Mr. Blake listened with the same face of stone.
"I will do what is right and above-board, Mr. Wyndham. I will have no act or part in any plot as long as I live. The only one I ever had a hand in was that affair of Cherrie's, and I was sorry enough for that afterward. If Nathalie Marsh were my sister, I could scarcely care more for her than I do; but I tell you I would sooner know she was dead and buried out there, than living, and as she is. I am sorry for you, Mr. Wyndham, for I had some faith in you; but it is out of all reason to ask me to conceal such a crime as this."
"I ask for nothing," Paul Wyndham said, more in sorrow than in anger. "I am entirely at your mercy. Heaven knows it does not matter much what becomes of me, but it is hard to think of her name – my poor dear! – dragged through the slime of the streets."
Perhaps Val Blake was sorry for him in his secret heart – for it was a kindly heart, too, was Val's – but his face did not show it. He lifted his hat, and turned to go.
"I shall be as merciful as is compatible with justice," he said; "before I make this matter known to the proper authorities, you shall be warned. But there are others who must be told to-morrow. She must have medical advice at once, for she is evidently dying by inches; her mother must know, and – " His hand was on the lock of the door as he stopped, and faced round – "and the woman you have wronged. As to your secret power over her, you need not make such a mystery of it. I know what it is!"
"You!" Paul Wyndham said, turning his powerful gray eyes upon him. "You, Blake! Impossible!"
Mr. Blake nodded intelligently.
"She is not the true heiress! Ah! I see I am right! I have had reason to think so for some time past; but I never was sure until to-night. Oh, yes! I know the secret, and I know more. I think I can put my hand on one who is the heiress, before to-morrow's sun goes down."
There flashed through Paul Wyndham's mind what Olive had said, in that first stormy interview they had held, about the true heiress, who had made over to her the true estate. What if it had been true?
"Who is it?" he asked. "You cannot! She is dead!"
"Not a bit of it. She is worth half a dozen dead people yet! I shall see her to-morrow, and find out if I am not right."
"See her to-morrow! Then she is in Speckport?"
"To be sure she is! I will visit the other one, too – Harriet, you know. She must be told at once."
"You know her name! Blake, who has told you all this?"
"Not now!" said Val, opening the door; "some other time I will tell you. You are at liberty to make what use of your time you please. You have between this and to-morrow."
"I shall not make use of it to fly," said Mr. Wyndham, coolly; "whatever comes, I shall stay here and meet it. I have only one request to make – be as tender with that poor girl at Redmon as you can. I do not think she is happy, and I believe she is a far better woman than I took her to be. I am sorry for the wrong I have done her, but it is too late in the day for all that now. I do not ask you to spare me, but do spare her?"
"I shall not add to the truth – be sure of it. Good night!"
"Good night!" Paul Wyndham said, locking and closing the door after him, and returning to the room they had left. So it was all over, and the discovery he had dreaded and foreseen all along, had come at last. It was all over, and the scheme of his life was at an end. He had been happy here – oh, very, very happy! with the wife he loved, and who had trusted and clung to him, as a timid child does to a father. How often he had sat in this very room, reading to her dreamy, misty Shelley, or Byron, or Owen Meredith, and she had sat on a low stool at his feet, her blue eyes looking up in his face, her hazy gold hair rippling loose about her, like a cloud of sunlight, or with that golden head pillowed on his knee, while she dropped asleep in the blue summer twilight, listening. Yes, he had been unspeakably happy there, while some one had sat unthought of at Redmon, eating out her own heart in her grand miserable solitude. He had been very happy here; but it was all over now, and his life seemed closing black around him, like a sort of iron shroud. It would all pass, and he would exist for years, perhaps, yet, and eat, and drink, and sleep, and go on with the dull routine of existence, but his life was at an end. He had sinned, and the retribution that always follows sin in this world, or the next, had overtaken him. He had been happy here, but it was gone forever – nevermore to be – nevermore – nevermore!
CHAPTER XXXVI.
