Part 53 (2/2)
All this Constance hears, and then, strangely startled, and vaguely thankful that Frank is not in the house, she goes up to the sick room.
Mrs. Lamotte rises to greet her, with a look upon her face that startles Constance, even more than did the news she has just heard below stairs.
Intense feeling has been for so long frozen out of that high-bred, haughty face, that the look of the eyes, the compression of the lips, the fear and horror of the entire countenance, amount almost to a transfiguration.
She draws Constance away from the bed, and into the dressing room beyond. Then, in a voice husky with suppressed emotion, she addresses her as follows:
”Constance Wardour, I am about to place my honor, my daughter's life, the honor of all my family, in your hands. There is not another living being in whom to trust, and I must trust some one. I must, for my child's sake, have relief, or _my_ reason, too, will desert me.
Constance, that sick room holds a terrible secret--Sybil's secret. If you can share it with me, for Sybil's sake, I will try to brave this tempest, as I have braved others; if you refuse”--she paused a moment, and then whispered fiercely:
”If you refuse, I will lock that chamber door, and Sybil Lamotte shall die in her delirium before I will allow an ear that I can not trust, within those walls, or the hand of a possible enemy to administer one life-saving draught.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Sybil Lamotte shall die in her delirium.”]
Over the face of Constance Wardour crept a look of horror indescribable.
In an instant her mind is illuminated, and all the fearful meaning of Mrs. Lamotte's strange words, is grasped and mastered. She reels as if struck by a heavy hand, and a low moan breaks from her lips. So long she stands thus, mute and awe-stricken, that Mrs. Lamotte can bear the strain of suspense no longer.
”For G.o.d's sake, speak,” she gasps; ”there have been those of your race who could not abandon a fallen friend.”
Over the cheek, and neck, and brow, the hot, proud, loyal Wardour blood, comes surging. The gray eyes lift themselves with a proud flash; low and firm comes the answer:
”The Wardours were never Summer friends. Sybil has been as a sister, in prosperity; I shall be no less than a sister now. You may trust me as you would yourself; and--I am very glad you sent for me, and trusted no other.”
”G.o.d bless you, Constance! No one else _can_ be trusted. With your help I must do this work alone.”
Then comes a cry from the sick room; they go back, and Constance enters at once upon her new, strange task. Her heart heavy; her hand firm; her ears smitten by the babbling recitation of that awful secret; and her lips sealed with the seal of the Wardour honor.
All that day she is at her post. Mrs. Lamotte, who is resolved to retain her strength for Sybil's sake, lies down in the dressing room and sleeps from sheer exhaustion.
As the day wears on there is movement and bustle down stairs, they are bringing in the body of the murdered man. The undertaker goes about his work with pompous air, and solemn visage; and when darkness falls, John Burrill's lifeless form lies in state in the drawing room of Mapleton, that room over the splendors of which his plebeian soul has gloated, his covetous eyes feasted and his ambitious bosom swelled with a sense of proprietors.h.i.+p. He is clothed in finest broadcloth, surrounded with costly trappings; but not one tear falls over him; not one heart grieves for him; not one tongue utters a word of sorrow or regret; he has schemed and sinned, to become a member of the aristocracy, to ally himself to the proud Lamottes; and to-night, one and all of the Lamottes, breathe the freer, because his breathing has forever ceased.
Even Constance Wardour has no pitying thought for the dead man; she keeps aloof from the drawing room, shuddering when compelled to pa.s.s its closed doors; living, John Burrill was odious to her; dead, he is loathsome.
The day pa.s.ses, and Doctor Heath does not visit his patient. At intervals during the long afternoon, they have discussed the question, ”What shall we do to keep the patient quiet when the doctor comes?”
It is Constance who solves the problem.
”We must send for Doctor Benoit, Mrs. Lamotte; Doctor Heath's tardiness will furnish sufficient excuse, and Doctor Benoit's partial deafness will render him our safest physician.”
It is a happy thought; Doctor Benoit is old, and partially deaf, but he is a thoroughly good and reliable physician.
Late that night, Jasper Lamotte applies for admittance at the door of his daughter's sick room. Constance opens the door softly, and as his eyes fall upon her, she fancies that a look of fierce hatred gleams at her for a moment from those sunken orbs and darkens his haggard countenance. Of course it is only a fancy. In another moment he is asking after his daughter, with grave solicitude.
”She is quiet; she must not be disturbed;” so Constance tells him. And he glides away softly, murmuring his grat.i.tude to his daughter's friend, as he goes.
It is midnight at Mapleton; in Sybil Lamotte's room the lights burn dimly, and Mrs. Lamotte and Constance sit near the bed, listening, with sad, set faces, to the ravings of the delirious girl.
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