A Terrible Secret by May Agnes Fleming (world of reading txt) 📖

lie down. You must have some rest, be it ever so short; and you have had nothing to eat, I believe all day; you will let me prepare something, and take it, and go to your room."

She spoke to him coaxingly, almost as she might to a child. He lifted his eyes, full of dull, infinite misery, to hers.

"To-night?" he answered: "the last night! I will not go."

"Only for an hour then," she pleaded; "there will be no change. For _my_ sake, Charley!"

All her goodness, all her patience, came back to him. He pressed her hand in his own gratefully, and arose.

"For your sake, Nellie, then--for no other. But you promise to call me if there is the slightest change?"

"I promise. Drink this and go."

She gave him a glass of mulled wine, containing the opiate. He drank it and left the room. They listened breathlessly until they heard his door, further down the passage, open and shut--then both drew a deep breath.

"Thank Heaven," Trix said; "I couldn't bear to see him here to-night. Nellie, if she dies it will kill him--just that."

The girl's lips quivered. What Charley had been to her--how wholly her great, generous, loving heart had gone out to him, not even Trix ever knew. The dream of her life's best bliss was at an end forever. Whether Edith Stuart lived or died, no other woman would ever take her place in his heart.

The hours of the night wore on. Oh! those solemn night watches by the dying bed of those we love. The faint lamp flickers, deepest stillness reigns, and on his bed, dressed as he was, Charley lies deeply, dreamlessly asleep.

It was broad day when he awoke--the dawn of a cloudless November day. He sat up in bed suddenly, for a moment, bewildered, and stared before him. Only for a moment--then he remembered all. The night had passed, the morning come. They had let him sleep--it seemed he _could_ sleep while she lay dying so near. Dying! Who was to tell him that in yonder distant room Edith was not lying dead. He rose up, reeling like a drunken man, and made for the door. He opened it, and went out, down the passage. It was entirely deserted, the great household was not yet astir. Profound stillness reigned. Through the windows he could see the bright morning sky, all flushed, red and golden with the first radiance of the rising sun. And in that room there what lay--death or life?

He stood suddenly still, and looked at the closed door. He stood there motionless, his eyes fixed upon it, unable to advance another step.

It opened abruptly--quickly but noiselessly, and Nellie Seton's pale, tired face looked out. At sight of him she came forward--he asked no questions--his eyes looked at her full of a dumb agony of questioning she never forgot.

"Charley!" she exclaimed, coming nearer.

The first ray of the rising sun streaming through the windows fell full upon her pale face, and it was as the face of an angel.

"Charley!" she repeated, with a great tearless sob, holding out both hands; "Oh, bless God! the doctor says we may--_hope_!"

He had braced himself to hear the worst--not this. He made one step forward and fell at her feet like a stone.


CHAPTER XII.

THE MORNING.

They might hope? The night had passed, the morning had come, and she still lived.

You would hardly have thought so to look at her as she lay, deathly white, deathly still. But as the day broke she had awakened from a long sleep, the most natural and refreshing she had known for weeks, and looked up into the pale anxious face of Trix with the faint shadow of a smile. Then the eyelids swayed and closed in sleep once more, but she had recognized Trix for the first time in days--the crisis was over and hope had come.

They would not let her see him. Only while she slept would they allow him now to enter her room. But it was easily borne--Edith was not to die, and Heaven and his own grateful happy heart only knew how infinitely blessed he was in that knowledge. After the long bitter night--after the darkness and the pain, light and morning had come. Edith would live--all was said in that.

"There are some remedies that are either kill or cure in their action," the old doctor said, giving Charley a facetious poke. "Your marriage was one of them, young man. _I_ thought it was Kill--it turns out it was Cure."

For many days no memory of the past returned to her, her existence was as the existence of a new-born babe, spent alternately in taking food and sleep. Food she took with eager avidity after her long starvation, and then sank back again into profound, refreshing slumber.

"Let her sleep," said the doctor, with a complacent nod; "the more the better. It's Nature's way of repairing damages."

There came a day at last when thought and recollection began to struggle back--when she had strength to lie awake and think. More than once Trix caught the dark eyes fixed in silent wistfulness upon her--a question in them her lips would not ask. But Miss Stuart guessed it, and one day spoke:

"What is it, Dithy?" she said; "you look as if you wanted to say something, you know."

"How--how long have I been sick?" was Edith's question.

"Nearly five weeks, and an awful life you've led us, I can tell you! Look at me--worn to skin and bone. What do you suppose you will have to say for yourself when Angus comes?"

Edith smiled faintly, but her eyes still kept their wistful look.

"I suppose I was delirious part of the time, Trixy?"

"Stark, staring crazy--raving like a lunatic at full moon! But you needn't look so concerned about it--we've changed all that. You'll do now."