DRIFTING OUT
In Mrs. Major Wheatly's pretty drawing-room in their new house in Golden Row sat Miss Winnie Rose, the governess. She is dressed in slight mourning, very simple, as becomes a governess, but fitting the small, light figure with exquisite neatness, and she is counting time for Miss Wheatly, who sits strumming out her music-lesson at the piano. Mrs. Wheatly lies on a sofa at the window, dawdling over a novel and looking listlessly at the passers-by, and wishing some one would call. She started up, thinking her mental prayer was granted, as a servant entered with a card. But it was not for her. It was handed to the governess.
"Mr. Blake!" said Miss Rose, hesitatingly. "This cannot be for me, Margaret."
"O yes'm, it is! He requested particularly to see Miss Rose."
"Is it Mr. Blake?" inquired Mrs. Wheatly. "What can he want with you, I wonder?"
Miss Rose smiled as she got up.
"I am sure I don't know. I may go down, I suppose?"
"Oh, certainly, my dear!" said Mrs. Wheatly, yawning. "And ask him if he has heard from his sister lately. Stop your strumming, Louisa, it makes my head ache."
Mr. Blake was sitting in what was called the morning-room, and shook hands with Miss Rose when she came in. But how strangely grave he was! What could he want with her? Her heart fluttered a little as she looked at him.
"My dear young lady!" he began, with an ominously grave face, "it is very serious business that brings me here this morning. Are you quite sure no one can overhear us?"
Awful beginning! The little governess turned pale as she listened.
"No one," she faltered. "What is it you mean, Mr. Blake?"
"My dear," said Mr. Blake, as if he were speaking to a young lady of ten years, "don't look so frightened. I want to ask you a question, and you must pardon me if it sounds impertinent. Is your name, your family-name, really Rose?"
The governess uttered a low cry, and covered her face with both hands.
"I am answered," said Val. "Your name is Henderson – Olive Henderson; and you should be heiress of Redmon, instead of – of the person whose name is Harriet, and who reigns there now. Oh, my dear young lady, how is this? Is there no one in the world to be trusted?"
She rose from her seat suddenly, and sank on her knees at his feet with a gushing sob.
"I have done wrong," she cried, "for all deceit is wrong; and though Rose is my name, it is not my father's. But oh, Mr. Blake! if you only knew all, I don't think you would blame me so much. It was not I who changed it. It has been the name by which I have gone for years, and I could not resume my rightful one without suspicion and explanation that involved the honor of the dead; and so I was silent. No one was wronged by it – no one in the wide world; and I did not think it so very wrong."
She sobbed out as she spoke, in a sudden outbreak of distress. Val stooped kindly and raised her up.
"My dear child, I only doubted you for a moment. You are too good to willfully deceive any one to their harm. But you must calm yourself and listen to me; for right must be done to all. Who is that woman at Redmon? Is she your stepsister?"
The governess's only reply was to clasp her hands piteously.
"Oh, Mr. Blake, what have you done? How have you found this out? Oh, I am so sorry, so very sorry; for you don't know the misery you will make!"
"Misery! Do you mean to yourself?"
"No, no! but to her. Poor Harriet! Oh, Mr. Blake, who can have told you this?"
"Sit down and calm yourself, my dear Miss Rose, and you shall hear all. Do you recollect one day, very shortly after your return here, visiting Miss Henderson at her cottage down the street here?"
"Yes, yes."
"You and she had along conversation in her chamber that day, part of which was overheard. Miss Catty Clowrie was in the house at the time, and she overheard – how, I don't pretend to say; but she heard enough to excite her suspicions that all was not as it should be. She heard you addressed as 'Olly', and heard you call Miss Henderson 'Harriet.' She saw her down on her knees before you, pleading desperately for something, Miss Clowrie could not quite make out what; and she heard you promise to comply with her request, on condition of her paying over to Mrs. Marsh a certain annuity. All this looked very odd, you know; and Miss Clowrie, who is a good deal of an attorney, they tell me, scented a criminal case. She consulted with her father on the subject, and was overheard by her brother Jacob, who is in my office. Jake communicated the story next morning in confidence to Bill Blair, and Bill related it in confidence to me. I cross-questioned Jake, and got out of him all he knew, and then pooh-poohed the story, and told them Catty must have been dreaming. But the annuity was paid, and I suspected the whole thing at once. It was none of my business, however, so I held my tongue; and as Mr. and Miss Clowrie hadn't facts enough to go upon, they held theirs, too, and waited for something to turn up. There is the story to you, Miss Rose; and now why on earth, if you are the true Olive Henderson, have you slaved here as a governess, while you let another, who had no right, usurp your place and wealth?"
