"Don't say it again--I must hope, Harriet, and you drive me mad by this excitability. What have you done?"

"Strengthened his courage--been rewarded by the 'G.o.d bless you, Harriet!' which escaped him."

"Did he say no more?"

"Nothing but 'Too late!' In his heart he must feel that he will _die_, or he would not have said that. Oh! those awful words, which will ring in our ears and be our torment when this is over. Mattie, I must stop it!"

Mattie held the excited girl in her own strong arms, and backed her to a greater distance from the door of the room where Sidney was; at the same moment the banker returned from his fugitive interview with his nephew, and stood at the window taking snuff by wholesale. A confusion seemed to suddenly pervade the scene; an a.s.sistant, then another entered, and pa.s.sed into Sidney's room; a third a.s.sistant ushered across the room wherein they waited, a physician, with whom Mr. Geoffry Hinchford shook hands, and took snuff for an instant. Maurice looked through the curtain for an instant, held up his hand, and then withdrew again. The instant afterwards the door was locked on the inner side, and a silence as of death settled upon the three watchers without.

All was still; the thick walls and the closed doors deadened every sound. Once and only once Dr. Bario's voice giving some orders startled the banker and the two girls cowering at the extremity of the room.

"How still!" whispered Harriet at last, and Mattie bade her be silent.

Mattie was listening with strained ears for sounds from within, and the fear that had beset Harriet settled at last upon herself and unnerved her. How long would it be now, each thought and wondered--minutes, hours, or what?

"This waiting is very awful," said Mr. Geoffry Hinchford, suddenly, and Mattie bade him hush also, in an angry tone that made him jump again.

Suddenly the door was unlocked, and the three started up with clenched hands and suspended breath. Two of the a.s.sistants came forth hurriedly, and went out of the room. To the eager questions that were put to them they answered something in Italian, and balked the longing of their questioners. Then Maurice appeared, and cried,

"Success!--success! A statue in gold for Dr. Bario! The----"

"Hinchford," called the doctor from within, "come back--he calls you."

"No, not me," said Maurice, whose ears caught the English accent more perfectly, "_he calls Harriet_--may she come?"

"Yes, for an instant--quick!"

Harriet darted across the room with a suppressed cry; the old fear had seized her again.

"He is dying!--I knew it!"

"No, no, he will live for you!" cried Mattie, wringing her hands together; "go to him!"

Harriet pa.s.sed into the room, and recoiled for an instant at the utter darkness and blackness of the place she had left so light. Maurice put his hands upon her wrist, and drew her forwards. Dr. Bario's voice arrested him.

"He has fainted--take her out again. He must speak to no one any more to-day."

"But he will die!--oh! sir, will he not die?" cried Harriet.

"He will live; he will be as well in three weeks as ever--please withdraw."

Harriet and Maurice Hinchford came back together.

"There is no use in waiting," Maurice said; "the result is as successful as I antic.i.p.ated. Let me recommend you to return home at once, Miss Wesden. Miss Gray will accompany you, I am sure."

"Mattie, will you come with me?" asked Harriet, faintly.

Mattie moved like an automaton towards her, and the two went out together arm-in-arm, down the broad staircase to the hall, from the hall to the street, where Maurice's cab still waited for them.

"I am faint and ill, Mattie," said Harriet, sinking back.

"Will you rest awhile?"

"No--let us get home at once. How coldly and quietly you take this news, Mattie!" she said, looking intently at her; "ah! if you had only loved him like me all your life!"

"If I had!" murmured Mattie, "_this_ would have broken my heart!"

"Hearts don't break with joy, Mattie, or I should not see another morning."

"No. You are right--not with joy!"

CHAPTER V.

STRUGGLING.

Had Harriet Wesden been less disturbed by all the trials of that day, she might have wondered more at Mattie's manner, and have guessed more shrewdly at the truth. But she had suspected unjustly; and feeling now that Sidney loved her, and had always loved her, there were dissipated for ever all bitter memories. It was Mattie's turn to change, but Harriet did not notice it at that time; Mattie had become distant, grave; in the first shock of the real truth--though Mattie had seen it advancing, and thought herself prepared to meet it--it was impossible to smile and feel content. Harriet was anxious that the old friend should stay with her at Camberwell for awhile, but Mattie was firm in her refusal.

"I must get home--I am very weary!" she murmured.

