Part 18 (1/2)
”Berenice! You here! Is it you? Oh, Heaven have pity on us!”
”Phoebe, go and find out the housekeeper, explain who I am, and have my luggage taken up to my apartment. Then order tea in this room,” said the lady, perhaps with the sole view of getting rid of her attendant; for as soon as the latter had withdrawn she threw oft her bonnet, went to the overwhelmed young man, sat down beside him, put her arms around him, and drew his head down to meet her own, as she said, caressingly:
”You did not expect me, love? And my arrival here overcomes you.”
”I thought you had been killed in that railway collision,” came in hoa.r.s.e and guttural tones from a throat that seemed suddenly parched to ashes.
”Poor Herman! and you had rallied from that shock of grief; but was not strong enough to sustain a shock of joy! I ought not to have given you this surprise! But try now to compose yourself, and give me welcome. I am here; alive, warm, loving, hungry even! a woman, and no specter risen from the grave, although you look at me just as if I were one! Dear Herman, kiss me! I have come a long way to join you!” she said, in a voice softer than the softest notes of the cushat dove.
”How was it that you were not killed?” demanded the young man, with the manner of one who exacted an apology for a grievous wrong.
”My dearest Herman, I came very near being crushed to death; all that were in the same carriage with me perished. I was so seriously injured that I was reported among the killed; but the report was contradicted in the next day's paper.”
”How was it that you were not killed, I asked you?”
”My dearest one, I suppose it was the will of Heaven that I should not be. I do not know any other reason.”
”Why did you not write and tell me you had escaped?”
”Dear Herman, how hoa.r.s.ely you speak! And how ill you look! I fear you have a very bad cold!” said the stranger tenderly.
”Why did you not write and tell me of your escape, I ask you? Why did you permit me to believe for months that you were no longer in life?”
”Herman, I thought surely if you should have seen the announcement of my death in one paper, you would see it contradicted, as it was, in half a dozen others. And as for writing, I was incapable of that for months!
Among other injuries, my right hand was crushed, Herman. And that it has been saved at all, is owing to a miracle of medical skill!”
”Why did you not get someone else to write, then?”
”Dear Herman, you forget! There was no one in our secret! I had no confidante at all! Besides, as soon as I could be moved, my father took me to Paris, to place me under the care of a celebrated surgeon there.
Poor father! he is dead now, Herman! He left me all his money. I am one among the richest heiresses in England. But it is all yours now, dear Herman. When I closed my poor father's eyes my hand was still too stiff to wield a pen! And still, though there was no longer any reason for mystery, I felt that I would rather come to you at once than employ the pen of another to write. That is the reason, dear Herman, why I have been so long silent, and why at last I arrive so unexpectedly. I hope it is satisfactory. But what is the matter, Herman? You do not seem to be yourself! You have not welcomed me! you have not kissed me! you have not even called me by my name, since I first came in! Oh! can it be possible that after all you are not glad to see me?” she exclaimed, rising from her caressing posture and standing sorrowfully before him. Her face that had looked pale and sad from the first was now convulsed by some pa.s.sing anguish.
He looked at that suffering face, then covered his eyes with his hands and groaned.
”What is this, Herman? Are you sorry that I have come? Do you no longer love me? What is the matter? Oh, speak to me!”
”The matter is--ruin! I am a felon, my lady! And it were better that you had been crushed to death in that railway collision than lived to rejoin me here! I am a wretch, too base to live! And I wish the earth would open beneath our feet and swallow us!”
The lady stepped back, appalled, and before she could think of a reply, the door opened and Mrs. Brudenell, who had been, awakened by the disturbance, sailed into the room.
”It is my mother!” said the young man, struggling for composure. And rising, he took the hand of the stranger and led her to the elder lady, saying:
”This is the Countess of Hurstmonceux, madam; I commend her to your care.”
And having done this, he turned and abruptly left the room and the house.
CHAPTER IX.
THE VICTIM.