Part 70 (1/2)

Aunt Marguerite, however, in spite of her vindictive feeling, suffered intense grief; and her sorrow seemed to deepen the lines in her handsome old face.

”They've murdered him, they've murdered him!” she kept on muttering as she watched the pa.s.sing boats. ”Nne understood him but me.”

She drew back sharply from the window, for just then a closely-veiled figure came hurriedly into view, her goal being evidently the old granite house.

Aunt Marguerite's eyes sparkled with vindictive malice.

”Yes,” she said, half aloud; ”and you too, madam--you had your share in the poor boy's death. Oh! how I do hate your wretched Dutch race.”

She crossed to the door, and opened it slightly, to stand listening, to hear voices a few minutes later, and then steps on the stairs, which stopped, after a good deal of whispering, at her niece's door, after which there was a low tapping, and Liza's voice arose:

”Miss Louise! Miss Louise!”

”Yes, knock again. She will not answer. One of them has some pride left.”

”Miss Louise, Miss Louise, you're wanted, please.”

There was no reply, nor yet to repeated knocks. There was a smile of satisfaction on Aunt Marguerite's face as she drew herself up, and opened her fan as if at some presentation, or about to dismiss an intruder; but her countenance changed directly, and, forgetting her dignity, she craned forward, for all at once a pleading voice arose.

”Louise, Louise, for pity's sake let me in.”

There was a short pause, and then the sharp sound of the shooting back of a bolt and the creaking of a door. Then it was closed again, and as the listener threw her own open there came the faint sound of a pa.s.sionate cry and a low sobbing.

Aunt Marguerite stepped out into the pa.s.sage, her head erect, and her stiff silk trailing noisily behind her, to go to her own room, but the way was barred by the presence of Liza, who was down on the floor crouched in a heap, sobbing pa.s.sionately, with her ap.r.o.n up to her eyes.

”Get up!” said Aunt Marguerite imperiously, as she struck at the girl's hand with her fan.

Liza leaped to her feet, looked aghast at the figure before her, and fled, while Aunt Marguerite strode into her room, and loudly closed the door. As she pa.s.sed her niece's chamber, Louise was clasped tightly in Madelaine's arms, and it was long before the two girls were seated, hand in hand, gazing wonderingly at the inroads made so soon by grief.

”It is so horrible--all so horrible,” whispered Madelaine at last, for the silence was for long unbroken, save by an occasional sob. Louise looked at her wildly, and then burst into a pa.s.sion of tears.

”Maddy!” she cried at last, ”is it all true?”

They could say no more, but sat gathering comfort from the sympathetic grasp of each other's hands.

At last, in a dull heavy way, the words came, each sounding as if the speaker were in despair, but willing to suffer so that her companion might be spared, and by degrees Louise learned that Van Heldre still lay in the same insensible state, the awaking from which Madelaine shrank from with horror, lest it should mean the return for a brief time of sense before the great final change.

”I could not come to you,” said Louise, after a long silence, as she gazed wistfully in her friend's face, ”and thought we should never meet again as friends.”

”You should have known me better,” replied Madelaine. ”It is very terrible, such a--such a--oh, Louie, dearest, there must have been some mistake. Harry--Harry could not have been so base.”

Louise was silent for a time. At last she spoke.

”There must be times,” she said gently, ”when even the best of us are not answerable for our actions. He must have been mad. It was when, too--he had--promised--he had told me--that in the future--oh,” she cried, shuddering, as she covered her face with her hands, ”it can't be true--it cannot be true.”

Again there was a long silence in the room, whose drawn-down blind turned the light of a sickly yellow hue. But the window was open, and from time to time the soft sea breeze wafted the blind inward, and a bright ray of sunny light streamed in like hope across the two bent forms.

”I must not stay long,” said Madelaine. ”I s.h.i.+ver whenever I am away, lest--”

”No, no,” cried Louise, pa.s.sionately, as she strained her friend to her breast, ”we will not despond yet. All this comes across our lives like a dense black cloud, and there must be a great change in the future.