So they had parted, and Mattie had returned home to offer the great news concerning Sidney, and then escape to her room and be seen no more that night. What happened on that night--what resolves, what struggles, we need not dwell on here; she was one who had been injured--the best of women come in for the greatest injuries at times--and it was not a night's thought or struggle which could set her right. She was a heroine, but she was a woman--and women brood on matters which affect the heart for a long, long time after we have been deceived by their looks.

Mattie did not blame Sidney; she saw how far he had been led to deceive himself, and how far pity and grat.i.tude had betrayed him; she knew that he considered himself bound to her still, and that only her word could release him from his. She felt that he was miserable like herself, and she fretted impatiently for the day when she could let him go free to his sphere, and to the only woman whom he had loved.

But the change had not been good for her; she was not resigned yet; her heart was in rebellion. Life before her seemed a dreary vista--a blankness on which no light could shine; ever in the world ahead, she traced her figure plodding onwards without a motive in life, or a hope that had not been lost in it--from first to last, only in various disguises, and on different roads, ever the Stray!

Was she better off now than in the old, old days when she walked the London streets bare-footed, and sang or begged for bread--even stole for it once or twice? No one had loved her then, or taken heed of her; a few had pitied her at that time as they might pity her in this, if she were weak enough to tell her story to them. Her father would pity her, but did he love her, she thought gloomily? She was not inclined to do him justice in that dark estate of hers; he had never wholly understood her; she had become a necessity to his existence, and he was grateful for it, as Sidney had been grateful--nothing more! Yes, she stood alone--for the love and generous hearts around her womanhood, she might be on a mountain top, with the cold, unsympathetic winds freezing her as she lingered there. Almost with regret she looked back at the past, and wondered if it had been well to save her from the dangers that surrounded her; she might have fought against them, and grown up more ignorant perhaps, but more loved. In a different sphere she would have made different friends, and known nothing of this _genteel_ life, where there had been no happiness, and much trouble and remorse!

Hence, by noting Mattie's thoughts, we arrive at the conclusion that this was Mattie's darkest hour; that a change had befallen her which time might remedy, or might harden within her to a wrong--it depended upon the forces brought to bear upon her, and her own heart's strength.

She had heard nothing of Sidney since the experiment in a direct manner.

Maurice had met her father in the streets, and informed him that all was progressing well, and Sidney was gaining ground rapidly--that had been "information enough for the Grays," Mattie thought, a little bitterly; there was no occasion for further visits to out-of-the-way districts, now the banker's son could exult over the result of his scheming! From Harriet no news had reached her, and Mattie had not sallied forth in search of her. The day on which Mattie was to have made up her mind and answered Sidney came and went without anyone taking heed of it. When would the sign come that he remembered her?--what would he do and say when he was well again?--what would he think of _her_?

Mr. Gray did not observe any particular change in his daughter; she was graver and more thoughtful, but he attributed that to her concern for Sidney's recovery. Once he was about to speak of Sidney's proposal to Mattie, and was asked, almost imploringly, to say no more; but he was not alarmed. Mattie was nervous still, and had not recovered the shock yet. She was his dutiful daughter whom he loved, and though her grave face did not become her years, still it was the face of a girl who took things studiously and reverently, and he was proud of it. Serious people suited Mr. Gray; his daughter was becoming every day more worthy of him, thank G.o.d!

Still there was one watcher on whom Mattie had not reckoned--a watcher who knew all the story, and guessed more than Mattie could have wished--to whom every change in Mattie was a thing of moment, which affected her. This humble agent, who had watched thus, since the time Mattie was a child, had some inkling of the truth--hearts that have but one idol are sensitive enough. Through the stolidity, the inflexibility of Mattie, Ann Packet read the despair, and charged it with her honest force.

One night, when Mattie thought that the house was quiet for good--meaning by that, that her father and Ann Packet were in their rooms, and asleep--she was sitting by her little toilet-table, dwelling upon a hundred a.s.sociations, that all verged to one common centre, when a tapping on the panels of her door startled her.

"Who's there?" she asked; "is that you, Ann?"

"Yes--let me in."

She demanded it as a right, rather than as a favour, but Mattie admitted her without opposition. Ann Packet entered with her cap awry--hanging in fact, by strange filaments, to her back comb--and she placed herself in front of Mattie, with her arms akimbo, quite defiantly.

"Now, what's the matter with _you_?"