Mattie caught her by the wrist, so that Harriet should not escape her, or hide any sign of emotion which she might wish to conceal when all was known.

"You must come! There is no excuse. In a few hours Sidney Hinchford may be dead!"

Did the change upon that face tell all, or was it the natural result of such news as Mattie had hissed forth?

"Dead!--dead did you say?" asked Harriet, hastily.

"I did not tell your father a few nights ago that Sidney had left us--I reserved the news for you, and then missed you going home. He is in the hands of clever and scientific men, who hope to cure him of his blindness."

"Yes--go on."

"But there is a chance of failure, which Sidney risks, and thinks, perhaps, too lightly of. That failure will not subject him to his old estate, but drive him mad, or kill him."

"And you have let him risk his life--_you_!"

Away went the ecclesiastical slippers to the other end of the room; some wool got entangled in her hands, and she snapped it impatiently in two in preference to unwinding it; she turned to Mattie, full of reproach, fear, and indignation. Yes, the love was living still! Mattie might have known long ago that it had never died away, and that to keep it in subjection had been the task which Harriet had set herself, and failed in.

"They will murder him!--you have let them take him away to work their dangerous experiments upon, and you will have to answer for this!"

"Sidney was resolved--his cousin wished it--I had no power to stop it."

"Mattie, he loves you. He would have done as you wished."

"Who says he loves me?" asked Mattie. "I have never uttered a word to give you that belief, Harriet--have I?"

"No--but----"

"I don't own it now--I say nothing, but ask you to come with me. If I loved him, or mistrusted you, should I be here?"

"What am I to do?" asked the bewildered Harriet. "Oh! tell me, what can I do?"

"Maurice Hinchford thinks it possible--I think it possible--that Sidney may wish to speak to you before or afterwards. We may retire and see him not, or we may face him. If it should end as we all pray not, and hope not, you, at least, must not be away!"

"No, no!--I would not be away from him for all the world," cried Harriet. "I will go with you at once."

She darted out of the room, and Mr. Wesden seemed to take her place as if by magic before Mattie.

"What's it all mean, my girl?"

Mattie had to struggle with many conflicting emotions, and sober down sufficiently to relate the nature of her visit. Before she had half finished her statement, Harriet was with them again.

"Let us go at once, Mattie!--father will hear all when I return."

She almost dragged Mattie from the room; they were both in the cab, and rattling away from Camberwell, before Mr. Wesden fully comprehended that they had left him.

"Mattie, it is kind of you to think of me at this time," said Harriet.

"You have read me more truly than I have read myself. I am a wicked and unjust woman."

"No--that's not true."

"I have had wicked thoughts of you--you that I have known so long, and should have estimated so truly, knowing what you have ever been to me.

But, oh! Mattie, I have been so wretched and unhappy, that you _will_ forgive me?"

"Don't say any more, please."

Harriet looked askance at the pale face beside her--the eyes were half closed, and the thin lips compressed.

"Do you feel ill?"

"No--the excitement of all this may have been a little too much for me--we will not talk of ourselves just now. Time enough for your confession, and for mine, when we return."

"How shall we return?--with what hopes or fears of him? What made his cousin and you think of me being near him? Did _he_ wish it?"

"I don't know."

"Has _he_ thought of me all this while?--loved me despite all? Oh! if that were true, Mattie."

"If it were true, Harriet--what a difference!"

"And now perhaps to die, and I never to know his real thoughts of me.

Well, I should die too--I'm sure of that now!"

"Harriet, you can trust me again?"

"Yes, with all my heart."

"Patience, then--we _will_ say no more until we are sure that the truth faces us."

They were silent for the remainder of the way; people who pa.s.sed on the footpath, and glanced towards the occupants of that private cab, wondered at the two pale, grave-faced women sitting side by side therein.

CHAPTER IV.

ALL THE TRUTH.

The house wherein Sidney was waiting for the best or worst, was situated in Bayswater. A house that had been taken at Maurice's expense, and by Dr. Bario's suggestion. The Italian doctor was a man with a love of effect--one of those stagey beings whom we meet occasionally in England, and more often on the Continent. He was fond of mystery; it enhanced the surprise, and gained him popularity. He was a clever man, but he was also a vain one.

His style of practice he kept to himself; whether his cures were effected by the common methods of treatment, or by methods of his own, were hard to arrive at; he bound his patients and his patients' friends to secrecy; some of his English medical contemporaries called him a quack, others a mad-man--a few, just a few, to leaven the ma.s.s, thought that there _was_ something in him. Abroad he was at the top of the tree and sought after--matter-of-fact England not being able to make him out, eyed him suspiciously.

Mattie and Harriet were ushered into a well-furnished room on the first floor, where Maurice Hinchford awaited them. He went towards them at once, and shook hands with them--even with Harriet Wesden, who had faced him with such stern words during their last interview. There was a common cause that bound all three together, and the past was forgotten.

"We are in time?" asked Mattie.

"Plenty of time, thank you."

"Where is Sidney?"