“Then may God do to you as you have done to me and mine!” she said.
“Amen!” returned Wingfold and Polwarth together.
The door of the dressing-room opened, and out came Leopold, his white face shining.
“How do you know that?” said his sister, in the hoarse accents of unbelieving despair.
“Because he has made me strong to do my duty. He has reminded me that another man may be accused of my crime, and now to conceal myself were to double my baseness.”
“It will be time enough to think of that when there is a necessity for it. The thing you imagine may never happen,” said Helen, in the same unnatural voice.
“Leave it,” cried Leopold, “until an innocent man shall have suffered the torture and shame of a false accusation, that a guilty man may a little longer act the hypocrite! No, Helen, I have not fallen so low as that yet. Believe me, this is the only living hour I have had since I did the deed!”
But as he spoke, the light died out of his face, and ere they could reach him he had fallen heavily on the floor.
“You have killed him!” cried Helen, in a stifled shriek, for all the time she had never forgotten that her aunt might hear.
But the same moment she caught from his condition a lurid hope.
“Go, I beg of you,” she said--“by the window there, before my aunt comes. She must have heard the fall. There is the key of the door below.”
The men obeyed, and left the house in silence.
It was some time before Leopold returned to consciousness. He made no resistance to being again put to bed, where he lay in extreme exhaustion.
The next day he was much too exhausted and weak to talk about anything. He took what his sister brought him, smiled his thanks, and once put up his hand and stroked her cheek. But her heart was not gladdened by these signs of comparative composure, for what gave him quiet but the same that filled her with unspeakable horror?
The day after that was Saturday, and George Bascombe came as usual. The sound of his step in the hall made her dying hope once more flutter its wings: having lost the poor stay of the parson, from whom she had never expected much, she turned in her fresh despair to the cousin from whom she had never looked for anything. But what was she to say to him?--Nothing yet, she resolved; but she would take him to see Leopold--for was he not sure to hear that the parson had been admitted? She did not feel at all certain that she was doing right, but she would do it; and if she left them together, possibly George might drop some good PRACTICAL advice, which, though spoken in ignorance, might yet tell. George was such a healthy nature and such a sound thinker! Was it not as ridiculous as horrible for any man to think he had a right to throw away his very existence, and bring disgrace upon his family as well, for a mere point of honour--no, not honour, mere fastidiousness!