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Two days had passed. Hermione was sitting in the cheerful sitting-room with the choicest of flowers about her and the breeze from the open window fluttering gayly in her locks. She was weak yet, but there was promise of life in her slowly brightening eye, and from the language of the smile which now and then disturbed the lines of her proud lips, there was hope of happiness in the heart which but two short days before had turned from life in despair.
Yet it was not a perfect hope, or the smiles would have been deeper and more frequent. She had held a long talk with Frank, but he had not touched upon a certain vital question, perhaps because he felt she had not yet the strength to argue it. He was her lover and anticipated marrying her, but he had not said whether he expected her to disobey her father and leave her home. She felt that he must expect this; she also felt that he had the right to do so; but when she thought of yielding to his wishes, the old horror returned to her, and a suffocating feeling of fear, as if it would never be allowed. The dead have such a hold upon us. As the pleasure of living and the ecstasy of love began to make themselves felt again in her weakened frame, she could not refrain from asking herself by what right she contemplated taking up the joys of life, who had not only forfeited them by her attempt at suicide, but who had been cursed by a father and doomed by his will to perpetual imprisonment. Had he not said, "Let not hatred, let not love , lead you to leave these doors"? How then presume to think of it or dream that she could be happy with such remembrances as hers ever springing up to blight her life? She wished, oh! how she wished, that Frank would not ask her to leave her home. Yet she knew this was weakness, and that soon, at the next interview, perhaps, she would have to dash his hopes by speaking of her fears. And so Hermione was not perfectly happy.
Emma, on the contrary, was like a bird loosed from a cage. She sang, yes, sang as she flitted up and down the stairs, and once Hermione started and blushed with surprise as her voice in a merry peal of laughter came from the garden. Such a sound had not been heard in that house for a year; such a sound seemed an anomaly there. Yet how sweet it was, and how it seemed to lift the shadows.
There was another person who started as this unusual note of merriment disturbed the silence of the garden. It was Huckins, who was slowly walking up and down beneath the poplars. He was waiting for Doris, and this sound went through him like an arrow.
"Laughter," he muttered, shaking his trembling hands in menace towards her. "That is a sound I must crush. It speaks too much of hope, and hope means the loss to me of all for which I have schemed for years. Why didn't that poison work? Why did I let that doctor come? I might have locked the door against him and left them to hunt for the key. But I was afraid; that Etheridge is so ready to suspect me."
He turned and walked away from the house. He dreaded to hear that silvery sound again.
"If she had died, as I had every reason to suspect after such a dose, Emma would have followed her in a day. And then who could have kept me out of my property? Not Etheridge, for all his hatred and suspicion of me." He shook his hand again in menace and moved farther down the path.
As his small black figure disappeared up the walk Doris appeared at the kitchen door. She also looked cheerful, yet there was a shade of anxiety in her expression as she glanced up the walk.
"He says he is going away," she murmured. "The shock of Miss Hermione's illness was too much for him, poor man! and he does not seem to consider how lonesome I will be. If only he had asked me to go with him! But then I could not have left the young ladies; not while they stick to this old horror of a house. What is it, Miss Emma?"
"A four-leaved clover! one, two, three of them," cried her young mistress from the lawn at the side of the house. "We are in luck! Times are going to change for us all, I think."
"The best luck we can have is to quit this house forever," answered Doris, with a boldness unusual on her lips.
"Ah," returned Emma, with her spirits a little dashed, "I cannot say about that, but we will try and be happy in it."
"Happy in it!" repeated Doris, but this time to herself. "I can never be happy in it, now I have had my dreams of pleasure abroad." And she left the kitchen door and began her slow walk towards the end of the garden.
Arrived at the place where Huckins waited for her, she stopped.
"Good afternoon," said she. "Pleasant strolling under these poplars."
He grunted and shook his head slowly to and fro.
"Nothing is very pleasant here," said he. "I have stood it as long as I can. My nieces are good girls, but I have failed to make them see reason, and I must leave it now to these two lovers of theirs to do what they can."
"And do you think they will succeed? That the young ladies will be influenced by them to break up their old habits?"
This was what Huckins did think, and what was driving him to extremity, but he veiled his real feelings very successfully under a doleful shake of the head.
"I do not know," said he. "I fear not. The Cavanagh blood is very obstinate, very obstinate indeed."
