Helen and Arthur Part 30

"This is my sanctuary," she cried. "You have no right to intrude into it. Begone!--I will be alone."

"Mittie, I will not leave you here--you must return with me to your father's house. Think of the obloquy you may incur by remaining. Come, before another enters."

"If I go, _you_ will be suspected of releasing the prisoner, and suffer the penalty due for such an act. No, no, I have braved all consequences, and I dare to meet them."

"Then I leave you to inform the jailer of the flight of the prisoner. It is my duty."

"You will not do so mean and unmanly a deed!" springing between him and the door, and pressing her back against it. "You will not basely inform of him whom a young girl has had the courage to release. _You_--a man, will not do it. _Will you?_"

"An act of justice is never base or cowardly. Clinton is a convicted thief, and deserves the doom impending over such transgressors. He is an unprincipled and profligate young man, and unworthy the love of a pure-hearted woman. He has tempted your brother from the paths of virtue, repaid your confidence with the coldest treachery, violated the laws of G.o.d and man, and yet, unparalleled infatuation--you love him still, and expose yourself to slander and disgrace for his sake."

He spoke sternly, commandingly. He had tried reason and persuasion, he now spoke with authority, but it was equally in vain.

"Who told you that I love him?" she repeated. "'Tis false. I hate him. I hate him!" she again repeated, but her lips quivered, and her voice choked.

Arthur hailed this symptom of sensibility as a favorable omen. He had never intended to inform the jailer of Clinton's escape. He would not be instrumental to such an event himself, knowing, as he did, his guilt, but since it had been effected by another, he could not help rejoicing in heart. Perhaps Clinton might profit by this bitter lesson, and "reformation glittering over his faults"--efface by its l.u.s.tre the dark stain upon his name. And while he condemned the rashness and mourned for the misguided feelings of Mittie, he could not repress an involuntary thrill of admiration for her deep, self-sacrificing love. What a pity that a pa.s.sion so sublime in its strength and despair should be inspired by a being so unworthy.

"Will you not let me pa.s.s?" said he.

"Never, for such a purpose."

"I disclaim it altogether, I never intended to put in execution the threat I breathed. It was to induce you to leave this horrible place that I uttered it. I am ashamed of the subterfuge, though the motive was pure. Mittie, I entreat you to come with me; I entreat you with the sincerity of a friend, the earnestness of a brother. I will never breathe to a human being the mystery of Clinton's escape. I will guard your reputation with the most jealous vigilance. Not even my blind Alice shall be considered a more sacred trust than you, if you confide yourself to my protecting care."

"Are you indeed my friend?" she asked, in a softened voice, with a remarkable change in the expression of her countenance. "I thought you hated me."

"Hated you! What a suspicion!"

"You have always been cold and distant--never sought my friends.h.i.+p, or manifested for me the least regard. When I was but a child, and you first visited our family, I was attracted towards you, less by your gentle manners than your strong, controlling will. Had you shown as much interest in me as you did in Helen, you might have had a wondrous influence on my character. You might have saved me from that which is destroying me. But it is all past. You slighted me, and lavished all your care on Helen. Every one cared for Helen more than me, and my heart grew colder and colder to her and all who loved her. What I have since felt, and why I have felt it for others, G.o.d only knows. Others! Why should I say others? There never was but one--and that one, the false felon, whom I once believed an angel of light. And he, even he has thrown my heart back bleeding at my feet, for the love he bears to Helen."

"Which Helen values not," said the young doctor, half in a.s.sertion and half in interrogation.

"No, no," she replied, "a counter influence has saved her from the misery and shame."

Mittie paused, clasped her hands together, and pressed them tightly on her bosom.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, "it is no metaphor, when they talk of arrows piercing the breast. I feel them here."

Her countenance expressed physical suffering as well as mental agony.

She s.h.i.+vered with cold one moment, the next glowed with feverish heat.

Arthur took off his cloak, and folded it round her, and she offered no resistance. She was sinking into that pa.s.sive state, which often succeeds too high-wrought emotion.

