Arthur saw her as she came up the walk and went to meet her.

He was looking very pale and miserable, and his clothes hung loosely upon him; but he welcomed her kindly leading her in to the fire, and trying to believe that he was glad to see her sitting there with her little high-heeled boots upon the fender and the bright hues of her Balmoral just showing beneath her dress of blue merino.

She went all over the house, as she usually did, suggesting alterations and improvements, and greatly confusing good Mrs. Brown, who trudged obediently after her, wondering what she and her master were ever to do with that gay-plumaged bird, whose ways were so unlike their own.

"You must drive with me to the church," she said at last to Arthur, "Fresh air will do you good, and you stay moped up too much. I wanted you to-day at Prospect Hill, for this morning's express from New York brought----"

She stood up on tiptoe to whisper the great news to him, but his pulses did not quicken in the least, even when she told him how charming was the bridal dress. He was standing before the mirror and, glancing at himself, he said, half laughingly, half sadly:

"I am a pitiful-looking bridegroom to go with all that finery: I should not think you would want me, Lucy."

"But I do," she answered, holding his hand and leading him to the carriage, which took him to the church.

He had not intended going there as long as there was an excuse for staying away, and he felt himself grow sick and faint when he stood amid the Christmas decorations and remembered the last year when he and Anna had fastened the wreaths upon the wall.

They were tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the church very elaborately in honor of him and his bride, and white artificial flowers, so natural that they could not be detected, were mingled with scarlet leaves and placed among the ma.s.s of green. The effect was very fine and Arthur tried to praise it, but his face belied his words; and, after he was gone, the disappointed girls declared that he acted more like a man about to be hung than one so soon to be married.

It was very late that night when Lucy summoned Valencia to comb out her long, thick curls, and Valencia was tired, and cross, and sleepy, handling the brush so awkwardly and snarling her mistress's hair so often that Lucy expostulated with her sharply, and this awoke the slumbering demon, which, bursting into full life, could no longer be restrained; and, in amazement, which kept her silent, Lucy listened while Valencia taunted her "with standing in Anna Ruthven's shoes,"

and told her all she knew of the letter stolen by Mrs. Meredith, and the one she carried to Arthur. But Valencia's anger quickly cooled, and she trembled with fear when she saw how deathly white her mistress grew at first and heard the loud beating of her heart, which seemed trying to burst from its prison and fall bleeding at the feet of the poor, wretched girl, around whose lips the white foam gathered as she motioned Valencia to stop and whispered:

"I am dying!"

She was not dying, but the fainting fit which ensued was longer and more like death than that which had come upon Anna when she heard that Arthur was lost. Twice they thought her heart had ceased to beat, and, in an agony of remorse, Valencia hung over her, accusing herself as her murderer, but giving no other explanation to those around her than: "I was combing her hair when the white froth spirted all over her wrapper, and she said that she was dying."

And that was all the family knew of the strange attack, which lasted till the dawn of the day, and left upon Lucy's face a look as if years and years of anguish had pa.s.sed over her young head and left its footprints behind.

Early in the morning she asked to see Valencia alone, and the repentant girl went to her prepared to take back all she had said and declare the whole a lie. But Lucy wrung the truth from her, and she repeated the story again so clearly that Lucy had no longer a doubt that Anna was preferred to herself, and sending Valencia away, she moaned piteously:

"Oh, what shall I do? What is my duty?"

The part which hurt her most of all was the terrible certainty that Arthur did not love her as he loved Anna Ruthven. She saw it now just as it was; how, in an unguarded moment, he had offered himself to save her good name from gossip, and how, ever since, his life had been a constant struggle to do his duty by her.

"Poor Arthur," she sobbed, "yours has been a hard lot trying to act the love you did not feel; but it shall be so no longer. Lucy will set you free."

This was her final decision, but she did not reach it till a day and a night had pa.s.sed, during which she lay with her white face turned to the wall, saying she wanted nothing except to be left alone.

"When I can, I'll tell you," she had said to f.a.n.n.y and her aunt, when they insisted upon knowing the cause of her distress. "When I can I'll tell you. Leave me alone till then."

So they ceased to worry her, but f.a.n.n.y sat constantly in the room watching the motionless figure, which took whatever she offered, but otherwise gave no sign of life until the morning of the second day, when it turned slowly towards her, the livid lips quivering piteously and making an attempt to smile as they said:

"f.a.n.n.y, I can tell you now; I have made up my mind."

f.a.n.n.y's black eyes were dim with the truest tears she had ever shed when Lucy's story was ended, and her voice was very low as she asked:

"And do you mean to give him up at this late hour?"

"Yes, I mean to give him up. I have been over the entire ground many times, even to the deep humiliation of what people will say, and I have come each time to the same conclusion. It is right that Arthur should be released and I shall release him."

