Part 60 (1/2)

Emily's head sank on her breast. ”Why do I only hear of this now?” she said.

”Because I had no reason for letting you know of it, before to-day. If I have done nothing else, I have at least succeeded in keeping you and Miss Jethro apart.”

Emily looked at him in alarm. He went on without appearing to notice that he had startled her. ”I wish to G.o.d I could as easily put a stop to the mad project which you are contemplating.”

”The mad project?” Emily repeated. ”Oh, Doctor Allday. Do you cruelly leave me to myself, at the time of all others, when I am most in need of your sympathy?”

That appeal moved him. He spoke more gently; he pitied, while he condemned her.

”My poor dear child, I should be cruel indeed, if I encouraged you. You are giving yourself up to an enterprise, so shockingly unsuited to a young girl like you, that I declare I contemplate it with horror. Think, I entreat you, think; and let me hear that you have yielded--not to my poor entreaties--but to your own better sense!” His voice faltered; his eyes moistened. ”I shall make a fool of myself,” he burst out furiously, ”if I stay here any longer. Good-by.”

He left her.

She walked to the window, and looked out at the fair morning. No one to feel for her--no one to understand her--nothing nearer that could speak to poor mortality of hope and encouragement than the bright heaven, so far away! She turned from the window. ”The sun s.h.i.+nes on the murderer,”

she thought, ”as it s.h.i.+nes on me.”

She sat down at the table, and tried to quiet her mind; to think steadily to some good purpose. Of the few friends that she possessed, every one had declared that she was in the wrong. Had _they_ lost the one loved being of all beings on earth, and lost him by the hand of a homicide--and that homicide free? All that was faithful, all that was devoted in the girl's nature, held her to her desperate resolution as with a hand of iron. If she shrank at that miserable moment, it was not from her design--it was from the sense of her own helplessness. ”Oh, if I had been a man!” she said to herself. ”Oh, if I could find a friend!”

CHAPTER LIII. THE FRIEND IS FOUND.

Mrs. Ellmother looked into the parlor. ”I told you Mr. Mirabel would call again,” she announced. ”Here he is.”

”Has he asked to see me?”

”He leaves it entirely to you.”

For a moment, and a moment only, Emily was undecided. ”Show him in,” she said.

Mirabel's embarra.s.sment was visible the moment he entered the room.

For the first time in his life--in the presence of a woman--the popular preacher was shy. He who had taken hundreds of fair hands with sympathetic pressure--he who had offered fluent consolation, abroad and at home, to beauty in distress--was conscious of a rising color, and was absolutely at a loss for words when Emily received him. And yet, though he appeared at disadvantage--and, worse still, though he was aware of it himself--there was nothing contemptible in his look and manner. His silence and confusion revealed a change in him which inspired respect.

Love had developed this spoiled darling of foolish congregations, this effeminate pet of drawing-rooms and boudoirs, into the likeness of a Man--and no woman, in Emily's position, could have failed to see that it was love which she herself had inspired.

Equally ill at ease, they both took refuge in the commonplace phrases suggested by the occasion. These exhausted there was a pause. Mirabel alluded to Cecilia, as a means of continuing the conversation.

”Have you seen Miss Wyvil?” he inquired.

”She was here last night; and I expect to see her again to-day before she returns to Monksmoor with her father. Do you go back with them?”

”Yes--if _you_ do.”

”I remain in London.”

”Then I remain in London, too.”

The strong feeling that was in him had forced its way to expression at last. In happier days--when she had persistently refused to let him speak to her seriously--she would have been ready with a light-hearted reply. She was silent now. Mirabel pleaded with her not to misunderstand him, by an honest confession of his motives which presented him under a new aspect. The easy plausible man, who had hardly ever seemed to be in earnest before--meant, seriously meant, what he said now.

”May I try to explain myself?” he asked.