Part 51 (1/2)

She ate her breakfast silently, and with a sense of oppression and guilt quite new to her. She grew inwardly hot whenever Nan looked at her, which she did continually and with the utmost affection. Before the meal was over, however, Miss Middleton and Mattie made their appearance, and in the slight bustle of entrance Phillis managed to effect her escape.

The hour that followed bore the unreality of a nightmare. Outwardly, Phillis was the grave, business-like dressmaker. The lady who had sent for her, and who was a stranger to Hadleigh, was much struck with her quiet self-possessed manners and lady-like demeanor.

”Her voice was quite refined,” she said afterwards to her daughter.

”And she had such a nice face and beautiful figure. I am sure she is a reduced gentlewoman, for her accent was perfect. I am quite obliged to Miss Milner for recommending us such a person, for she evidently understands her business. One thing I noticed, Ada,--the way in which she quietly laid down the parcel, and said it should be fetched presently. Any ordinary dressmaker in a small town like this would have carried it home herself.”

Poor Phillis! she had laid down the parcel and drawn on her well-fitting gloves with a curious sinking at her heart: from the window of the house in Rock Building she could distinctly see Mr.

Dancy walking up and down the narrow plat of gra.s.s before the houses, behind the tamarisk hedge, his foreign-looking cloak and slouch hat making him conspicuous.

”There is that queer-looking man again, mamma,” exclaimed one of the young ladies, who was seated in the window. ”I am sure he is some distinguished foreigner, he has such an air with him.”

Phillis listened to no more, but hurried down the stairs and then prepared to cross the green with some degree of trepidation. She was half afraid that Mr. Dancy would join her at once, in the full view of curious eyes; but he knew better. He sauntered on slowly until she had reached the Parade and was going towards a part of the beach where there was only a knot of children wading knee-deep in the water, sailing a toy-boat. She stood and watched them dreamily, until the voice she expected sounded in her ear:

”True as steel! Ah, I was never deceived in a face yet. Where shall we sit, Miss Challoner? Yes, this is a quiet corner, and the children will not disturb us. Look at that urchin, with his bare brown legs and curly head: is he not a study? Ah, if he had lived--my----” And then he sighed, and threw himself on the beach.

”Well,” observed Phillis, interrogatively. She was inclined to be short with him this morning. She had kept her word, and put herself into this annoying position; but there must be no hesitation, no beating about the bush, no loss of precious time. The story she had now to hear must be told, and with out delay.

Mr. Dancy raised his eyes as he heard the tone, and then he took off his spectacles as though he felt them an inc.u.mbrance. Phillis had a very good view of a pair of handsome eyes, with a lurking gleam of humor in them, which speedily died away into sadness.

”You are in a hurry; but I was thinking how I could best begin without startling you. But I may as well get it out without any prelude. Miss Challoner, to Mrs. Williams I am only Mr. Dancy; but my real name is Herbert Dancy Cheyne.”

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

MISS MEWLSTONE HAS AN INTERRUPTION.

”HERBERT DANCY CHEYNE!”

As he p.r.o.nounced the name slowly and with marked emphasis, a low cry of uncontrollable astonishment broke from Phillis: it was so unexpected. She began to s.h.i.+ver a little from the sudden shock.

”There! I have startled you,--and no wonder; and yet how could I help it? Yes,” he repeated, calmly, ”I am that unfortunate Herbert Cheyne whom his own wife believes to be dead.”

”Whom every one believes to be dead,” corrected Phillis, in a panting breath.

”Is it any wonder?” he returned, vehemently; and his eyes darkened, and his whole features worked, as though with the recollection of some unbearable pain. ”Have I not been s.n.a.t.c.hed from the very jaws of death? Has not mine been a living death, a hideous grave, for these four years?” And then, hurriedly and almost disconnectedly, as though the mere recalling the past was torture to him, he poured into the girl's shrinking ears fragments of a story so stern in its reality, so terrible in its details, that, regardless of the children that played on the margin of the water, Phillis hid her face in her hands and wept for sheer pity.

Wounded, bereft of all his friends, and left apparently dying in the hands of a hostile tribe, Herbert Cheyne had owed his life to the mercy of a woman, a poor, degraded ill-used creature, half-witted and ugly, but who had not lost all the instincts of her womanhood, and who fed and nursed the white stranger as tenderly as though he were her own son.

While the old negress lived, Herbert Cheyne had been left in peace to languish back to life, through days and nights of intolerable suffering, until he had regained a portion of his old strength; then a fever carried off his protectress, and he became virtually a slave.

Out of pity for the tender-hearted girl who listened to him, Mr.

Cheyne hurried over this part of his sorrowful past. He spoke briefly of indignities, abuse, and at last of positive ill treatment. Again and again his life had been in danger from brute violence; again and again he had striven to escape, and had been recaptured with blows.

Phillis pointed mutely to his scarred wrists, and the tears flowed down her cheeks.

”Yes, yes; these are the marks of my slavery,” he replied, bitterly.

”They were a set of hideous brutes; and the fetish they wors.h.i.+pped was cruelty. I carry about me other marks that must go with me to my grave; but there is no need to dwell on these horrors. He sent His angel to deliver me,” he continued, reverently; ”and again my benefactor was a woman.”