"And you--what will you do?" f.a.n.n.y asked, gazing in wonder and awe at the young girl, who answered:

"I do not know; I have not thought. I guess G.o.d will take care of that."

He would, indeed, take care of that just as he took care of her, inclining the Hetherton family to be so kind and tender towards her, and keeping Arthur from the house during the time when the Christmas decorations were completed and the Christmas festival was held.

Many were the inquiries made for her, and many the thanks and wishes for her speedy restoration sent her by those whom she had so bountifully remembered.

Thornton Hastings, too, who had come to town and was present at the church on Christmas-eve, asked for her with almost as much interest as Arthur, although the latter had hoped she was not seriously ill and expressed a regret that she was not there, saying he should call on her on the morrow after the morning service.

"Oh, I cannot see him here. I must tell him there, at the rectory, in the very room where he asked Anna and me both to be his wife," Lucy said when f.a.n.n.y reported Arthur's message. "I am able to go there and I must. It will be fine sleighing to-morrow. See, the snow is falling now," and pushing back the curtain, Lucy looked dreamily out upon the fast whitening ground, sighing, as she remembered the night when the first snowflakes fell and she stood watching them with Arthur at her side.

f.a.n.n.y did not oppose her cousin, and, with a kiss upon the blue-veined forehead, she went to her own room, leaving Lucy to think over for the hundredth time what she would say to Arthur.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHRISTMAS DAY.

The worshippers at St. Mark's on Christmas morning heard the music of the bells as the Hetherton sleigh pa.s.sed by, but none of them knew whither it was bound, or the scene which awaited the rector, when, his services over, he started towards home.

Lucy had kept her word, and, just as Mrs. Brown was looking at the clock to see if it was time to put her fowls to bake, she heard the hall-door open softly and almost dropped her dripping-pan in her surprise at the sight of Lucy Harcourt, with her white face and great sunken blue eyes, which looked so mournfully at her as Lucy said:

"I want to go to Arthur's room--the library, I mean."

"Why, child, what is the matter? I heard you was sick, but did not s'pose 'twas anything like this. You are paler than a ghost," Mrs.

Brown exclaimed as she tried to unfasten Lucy's hood and cloak and lead her to the fire.

But Lucy was not cold, she said. She would rather go at once to Arthur's room. Mrs. Brown made no objection, though she wondered if the girl was crazy as she went back to her fowls and Christmas pudding, leaving Lucy to find her way alone to Arthur's study, which looked so like its owner, with his dressing-gown across the lounge, just where he had thrown it, his slippers under the table and his arm-chair standing near the table, where he sat when he asked Lucy to be his wife, and where she now sat down, panting for breath and gazing dreamily around with the look of a frightened bird when seeking for some avenue of escape from an appalling danger. There was no escape, and, with a moan, she laid her head upon the table and prayed that Arthur might come quickly while she had sense and strength to tell him. She heard his step at last, and rose up to meet him, smiling a little at his sudden start when he saw her there.

"It's only I," she said, shedding back the cl.u.s.tering curls from her pallid face, and grasping the chair to steady herself and keep from falling. "I am not here to frighten you, I've come to do you good--to set you free. Oh, Arthur, you do not know how terribly you have been wronged, and I did not know it, either, till a few days ago. She never received your letter--Anna never did. If she had she would have answered yes, and have been in my place now; but she is going to be there. I give you up to Anna. I'm here to tell you so. But oh, Arthur, it hurts--it hurts."

He knew it hurt by the agonizing expression of her face, but he could not go near her for a moment, so overwhelming was his surprise at what he saw and heard. But, when the first shock to them both was past, and he could listen to her more rational account of what she knew and what she was there to do, he refused to listen. He would not be free. He would keep his word, he said. Matters had gone too far to be suddenly ended. He held her to his promise and she must be his wife.

"Can you tell me truly that you love me more than Anna?" Lucy asked, a ray of hope dawning for an instant upon her heart, but fading into utter darkness as Arthur hesitated to answer.

He did love Anna best, though never had Lucy been so near supplanting even her as at that moment, when she stood before him and told him he was free. There was something in the magnitude of her generosity which touched a tender chord and made her dearer to him than she had ever been.

"I can make you very happy," he said at last, and Lucy replied:

"Yes, but yourself--how with yourself? Would you be happy, too? No, Arthur, you would not, and neither should I, knowing all I do. It is best that we should part, though it almost breaks my heart, for I have loved you so much."

She stopped for breath, and Arthur was wondering what he could say to persuade her, when a cheery whistle sounded near and Thornton Hastings appeared in the door. He had gone to the office after church, and not knowing that anyone but Arthur was in the library, had come there at once.

"I beg your pardon," he said when he saw Lucy, and he was hurrying away, but Lucy called him back, feeling that in him she should find a powerful ally to aid her in her task.

Appealing to him as Arthur's friend, she repeated the story rapidly, and then went on: