Part 41 (2/2)
”Come this way one moment, sir, if you please,” and she fairly leads the wondering and unsuspecting victim from the room. A second later he is standing in the pa.s.sage, the chamber door is shut swiftly and locked securely. John Burrill has been led out like a lamb, and the fat and smiling strategist comes back to the bedside.
”I suppose he thought I would tell him a secret when I got him outside,”
she laughs, softly.
Whatever he thought he kept to himself. After uttering a few curses he went below, ”returned to his pipe and his bowl,” and waited the dinner hour.
”I shall send for Doctor Heath,” said Mrs. Lamotte, as she bent above her daughter, who had slowly returned to consciousness, but lay pa.s.sive, seeming not to see or know the friends who stood about her. ”Sybil does not know us; I feel alarmed.”
Mrs. Aliston nodded sagaciously. ”He can not come too soon,” she said; then to Constance, with a mingling of womanly tact and genuine kindliness, ”my child, you had better drive home soon. If Mrs. Lamotte wishes, or will permit, I will stay to-night. It will be better, believe me, Mrs. Lamotte, than to share a watch with any servant; and I am a good nurse.”
So it is arranged that she shall stay, and Constance proposes to return alone to Wardour.
As she goes down stairs to her carriage, from out the shadow of the drawing room comes Frank Lamotte, still very haggard, and trembling with excitement suppressed.
”Constance!” he whispers, hoa.r.s.ely, ”one moment, please.”
She pauses before him, very pale and still.
”Constance,” speaking with an effort, ”I--went up there, hoping to keep Burrill from intruding; he was too quick for me, and--and I heard Sybil's last words--and yours.”
No answer from the pale listener.
”My sister asked you to refuse me. Am I right?”
”You heard.”
”And you promised?”
”I promised.”
”Constance, Sybil is half mad. You surely were only humoring her whim in so replying.”
”Sybil _is_ half mad. I begin to think that you know why.”
”We all know why. She has sacrificed herself for an ingrate; she has saddled us all with a monster, to save a brother who is not worth saving.”
”Frank Lamotte, stop; I can not listen to this; for, let me tell you that I know this charge against Evan Lamotte to be false, and I know that you know it; and yet you have sanctioned the fraud. Who has blighted Sybil's life, you may know, but it is not Evan.”
”Constance do you mean--”
”I mean all that I say. Let me pa.s.s, Frank.”
”Not yet. Constance, Constance! had you never any love for me? Is there no shadow of hope?”
”At first,” said Constance, coldly, ”I liked you as Sybil's brother; later, I tolerated you; now you are teaching me to despise you. Long ago I told you that only yourself could injure yourself in my eyes. There might have been a reason, an excuse even, for allowing poor Evan, who has willingly a.s.sumed the position, to become the family scape-goat.
There is none for your unbrotherly and false accusation. Whatever his faults may be, poor Evan is unselfish, and he truly loves his sister.”
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