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It was nine o'clock in the morning, and Hermione stood in the laboratory window overlooking the street. Pale from loss of sleep and exhausted with the fever of anxiety which had consumed her ever since she had despatched her letter to Mr. Etheridge, she looked little able to cope with any disappointment which might be in store for her. But as she leaned there watching for Frank, it was evident from her whole bearing that she was moved by a fearful hope rather than by an overmastering dread; perhaps because she had such confidence in his devotion; perhaps because there was such vitality in her own love.
Her manner was that of one who thinks himself alone, and yet she was not alone. At the other end of the long and dismal apartment glided the sly figure of Huckins. No longer shabby and unkempt, but dressed with a neatness which would have made his sister Cynthia stare in amazement if she could have risen from her grave to see him, he flitted about with noiseless tread, listening to every sigh that escaped from his niece's lips, and marking, though he scarcely glanced her way, each turn of her head and each bend of her body, as if he were fully aware of her reasons for standing there, and the importance of the issues hanging upon the occurrences of the next fifteen minutes.
She may have known of his presence, and she may not. Her preoccupation was great, and her attention fixed not upon anything in the room, but upon the street without. Yet she may have felt the influence of that gliding Evil, moving, snake-like, at her back. If she did she gave no sign, and the moments came and went without any change in her eager attitude or any cessation in the ceaseless movements with which he beguiled his own anxiety and the devilish purposes which were slowly forming themselves in his selfish and wicked mind.
At length she gave a start, and leaned heavily forward. Huckins, who was expecting this proof of sudden interest, paused where he was, and surveyed her with undisguised eagerness in his baleful eyes, while the words "She sees him; he is coming" formed themselves upon his thin and quivering lips, though no sound disturbed the silence, and neither he nor she seemed to breathe.
And he was right. Frank was coming down the street, not gayly and with the buoyant step of a happy lover, but with head sunk upon his breast and eyes lowered to the ground. Will he lift them as he approaches the gate? Will he smile, as in the olden time—the olden time that was yesterday—and raise his hand towards the gate and swing it back and enter with that lightsome air of his at once protecting and joy-inspiring? He looks very serious now, and his steps falter; but surely, surely, his love is not going to fail him at the crisis; surely, surely, he who has overlooked so much will not be daunted by the little more with which she has tried his devotion; surely, surely—— But his eyes do not lift themselves. He is at the gate, but his hand is not raised to it, and the smile does not come. He is going by, not on the other side of the street, but going by, going by, which means——
As the consciousness of what it did mean pierced her heart and soul, Hermione gave a great cry—she never knew how great a cry—and, staring like one demented after the beloved figure that in her disordered sight seemed to shrink and waver as it vanished, sank helpless upon the window sill, with her head falling forward, in a deadly faint.
Huckins, hearing that cry, slowly rubbed his hands together and smiled as the Dark One might smile at the sudden downfall of some doubtful soul. Then he passed softly to the door, and, shutting it carefully, came back and recommenced his restless pacings, but this time with an apparent purpose of investigation, for he opened and shut drawers, not quietly, but with a decided clatter, and peered here and there into bottles and jars, casting, as he did so, ready side-glances at the drooping figure from which the moans of a fatal despair were now slowly breaking.
When those moans became words, he stopped and listened, and this was what he heard come faltering from her lips:
"Twice! twice! Once when I felt myself strong and now when I feel myself weak. It is too much for a proud woman. I cannot bear it."
At this evidence of revolt and discouragement, Huckins' smile grew in its triumph. He seemed to glide nearer to her; yet he did not stir.
She saw nothing. If she had once recognized his presence, he was to her now as one blotted from existence. She was saying over and over to herself: "No hope! no hope! I am cursed! My father's hate reaches higher than my prayers. There is no escape; no love, no light. Solitude is before me; solitude forever. Believing this, I cannot live; indeed I cannot!"
As if this had been the word for which he was waiting, Huckins suddenly straightened up his lean figure and began himself to talk, not as she did, in wild and passionate tones, but in low, abstracted murmurs, as if he were too intent upon a certain discovery he had made to know or care whether there was or was not any one present to overhear his words.
And what did he say? what could he say at a moment like this? Listen and gauge the evil in the man, for it is deep as his avarice and relentless as his purpose to enjoy the riches which he considers his due. He is standing by a cabinet, the cabinet on the left of the room, and his hand is in a long and narrow drawer.
"What is this?" (Mark the surprise in his tone.) "A packet labelled Poison ? This is a strange thing to find lying about in an open drawer. Poison! I wonder what use brother Cavanagh had for poison?"
He pauses; was it because he had heard a moan or cry break from the spot where Hermione crouched against the wall? No, there was silence there, a deep and awful silence, which ought to have made the flesh creep upon his bones, but which, instead, seemed to add a greater innocence to his musing tones.
"I suppose it was what was left after some old experiment. It is very dangerous stuff. I should not like to drop these few grains of white powder upon my tongue, unless I wanted to be rid of all my troubles. Guess I had better shake the paper out of the window, or those girls will come across it some day, and may see that word Poison and be moved by it. Life in this house hasn't many attractions."
Any sound now from that dim, distant corner? No, silence is there still; deadly silence. He smiles darkly, and speaks again; very low now, but oh, how clearly!
"But what business is it of mine? I find poison in this drawer, and I leave it where I find it, and shut the drawer. It may be wanted for rats, and it is always a mistake for old folks to meddle. But I should like to; I'd like to throw this same innocent-looking white powder out of the window; it makes me afraid to think of it lying shut up here in a drawer so easily opened—— My child! Hermione!" he suddenly shrieked, "what do you want?"
She was standing before him, a white and terrible figure.
"Nothing," came from her set lips, in a low and even tone; but she laid one hand upon the drawer he had half shut and with the other pointed to the door.
He shrank from her, appalled perhaps at his work; perhaps at her recognition of it.
"Don't," he feebly protested, shaking with terror, or was it with a hideous anxiety? "There is poison in that drawer; do not open it."
"Go for my sister," was the imperious command. "I have no use for you here, but for her I have."
"You won't open that drawer," he prayed, as he retreated before her eyes in frightened jerks and breathless pauses.
"I tell you I do not need you," she repeated, her hand still on the drawer, her form rigid, her face blue-white and drawn.
"I—I will bring Emma," he faltered, and shambled across the threshold, throwing back upon her a look she may have noted and may not, but which if she had understood, would certainly have made her pause. "I will go for Emma," he said again, closing the door behind him with a touch which seemed to make even that senseless wood fall away from him. Then he listened—listened instead of going for the gentle sister whose presence might have calmed the turbulent spirit he had just left. And as he listened his face gradually took on a satisfied look, till, at a certain sound from within, he allowed his hands the luxury of a final congratulatory rub, and then gliding from the place, went below.
Emma was standing in the parlor window, fixed in dismay at the sight of Frank's going by without word or look; but Huckins did not stop to give her the message with which he had been entrusted. Instead of that he passed into the kitchen, and not till he had crossed the floor and shambled out into the open air of the garden did he venture to turn and say to the watching Doris:
"I am afraid Miss Hermione is not quite well."