The governess lifted her head with some spirit.
"It is no slavery, Mr. Blake! They are very kind to me here, Mr. Blake, and I have every reason to be happy; and Harriet has a right, a strong right, which I never mean to dispute, to possess whatever belongs to me. She is no usurper, for I have made over to her fully and sincerely the legacy bequeathed to Philip Henderson.
"I understand. You are very generous and self-sacrificing, Miss Rose – but still she has no right there, and – " But Miss Rose interrupted, clasping her hands in passionate appeal.
"Oh, Mr. Blake, what are you going to do? Oh, I entreat of you, if you have any regard for me or poor Harriet, not to reveal what you know. Indeed, indeed, I don't want it! What should I do with half that money? I have everything I want, and am as happy as the day is long. Do you think I could ever be happy again if I turned poor Harriet out; do you think I could ever live in that grand place, knowing I had made her miserable for life? Oh, no, Mr. Blake! You are good and kind-hearted, and would not make any one unhappy, I know! Then let things go on as they are; and don't say anything about this?"
"But I cannot, my dear little martyr!" said Val, "and I must speak of it to her, at least, because it is involved in another story she must hear."
"In another story?"
"Yes, Miss Rose – for I suppose I must still call you by that name – in another story, stranger than anything you ever heard out of a novel. A cruel and shameful story of wrong and revenge, that I have come here to tell you this morning, and to which all this has been but the preface."
The governess lifted her pale, wondering face in mute inquiry, and Val began the story Paul Wyndham had related the night before. The brown eyes of the little governess dilated, and her lips parted as she listened, but she never spoke or interrupted him until he had finished. She sat with her clasped hands in her lap, her eyes never leaving his face, her lips apart and breathless.
"So you see, Miss Rose," Val wound up, "in telling that unfortunate girl at Redmon that she is not, and never has been, legally the wife of Paul Wyndham, it is of absolute impossibility to shirk the other story. Had she never falsely possessed herself of that to which she had no claim, this dishonor would have been saved her. She might have been poor, but not disgraced, as she is now."
"Oh, Mr. Blake! what have I heard? Nathalie Marsh alive and here?"
"Not Nathalie Marsh – Nathalie Wyndham. Whatever your stepsister may be, Nathalie at least is his lawful wife!"
"Oh, my poor, poor, Nathalie! And is she really insane – hopelessly insane?"
"Hopelessly, I fear, but she does not look as if her life would last long. She is only the shadow of what she was – a poor, thin, frail shadow.
"And Harriet, who is so proud, what will she say when this is told her? Oh, how could Mr. Wyndham do her such a wrong? It was cruel! it was unmanly!"
"So it was," nodded Val, "and it's not like him, either; for Wyndham is a pretty honorable fellow, as the world goes. But man, even at the best," said Mr. Blake, modestly, thinking of his own short-comings, "is weak, and temptation is strong. I think he is sorry enough for it now – not selfishly sorry, either. And now, Miss Rose, what I want is this. I know you are a sort of unprofessed Sister of Charity where the sick are concerned, and you and poor Natty used to be friends. I want to know if you will come and stay with her for awhile; she hasn't a soul of the female kind but Midge. If Joanna were here, I wouldn't have to trouble you; but in her absence you are the only one I can think of. Of course, her mother must go; but poor Mrs. Marsh is of no more use in a sick room than a big wax doll. She will play propriety while you stay."
