LITMIR.BIZ

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at peace with all the world?' and I said, 'All but one[5].' You know who.”

      “The Captain's brother? Oh, don't die at enmity with anybody. Don't die at enmity even with him,” pleaded Sarah.

      “The clergyman said so too,” murmured Mrs. Treverton. “'You must forgive him,' the clergyman said. And I said, 'No, I forgive all the world, but not my husband's brother.' The clergyman will pray for me and come back. Will he come back?”

      “Yes, yes,” answered Sarah. “He is a good man – he will come back – and oh! tell him that you forgive the Captain's brother! Those vile words he spoke of you when you were married will come home to him some day. Forgive him-forgive him before you die!”

      Sarah attempted to remove the Bible softly out of her mistress's sight. The action attracted Mrs. Treverton's attention.

      “Stop!” she cried.

      She caught at Sarah's hand with a great effort, placed it on the Bible, and held it there.

      “Ah!” she said, “Sarah; you can't deceive me even yet.”

      She stopped again, smiled a little, whispered to herself rapidly,

      “Wait, wait, wait!” then added aloud, with the old stage voice and the old stage gesture:

      “No! I won't trust you on your promise. I'll have your oath. Kneel down. These are my last words in this world – disobey them if you dare!”

      Sarah dropped on her knees by the bed.

      “Swear!” said Mrs. Treverton. “Swear that you will not destroy this paper after I am dead.”

      Sarah answered faintly,

      “I swear it.”

      “Swear that you will not take this paper away with you, if you leave the house, after I am dead.”

      Again Sarah said,

      “I swear it.”

      “Swear!” Mrs. Treverton began for the third time.

      Her voice failed.

      “I haven't done – you must swear – close, close, come close – your master – swear to give it – ”

      The last words died away very softly. The lips closed. Sarah sprang to the door, opened it, and called for help. Then she ran back to the bedside, caught up the sheet of the paper, and hid it in her bosom.

      The doctor entered the room. He spoke first to the servant who followed him.

      “Go to your master,” he said, “and beg him to wait in his own room until I can come and speak to him.”

      Then he said to Sarah,

      “Let me recommend you to leave us for a little while.”

      He touched Sarah on the arm. She went out.

      Chapter II

      Sarah Leeson turned the key of her bedroom door, and took the sheet of the paper from its place of concealment in her bosom. She placed it on her little dressing-table, and fixed her eyes eagerly on the lines. The characters were clear. There was the address: “To my Husband;” there the first line beneath, in her dead mistress's handwriting; there the lines that followed, with the signature at the end – Mrs. Treverton's first, and then her own. Sarah Leeson read the few lines as a condemned prisoner.

      The oath! Sarah pushed away the paper and rose to her feet. Then she began to talk to herself. She repeated incessantly the phrases:

      “How can I give him the letter? Such a good master; so kind to us all. Why did she die, and leave it all to me? I can't bear it alone; it's too much for me!”

      Then she read aloud the address again,

      “To my Husband… Why give it to him at all? Why not let the secret die with her and die with me? Why must he know it? He won't know it!”

      She opened the door and glided into the passage. She stopped there for a moment and hesitated a little, then whispered, “I must! I must!”

      She descended very slowly. The door of Mrs. Treverton's bedroom was opened, when she knocked at it.

      “I want to speak to my master.”

      “Look for him somewhere else. He was here half an hour ago,” said the nurse.

      “Do you know where he is?”

      “No. I mind my own business[6].”

      With that discourteous answer, the nurse closed the door. Sarah looked toward the inner end of the passage. The door of the nursery was situated there. It was ajar. She went in immediately, and saw that the candle-light came from an inner room. It was usually occupied by the nursery-maid and by the only child of the house of Treverton – a little girl named Rosamond, aged, at that time, nearly five years.

      “Can he be there? In that room!”

      Sarah raised the letter to the bosom of her dress, and hid it for the second time. Then she came toward the inner room. The first object that attracted her attention in the child's bedroom was the figure of the nurse-maid. The nurse-maid was asleep, in an easy-chair by the window.

      Then Sarah saw her master, by the side of the child's crib. Little Rosamond was awake, and was standing up in bed with her arms round her father's neck. One of her hands held over his shoulder the doll, the other was twined gently in his hair.

      The tears stood thick in Sarah's eyes. She lingered by the raised curtain. Then Captain Treverton said soothingly to the child:

      “Hush, Rosie, dear! Hush, my love! Don't cry anymore for poor mamma. Think of poor papa, and try to comfort him.”

      Sarah Leeson turned and ran into the passage. She descended to the kitchen. There one of the servants, with a face of astonishment and alarm, asked:

      “What is the matter?”

      “I'm ill – I'm faint – I want air,” she answered. “Open the garden door, and let me out[7].”

      The man obeyed doubtfully.

      “She is very strange,” he said, when he rejoined his fellow-servant. “Now our mistress is dead, she will have to find another place, I suppose.”

      Chapter III

      The cool, sweet air in the garden calmed the violence of Sarah's agitation. She overlooked the church of the neighboring village. The old church was clear and bright. Sarah's eyes wandered from the building itself to the cemetery by its side.

      “Oh, my heart! my heart!” she said.

      She was pondering over the words which Captain Treverton said to the child. They seemed to connect themselves, as everything else now appeared to connect itself in her mind, with the letter. She drew it from her bosom once more, and crushed it up angrily in her fingers. She crossed the terrace, descended some wooden steps, and followed a shrubbery path to the north side of the house.

      This part of the building was uninhabited. The mansion was originally built in the form of a square. Of the many defenses of the place, a heavy tower remained (from which the house derived its name of Porthgenna Tower).

      The windows were broken in some places, and covered thickly with dirt and dust in others. Here, the shutters were closed – there, they were only half opened. The ivy, the vegetation, the spiders' webs, the rubbish of wood, bricks, plaster, broken glass, rags, and strips of soiled cloth lay beneath the windows.

      Sarah Leeson strayed into the deserted northern garden. She stopped on an open patch of ground.

      “What binds me to give the letter to my master at all?” she thought to herself. “My mistress died without my oath. Can she visit me from the other world? I can keep the promises[8] I swore to observe, and do no more.”

      She paused. Her superstitious fears were influencing

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