetcy is certain – don’t go – don’t go! It’s the voice of one you ‘ll never hear again calls on you. ‘Tis eighty-six years have crept to your feet, to die!”
A faint shriek burst from Lady Eleanor; she tottered, reeled, and fell fainting to the ground.
Terrified by the sudden shock, the old man rung his bell with violence, and screamed for help, in accents where there was no counterfeited anxiety; and in another moment his servant rushed iu, followed by Nalty, and in a few seconds later by O’Reilly himself, who, hearing the cries, believed that the effort to feign a death-bed bad turned into a dreadful reality.
“There – there – she is ill – she is dying! It was too much – the shock did it!” cried the old man, now horror-struck at the ruin he had caused.
“She is better, – her pulse is coming back,” whispered O’Reilly; “a little water to her lips, – that will do.”
“She is coming to – I see it now,” said old Hickman; “leave the room, Bob; quick, before she sees you.”
As O’Reilly gently disengaged his arm, which, in placing the fainting form on the sofa, was laid beneath her head, Lady Eleanor slowly opened her eyes, and fixed them upon him. O’Reilly suddenly became motionless; the calm and steady gaze seemed to have paralyzed him; he could not stir, he could not turn away his own eyes, but stood like one fascinated and spell-bound.
“Oh dear! oh dear!” muttered the old man; “she ‘ll know him now, and see it all.”
“Yes,” exclaimed Lady Eleanor, pushing back from her the officious bands that ministered about her. “Yes, sir, I do see it all! Oh, let me be thankful for the gleam of reason that has guided me in this dark hour. And you, too, do you be thankful that you have been spared from working such deep iniquity!”