"Yes, yes; I will go at once!" exclaimed Miss Rose, starting up in womanly impulsiveness. "Wait one moment while I run and tell Mrs. Wheatly."
"Oh, there's no such hurry! It will do this afternoon, when I will call for you, with Mrs. Marsh. Don't tell Mrs. Wheatly who it is you are going to see, mind – the secret will get out, of course, but we don't want everybody to know it just yet."
"I will not tell. What time will you call?"
"About three. I am going to Redmon now. She ought to know at once!"
"My poor, poor Harriet! Oh, Mr. Blake! She is so proud and sensitive. You will spare her as much as you can?"
Mr. Blake took the two little clasped hands between his own broad palms, and looked down kindly in the pale, pleading face.
"I think I could spare my worst enemy if you pleaded for him, my little friend. Don't be afraid of me, Miss Winnie. I don't think it is in me to strike a fallen foe – and that poor girl at Redmon never injured me. Good-bye, until then!"
Mr. Blake's composure, as we know, was not easily disturbed; but he rang the bell at Redmon with much the same sensation a miserable sufferer from toothache rings at a dentist's door.
Yes, Mrs. Wyndham was in, the servant said, taking the visitor's card and ushering him into the library, where a bright fire blazed, for the lady of Redmon liked fires. Val sat and stared at it, wondering how he would begin his disagreeable task, and how she would take it.
"She's such a flarer anyway!" thought Mr. Blake, "that I dare say she'll fly out at me like a wildcat! What a mess it is! I wish I never had got into it!"
The door opened while he was thinking, and Olive came in. She was dressed in a loose morning negligee, every fold showing how indifferently her toilet had been made. Val saw, too, how pale, and wan, and weary her dark face looked; how hollow, and earthen, and melancholy her large black eyes. She had had her own share of the suffering, and her pride and haughty defiance seemed subdued now.
"Does she know already?" wondered Val; "if not, why does she look like that? Have you been ill, Mrs. Wyndham?" he asked, aloud.
"Oh, no," she said, drearily; "but I have not been out much of late, and so have got low-spirited, I suppose. This wretched autumn weather, too, always makes me dismal."
"How shall I begin?" thought Val, staring moodily in the fire. But the cheering blaze gave forth no answer, and it was Olive herself who broke the ice.
"Has anything happened, Mr. Blake, to make you wear that serious face? Mr. Wyndham – "
She paused – her voice quivering a little. Val looked up.
"Mr. Wyndham is at Rosebush Cottage," he said. "Did you know it?"
"I thought he was. It is three days since he was here."
The tremor was in her voice again.
"What does it mean, at all?" thought Val; "it can't be that she cares for the fellow, surely!"
"Is his mother worse, do you know?" she asked, her spirit rebelling against the question her torturing anxiety forced from her.
"Now it is coming!" thought Val; "bless my soul! but it is hard to get out! It sticks in my throat like Macbeth's amen! Madam," he said, aloud, facing round and plunging into the icy shower-bath at once, "there has been a terrible mistake, which only came to my knowledge last night. A great wrong has been done you by Mr. Wyndham, and it is to inform you of it I have come here to-day."
Her pale face turned blood-red, and then ghastly white.
"You need not tell me," she cried, "I know it! She is not his mother!"
"She is not!" said Val, very much surprised; "but how in the world did you find it out?"
She did not speak. She sat looking at him with a dreadful fixed stare.
"Tell me all," she said; "tell me all! Who is she?"
"She is his wife! I don't think you can know that. He was a married man before he ever saw you here."
A low cry of despair broke from Olive's white lips. This was not what she had expected – at the worst, she had never thought of this.
"His wife!" she cried, "and what, then, am I?"
Val sat dumb. It was not a very pleasant question to answer; and, to tell the truth, he was more than a little afraid of the lightning flashing from those midnight eyes.
"What am I?" she repeated, in a voice almost piercing in its shrillness. "What am I? If she is his wife, what am I?"