"Do you mean," cried Doris, "that they won't leave the house to be married? That they will go on living here in spite of these two young gentlemen who seem to be so fond of them?"
"I do," said he, with every appearance of truth. "I don't think anything but fire will ever drive them out of this house."
It was quietly said, almost mournfully, but it caused Doris to give a sudden start. Looking at him intently, she repeated "Fire?" and seemed to quake at the word, even while she rolled it like a sweet morsel under her tongue.
He nodded, but did not further press the subject. He had caught her look from the corner of his eye, and did not think it worth while to change his attitude of innocence.
"I wish," he insinuated, "there was another marriage which could take place."
"Another marriage?" she simpered.
"I have too much money for one to spend," said he. "I wish I knew of a good woman to share it."
Doris, before whose eyes the most dazzling dreams of wealth and consequence at once flashed, drooped her stout figure and endeavored to look languishing.
"If it were not for my duty to the young ladies," sighed she.
"Yes, yes," said he, "you must never leave them."
She turned, she twisted, she tortured her hands in her endeavor to keep down the evidences of her desire and her anxiety.
"If—if this house should be blown down in a storm or—or a fire should consume it as you say, they would have to go elsewhere, have to marry these young men, have to be happy in spite of themselves."
"But what cyclones ever come here?" he asked, with his mockery of a smile. "Or where could a fire spring from in a house guarded by a Doris?"
She was trembling so she could not answer. "Come out here again at six o'clock," said she; "they will miss me if I stay too long now. Oh, sir, how I wish I could see those two poor loves happy again!"
"How I wish you could!" said he, and there was nothing in his tone for her ears but benevolence.
As Huckins crept from the garden-gate he ran against Frank, who was on his way to the station.
"Oh, sir," he exclaimed, cringing, "I am sure I beg your pardon. Going up to town, eh?"
"Yes, and I advise you to do the same," quoth the other, turning upon him sharply. "The Misses Cavanagh are not well enough at present to entertain visitors."
"You are no doubt right," returned Huckins with his meekest and most treacherous aspect. "It is odd now, isn't it, but I was just going to say that it was time I left them, much as I love the poor dears. They seem so happy now, and their prospects are so bright, eh?"
"I hope so; they have had trouble enough."
"Um, um, they will go to Flatbush, I suppose, and I—poor old outcast that I am—may rub my hands in poverty."
He looked so cringing, and yet so saturnine, that Frank was tempted to turn on his heel and leave him with his innuendoes unanswered. But his better spirit prevailing, he said, after a moment's pregnant silence:
"Yes; the young ladies will go to Flatbush, and the extent of the poverty you endure will depend upon your good behavior. I do not think either of your nieces would wish to see you starve."
"No, no, poor dears, they are very kind, and the least I can do is to leave them. Old age and misery are not fit companions for youth and hope, are they, Mr. Etheridge?"
"I have already intimated what I thought about that."
"So you have, so you have. You are such a lawyer, Mr. Etheridge, such an admirable lawyer!"
Frank, disgusted, attempted to walk on, but Huckins followed close after him.
"You do not like me," he said. "You think because I was violent once that I envy these sweet girls their rights. But you don't know me, Mr. Etheridge; you don't know my good heart. Since I have seen them I have felt very willing to give up my claims, they are such nice girls, and will be so kind to their poor old uncle."
Frank gave him a look as much as to say he would see about that, but he said nothing beyond a short "What train do you take?"
As Huckins had not thought seriously of taking any, he faltered for a moment and then blurted out:
"I shall get off at eight. I must say good-by to the young ladies, you know."
Frank, who did not recognize this must , looked at his watch and said:
"You have just a half hour to get the train with me; you had better take it."
Huckins, a little startled, looked doubtfully at the lawyer and hesitated. He did not wish to arouse his antagonism or to add to his suspicion; indeed it was necessary to allay both. He therefore, after a moment of silent contemplation of the severe and inscrutable face before him, broke into a short wheedling laugh, and saying, "I had no idea my company was so agreeable," promised to make what haste he could and catch the six o'clock train if possible.
But of course it was not possible. He had his second interview with Doris to hold, and after that was over there were the young ladies to see and impress with the disinterested state of his feelings. So that it was eight o'clock before he was ready to leave the town. But he did leave it at that hour, though it must have been with some intention of returning, or why did he carry away with him the key of the side-door of the old Cavanagh mansion?