“To me; but what if I had old Wilton here,” suggested Chewkle, with a savage cackle.
“Hush! hush!” exclaimed Grahame, in a whisper, “not so loud. Mind how you go, do not let the servants discover you, whatever you do, and, above all, be sure to neglect no precaution which may tend to ensure the success of your enterprise.”
Chewkle waved his hand exultingly, and disappeared.
The next morning he was on his way towards Harleydale Manor, bent on executing his murderous mission.
He gaz’d on her, and she on him; ‘twas strange
How like they looked! the expression was the same--
In the large dark eye’s mutual darted flame:
For she, too, was as one who could avenge--
If cause should be--a lioness though tame.
Her father’s blood, before her father’s face
Boil’d up, and prov’d her truly of his race.
In sobbing anguish, in cowering shame, in comparative privation, a little weeping, helpless, weak boy was ushered into life.
Oh! had that proud woman, the parent of the young mother, been present in that close chamber, where lay fainting the “flower of her flock,” her heartless pride must have received a blow which could scarcely have failed to prove beneficial to her humanity! It must surely have roused up some of those better feelings of womanly nature, of which none of the sex are wholly divested, unless they are lost indeed.
Upon a poorly furnished but clean bed lay stretched Helen Grahame, attended only by her ministering angel, Lotte Clinton.
The sudden and wholly unexpected interview with Lester Vane, the subsequent flight, with all its attendant anxieties, and apprehensions, and fatigues, all combined to do their work upon her weak frame.
At the expiration of three weeks, she was, however, so far recovered as to move about again; while Lotte was ill enough--although she would not acknowledge so much--to take her place in the bed Helen had quitted.
She had been Helen’s gentle nurse; and had attended her with patient, unwearying assiduity.
It was during this period that Helen’s little store of money was, for the first time, broken in upon.. Before the birth of the child, Lotte had been enabled to earn enough to support both--but to save nothing. When the time came that her whole attention was absorbed by Helen’s helpless prostration, her labours with her needle were necessarily stopped; but now that Helen had strength to get about again, and the money-hoard was growing very low, it became necessary that she should once more return to her close application in the task of bread-winning.