"My dear madam, it is a most wicked affair from beginning to end, and you have been most shamefully duped. Believe me, I pity you from the very bottom of my heart."
With a cry that Val Blake never forgot, in its broken-hearted anguish and despair, she dropped down on the sofa, and buried her face among the pillows, as if she would have shut out the world and its miseries, as she did the sight of the man before her.
Mr. Blake, not knowing any panacea for misery such as this, and fearing to turn consoler, lest he should make a mess of it, did the very best thing he could have done, let it alone, and began the story he had to tell. So, lying there in her bitter humiliation, this woman heard that her miserable secret was a secret no longer, and that the pale, silent actress of Mrs. Butterby's lodgings had been Nathalie Marsh, and was now Paul Wyndham's beloved wife. That was the misery – she scarcely heeded, in the supreme suffering of that thought, the discovery of her own trickery and deceit – she only knew that the man she had thought her husband, and who, in spite of herself, she had learned to love, had cruelly and shamefully deceived her. She had never for one poor moment been his wife, never for an instant had a right to his name; she was only the poor despised tool, whom he used at the bidding of the wife he loved. The horrible agony she suffered lying there, and thinking of those things, no human pen can tell – no heart conceive.
Mr. Blake rose up when he finished his narrative, thankful it was over. She had never moved or spoken all the time, but he knew she had heard him, and he paused, with his hand on the door, to make a last remark.
"I beg, my dear young lady, you will not be overcome by this unfortunate affair. It will be kept as close as possible, and you need not be disturbed in the possession of Redmon, since such is Miss Rose's wish. I have done my duty in telling you, though the duty has been a very unpleasant one, good-morning, madam."
She never moved. Val looked at the prostrate figure with a vague uneasiness, and remembered it was just such women as this that swallowed poison, or went down to the river and drowned themselves. He thought of it all the way to Mrs. Marsh's, growing more and more uneasy all the time.
"Oh, hang it," thought Mr. Blake, "I wish Paul Wyndham had been at Jericho before I ever got mixed up in his dirty doings. If that black-eyed young woman goes and does something desperate, I shall feel as if I had a hand in her death. I am always getting into other people's scrapes, somehow! I suppose it's my luck!"
Val knocked at the cottage door, and was admitted to the pleased presence of Mrs. Marsh. And to her, once again, the story of plot and counterplot had to be told; but it was a long time before she could quite comprehend it. She cried a good deal when she fully took in the sense of the thing, said she wondered at Mr. Wyndham, and thought it was dreadful to have Nathalie restored, only to find she was out of her mind. She wanted to go to her at once, she said – poor dear Natty! and so Mr. Blake went for a cab without more ado, and found Mrs. Marsh shawled and bonneted, and all ready, upon his return. They drove up Golden Row and stopped at Mrs. Wheatly's for Miss Rose, whom Val handed in, in a few minutes, and then packed himself up beside the driver.
Midge opened the door of Rosebush Cottage to the visitors, and stared aghast upon seeing who they were.
"Is Mr. Wyndham in?" asked Val.
Midge nodded, and jerked her head toward the room he had been in the preceding night, and, unconscious Val tapped at it, and then walked in, followed by the two ladies.
Paul Wyndham stood up as they entered, pale and quiet as ever. Nathalie, wrapped in a loose white morning-dress, lay on a lounge, a pile of pillows under her head, and a mingled odor of vinegar and cologne and a number of saturated cloths showed he had been bathing her forehead when they came in. Mrs. Marsh never noticed him, but fell down on her knees beside the lounge, in an outburst of motherly grief and joy, raining kisses on the feverish face. Alas! that now-flushed, feverish face! the cheeks crimson, the forehead shining, and burning with raging fever, the golden hair all tossed and disordered over the pillows, and the hot, restless head turning ceaselessly from side to side, vainly trying to cool its fire. The blue eyes shone with fever's luster; but no light of recognition came into them at her mother's passionate words and kisses. Miss Rose, throwing off her hat and mantle, knelt beside her and dipped the cloths in vinegar and water, and laid them on the burning brow of the poor stricken girl. Val looked inquiringly at Mr. Wyndham.