"You are very kind," said she, "but _you_ will suffer."

"No--I am accustomed to brave the elements. But if you think I suffer, let us hasten to a warmer region. Give me your hand."

Firmly grasping it, he extinguished the lamp, and in total darkness they left the cell, groped through the long, narrow pa.s.sage, down the winding stairs, at the foot of which was the jailer's room. Arthur was familiar with this gloomy dwelling, so often had he visited it on errands of mercy and compa.s.sion. It was not the first time he had been entrusted with the key of the cells, though he suspected that it would be the last. The keeper, only half awakened, received the key, locked his own door, and went back to his bed, muttering that "there were not many men to be trusted, but the young doctor was one."

When Arthur and Mittie emerged from the dark prison-house into the clear, still moonlight, (for the moon had risen, and over the night had thrown a veil of silvery gauze,) Arthur's excited spirit subsided into peace, beneath its pale, celestial glory. Mittie thought of the fugitive, and shrunk from the beams that might betray his flight. The sudden barking of the watch-dog made her tremble. Even their own shadows on the white, frozen ground, she mistook for the avengers of crime, in the act of pursuit.

"What shall we do?" said Arthur, when, having arrived at Mr. Gleason's door, they found it fastened. "I wish you could enter un.o.bserved."

Mittie's solitary habits made her departure easy, and her absence unsuspected, but she could not steal in through the bolts and locks that impeded her admission.

"No matter," she cried, "leave me here--I will lie down by the threshold, and wait the morning. All places are alike to me."

Louis, whose chamber was opposite to Mittie's, in the front part of the house, and who now had many a sleepless night, heard voices in the portico, and opening the window, demanded "who was there?"

"Come down softly and open the door," said Arthur, "I wish to speak to you."

Louis hastily descended, and unlocked the door.

His astonishment, on seeing his sister with Arthur Hazleton, at that hour, when he supposed her in her own room, was so great that he held the door in his hand, without speaking or offering to admit them.

"Let us in as noiselessly as possible," said Arthur. "Take her directly to her chamber, kindle a fire, give her a generous gla.s.s of Port wine, and question her not to-night. Let no servant be roused. Wait upon her yourself, and be silent on the morrow. Good-night."

"It is too bright," whispered she, as Louis half carried her up stairs, stepping over the checker-work the moon made on the carpet.

"What is too bright, Mittie?"

"Nothing. Make haste--I am very cold."

Louis led Mittie to a chair, then lighting a candle, he knelt down and gathered together the still smoking brands. A bright fire soon blazed on the hearth, and illuminated the apartment.

"Now for the wine," said he.

"He is gone, Louis," said she, laying her hand on his arm. "He is fled.

I released him. Was it not n.o.ble in me, when he loves Helen, and he a thief, too?"

Louis thought she spoke very strangely, and he looked earnestly at her glittering eyes.

"I am glad of it!" he exclaimed--"he is a villain, but I am glad he is escaped. But you, Mittie--you should not have done this. How could you do it? Did Arthur Hazleton help you?"

"Oh, no! I did it very easily--I gave him your cloak and cap. You must not be angry, you shall have new ones. They fitted him very nicely. He would run faster, if my heart-strings did not get tangled round his feet, all bleeding, too. Don't you remember, Miss Thusa told you about it, long ago?"

"My G.o.d, Mittie! what makes you talk in that way? Don't talk so. Don't look so. For Heaven's sake, don't look so wild."

"I can't help it, Louis," said she, pressing her hands on the top of her head, "I feel so strange here. I do believe I'm mad."

She was indeed delirious. The fever which for many days had been burning in her veins, now lighted its flames in her brain, and raged for more than a week with increasing violence.

She did not know, while she lay tossing in delirious agony, that the fugitive, Clinton, had been overtaken, and brought back in chains to a more hopeless, because doubly guarded captivity.

Justice triumphed over love.

He who sows the wind, must expect to reap the whirlwind.