Part 23 (1/2)

”What is it then? You had better tell me at once. I hate concealment.”

It was a trial; but Elizabeth held her ground.

”I beg your pardon, ma'am; but I don't think missis would like any body to know, and therefore I'd rather not tell you.”

Now the honest Scotswoman, as she said, hated any thing underhand, but she respected the right of every human being to maintain silence if necessary. She looked sharply in Elizabeth's face, which apparently re-a.s.sured her, for she said, not unkindly,

”Very well, child, keep your mistress's secrets by all means. Only tell me what you want. Shall I take a cab and fetch Miss Hilary at once?”

Elizabeth thanked her, but said she thought that would not do; it would be better just to send the note the first thing to-morrow morning, and then Miss Hilary would come home just as if nothing had happened, and Miss Leaf would not be frighted by her sudden appearance.

”You are a good, mindful girl,” said Miss Balquidder. ”How did you learn to be so sensible?”

At the kindly word and manner, Elizabeth, bewildered and exhausted with the excitement she had gone through, and agitated by the feeling of having, for the first time in her life, to act on her own responsibility, gave way a little. She did not exactly cry, but she was very near it.

Miss Balquidder called over the stair-head, in her quick, imperative voice--

”David, is your wife away to her bed yet?”

”No, ma'am.”

”Then tell her to fetch this young woman to the kitchen and give her some supper. And afterward, will you see her safe home, poor la.s.sie?

She's awfully tired, you see.”

”Yes, ma'am.”

And following David's gray head, Elizabeth, for the first time since she came to London, took a comfortable meal in a comfortable kitchen, seasoned with such stories of Miss Balquidder's goodness and generosity, that when, an hour after, she went home and to sleep, it was with a quieter and more hopeful than she could have believed possible under the circ.u.mstances.

CHAPTER XVI.

Next morning, while with that cheerful, unanxious countenance which those about an invalid must learn continually to wear, Elizabeth was trying to persuade her mistress not to rise, she heard a knock, and made some excuse for escaping. She well knew what it was and who had come.

There, in the parlor, sat Miss Hilary, Mrs. Jones talking at her rather than to her, for she hardly seemed to hear. But that she had heard every thing was clear enough. Her drawn white face, the tight clasp of her hands, showed that the ill tidings had struck her hard.

”Go away, Mrs. Jones,” cried Elizabeth, fiercely. ”Miss Hilary will call when she wants you.”

And with an ingenious movement that just fell short of a push, somehow the woman was got on the other side of the parlor door, which Elizabeth immediately shut. Then Miss Hilary stretched her hands across the table and looked up piteously in her servant's face.

Only a servant; only that poor servant to whom she could look for any comfort in this sore trouble, this bitter humiliation. There was no attempt at disguise or concealment between mistress and maid.

”Mrs. Jones has told me every thing, Elizabeth. How is my sister? She does not know?”

”No; and I think she is a good deal better this morning. She has been very bad all week; only she would not let me send for you. She is really getting well now; I'm sure of that!”

”Thank G.o.d!” And then Miss Hilary began to weep.

Elizabeth also was thankful, even for those tears, for she had been perplexed by the hard, dry-eyed look of misery, deeper than anything she could comprehend, or than the circ.u.mstances seemed to warrant.

It was deeper. The misery was not only Ascott's arrest; many a lad has got into debt and got out again--the first taste of the law proving a warning to him for life; but it was this ominous ”beginning of the end.” The fatal end--which seemed to overhang like a hereditary cloud, to taint as with hereditary disease, the Leaf family.