"She must have taken cold last evening in the church," he answered, in a low tone; "she became delirious in the night, and has continued so ever since."
"I'll be off for the doctor at once," said Val, briskly; "she's in a bad way, I know. I'll fetch Dr. Leach, he was their family physician, and won't tell."
Energetic Mr. Blake stalked out of the room without more ado. Paul Wyndham followed him to the door.
"They know?" he inquired, motioning toward the room they had quitted.
"All about it," said Val, "and so does that unhappy young woman at Redmon, and if she doesn't commit suicide before night it will be a mercy. And oh, Wyndham, by the way, you had better not show yourself. It isn't a very creditable affair, you know, to any of the parties concerned, and the best atonement you can make is to keep out of sight."
He strode off, without waiting for a reply, in search of Dr. Leach, and had the good fortune to find that gentleman taking his dinner. Mr. Blake hurried him through that meal with little regard to calm digestion, and on the road had to relate, for the fourth time, the story, of which he was by this time heartily sick.
Dr. Leach listened like a man who cannot believe his own ears.
"Bless my soul!" he exclaimed, "is it a story out of the Arabian Nights you are telling me? Nathalie Marsh alive, and Mr. Wyndham's wife! The mother all a hoax, and the young woman at Redmon a – what is she, Blake?"
"Blamed if I know!" replied Mr. Blake; "but, whatever she is, Nathalie was the first wife. It's a very uncommon story, but it is true as preaching for all that, only I am getting tired of telling it so often."
"Well, well, well! Wonders will never cease! Natty returned to life, Cherrie back in Speckport, and Charley coming! Why, Val, we will have the old merry time all over again before long."
"I am afraid not! I am afraid poor Nathalie is beyond even your skill, doctor. She was almost at death's door before, and this fever will finish her."
Mr. Wyndham was not in the room when the doctor and Val returned. Mrs. Marsh and Miss Rose were still keeping cooling applications to the hot forehead, but nothing could cool the fever that consumed her. Val drew Miss Rose aside as the doctor bent over his patient.
"Where is Wyndham?" he asked.
"I don't know. He has not been here since you left."
"What do you think of her?" nodding toward the fever-stricken girl on the lounge.
The governess, whose experience among the sick poor made her no unskillful leech, looked out of the window through a mist of tears.
"We have found her to lose her again, I fear. Look at Dr. Leach's face! Can you not read his verdict there?"
The old physician certainly was looking seriously grave, and shook his head at Mrs. Marsh's eager questioning.
"We must hope for the best, ma'am, and do what we can. The result is in the hands of Providence."
"Then you think there is danger, doctor?" said Val, coming forward.
"Imminent danger, sir! It is typhoid fever, and a very serious case, too. A strong constitution would stand a chance, but she has no constitution at all. Gone, sir! gone! she is as feeble as an infant."
"Then there is no hope at all?"
"None!" replied Dr. Leach, solemnly; "she will never leave this room alive. And better so, better so than as she was."
"Yes," said Val, sadly; "it is better as it is! My dear Mrs. Marsh, don't distress yourself so. Think that her mind is entirely gone, and never could be restored, I believe, and you will be thankful that her earthly troubles are so nearly ended."
Dr. Leach was giving directions in a low tone to Miss Rose, and Val, at his desire, lifted the slight form of the sufferer in his strong arms, carried her into the inner room, and laid her on the bed.
"I will call in again before night," said the doctor. "Remember my directions, Miss Rose. Come, Blake; you're going, I suppose?"
"Yes; in a moment. I want to see Wyndham."
Paul Wyndham was walking up and down the hall as they came out, his pale face expressive of but one thing – intensest anxiety. Dr. Leach, with a stiff bow, passed on and went out, but Val halted.
"Well?" Mr. Wyndham asked, eagerly.
"No hope," said Val; "no earthly power can save her. It's typhoid – the most malignant kind. She will die, thank God!"