"Yes," she said it with a sigh; "you have all been very kind. I suppose it's only a fancy of the fever after all"

"What?"

"I--Trixy! don't laugh at me, but I thought Charley was here."

"Did you?" responded Trix; "the most natural thing in life. He _is_ here."

Her eyes lighted--her lips parted--a question trembled upon them, but she hesitated.

"Go on," said Miss Stuart, enjoying it all; "there's something else on your mind. Speak up, Edie! don't be ashamed of yourself."

"I am afraid you _will_ laugh this time, Trixy--I know it is only a dream, but I thought Charley and I were--"

"Yes," said Trixy; "were--what?"

"Married, then!" with a faint little laugh. "Don't tell him, please, but it seems--it seems so real, I had to tell you."

She turned her face away. And Trixy, with suspicious dimness in her eyes, stooped down and kissed that thin, wan face.

"You poor little Dithy!" she said; "you _do_ like Charley, don't you? no, it's not a dream--you were married nearly a fortnight ago. The hope of my life is realized--you are my sister, and Charley's wife!"

There was a little panting cry--then she covered her face with her hands and lay still.

"He is outside," went on Trix; "you don't know what a good boy he has been--so patient--and all that. He deserves some reward. I think if you had died he would have died too--Lord Lovel and Lady Nancy, over again. Not that I much believe in broken hearts where men are concerned, either," pursued Trix, growing, cynical; "but this seems an exceptional case. He's awfully fond of you, Dithy; 'pon my word he is. I only hope Angus may go off in a dead faint the first time I'm sick and get better, as he did the other day. We haven't let him in much lately, for fear of agitating you, but I think," says Trixy, with twinkling eyes, "you could stand it now--couldn't you, Mrs. Stuart?"

She did not wait for a reply--she went out and hunted up Charley. He was smoking downstairs, and trying to read the morning paper.

"Your wife wants you," said Miss Stuart brusquely; "go! only mind this--don't stay too long, and don't talk too much."

He started to his feet--away went _Tribune_ and cigar, and up the stairs sprang Charley--half a dozen at a time.

And then Miss Stuart sits down, throws her handkerchief over her face, and for the next five minutes indulges in the exclusively feminine luxury of a real good cry.

* * * * *

After that Mrs. Charles Stuart's recovery was perfectly magical in its rapidity. Youth and splendid vitality, no doubt, had something to do with it, but I think the fact that she _was_ Mrs. Charles Stuart had more to do still.

There came a day, when propped up with pillows, she could sit erect, and talk, and be talked to as much as she chose, when blinds were pulled up, and sunshine poured in; and no sunshine that ever shone was half so bright as her happy face. There came still another day, when robed in a pretty pink morning-dress, Charley lifted her in his arms and carried her to the arm-chair by the window, whence she could look down on the bright, busy city street, whilst he sat at her feet and talked. Talked! who is to tell of what? "Two souls with but a single thought--two hearts that beat as one," generally find enough to say for themselves, I notice, and require the aid of no outsiders.

And there came still another day--a fortnight after, when looking pale and sweet, in a dark-gray travelling suit and hat, Mrs. Charles Stuart, leaning on her husband's arm, said good-by to her friends, and started on her bridal tour. They were to spend the next three weeks South, and then return for Trixy's wedding at Christmas.

Christmas came; merry Christmas, sparkling with snow and sunshine, as Christmas ever should sparkle, and bringing that gallant ex-officer of Scotch Grays, Captain Angus Hammond--captain no longer--plain Mr. Hammond, done with drilling and duty, and getting the route forever, going in for quiet, country life in bonnie Scotland, with Miss Beatrix Stuart for aider and abettor.

Charley and his wife came to New York for the wedding. They had told Mr. Hammond how ill Edith had been, but the young Scotchman, as he pulled his ginger whiskers and stared in her radiant, blooming face, found it difficult indeed to realize. She had been a pretty girl--a handsome woman--happiness had made her more--she was lovely now. For Charley--outwardly all his easy insouciance had returned--he submitted to be idolized and made much of by his wife, after the calm fashion of lordly man. But you had only to see him look once into her beautiful, laughing face, to know how passionately she was beloved.

Mr. and Mrs. Angus Hammond had a splendid wedding; and to say our Trixy looked charming would be doing her no sort of justice. And again Miss Seton was first bridesmaid, and Mrs. Stuart, in lavender silk, sniffed behind a fifty dollar pocket handkerchief, as in duty bound. They departed immediately after the ceremony for Scotland and a Continental tour--that very tour which, as you know, Trixy was cheated so cruelly out of three years before.

Mr. and Mrs. Stuart went back South to finish the winter and the honeymoon among the glades of Florida, and "do," as