Paul Wyndham leaned against the wall and covered his face, with a bitter groan.
"As to you," pursued Val, sternly, "you must leave this house at once, and enter it no more. Do not forget that we are acting criminally in screening you from the law, and that we can enforce our commands. Go at once, and do not come here again until all is over!"
He left the house as he spoke, and joined the doctor, who had gained the highroad. Some people passing stared to see them coming from Rosebush Cottage, and surmised Mr. Wyndham's mad mother must be worse than ever.
"How long can she last, doctor?" Val asked, before they parted.
"Not over two weeks, I fancy, at the most. This fever will carry her off at once."
Late in the evening Dr. Leach returned, and found Nathalie worse. Mr. Wyndham had left the cottage, after taking one last look at the wife he loved so passionately. The agony in his face had gone to Mrs. Marsh's heart, and she cried now, as she spoke of it to the doctor.
"Yes, I dare say," the old man returned, shortly, "he's very sorry, no doubt, but he's a villain for all that; and, only for poor Natty's sake, I'd have him arrested for bigamy this minute!"
Miss Rose did not go home that night; she would never leave Nathalie now. She sent a note to Mrs. Wheatly by the doctor, explaining that it was a case of typhoid, and that she feared to bring the infection into the family. All further explanation she left to the doctor, only desiring that her clothes might be sent to her. Mrs. Marsh dispatched a similar message to Betsy Ann, and before night everybody knew that Mr. Wyndham's mother was very bad, that Dr. Leach and Val Blake had been there, and that Mrs. Marsh and Miss Rose were staying to take care of her.
And what did Speckport say to all this? Oh, Speckport had a great deal to say, and surmise, and inquire. How was it, Speckport wanted to know, in the first place, that Mrs. Marsh and Miss Rose should be especially selected as the sick woman's nurses? To which Dr. Leach replied that Miss Rose, being such a capital hand at the business, and so fond of it into the bargain, he thought that there was no one in the town so fitted for the task; and Mrs. Marsh, having nothing else to do, could play propriety and read novels there as well as in Cottage Street. What was Mr. Wyndham's mother like, was she a violent lunatic, and was her present disease infectious? Speckport further inquired. To which Dr. Leach said, Mrs. Wyndham was the wreck of a very handsome woman, that she was not violent, only imbecile, and that her fever was highly infectious, and made it extremely dangerous for any one but the physician and nurses to enter the house; on which account Mr. Wyndham would absent himself from Redmon, and Mrs. Olive from Rosebush Cottage, until all was over. After which ominous phrase the doctor would hurry away, and Speckport was satisfied.
Mr. Blake, to be consistent, took up his quarters elsewhere, and visited the cottage every day to inquire. Paul Wyndham, who was stopping at the Farmer's Hotel, very near the cottage, came two or three times a day to ask, but no one invited him to enter, and a sense of honor forbade his intruding. The answer to all inquiries was continually the same, "No better." No, Nathalie was no better – never would be better in this world! She lay tossing on her feverish bed, raving wildly, consumed with burning heat, never resting night or day. All the scenes of her life were acted over again in that burning chasm. Now she babbled of her schoolgirl-days, her mathematics and her music, or berrying and nutting frolics with Charley. Now she was with Captain Cavendish, loving and trusting and happy; and now she was shrieking out again that she saw the murdered woman, and covering her eyes to shut out the ghastly sight. Now the days of her misery had come; now she was at sea with Captain Locksley, and in the New York lodging-house; now on the stage, making rambling, incoherent speeches, and singing stage-songs. Now she was with Paul Wyndham, his wife; now she was in the cathedral listening to the stern preacher. And here she would shriek out, and toss her arms wildly, and ask them to take her to Redmon, that she must tell her all – she must! she must! And Miss Rose and her mother would have to hold her down by force to prevent her from rising from the bed in her excitement, and soothe her with promises that she should go there – only to wait a little while. And the poor sufferer would fall back exhausted, and perhaps go back to the old days when she played with Charley, a child.