Decorated HeadingSTAGE V.Decorated horizntal rule.CHAPTER I.SARA.‘For life is not as idle ore,But iron dug from central gloom:And heated hot with burning fears,And dipped in baths of hissing tears,And battered with the strokes of doom,To shape and use.’Decorated Horizontal Rule.Ellen Nelsonhad conjured her young lady not to fret, for that there was no man in the world who was worth it. But her words had been spoken into ears made unconscious of their meaning by the heart’s agony–and foranswer, Miss Ford had fainted in her old nurse’s arms; or, if not absolutely fainting, she had been stunned and stupid with despair and the shock and horror of the blow. But that merciful unconsciousness did not last long. Soon she roused again to reality; opening her eyes, and perplexed at first to account for the blank dejection she felt–for the throbbing of her temples, and the aching of her heart. Then it all rushed over her mind: Ellen’s arrival; her brief, portentous words–the letter she had brought–Sara started up.‘Ellen, where is the letter I was reading?’‘Never mind the letter, Miss Ford. It will do you no good to read it.’‘I wish to see it. Give it to me, if you please.’Reluctantly, Ellen was obliged to yield up the hated scrap of paper, which her mistress read through again, with a calm and unmoved countenance. Then she took off Jerome’s ring, and with hands that were now as steady as need be, made it up into a little parcel, directedit, and said:‘Ellen, I am very sorry to send you out again, so tired as you are; but if you love me, you must go and put this in the post for me–get it registered, or whatever it needs–I don’t know. There is a quarter of an hour. I dare not trust it to anyone else.’‘Surely I will, ma’am, this moment. And ... you won’t be working yourself into a state again, while I am out?’‘Certainly not. Why should I? That packet that you hold in your hand–when it is safely gone, I shall be at peace.’‘I am glad of it, ma’am,’ said Ellen, taking the letter, and hastening as quickly as she might, to and from the Post-Office.On her return she found that her young lady had indeed not been idle. One end of the table was spread with a cloth, and she had placed upon it bread and butter, and cold meat. The gas-stand was lighted, and thelittle kettle upon it was singing cheerily–everything looked bright and cheerful, only that Miss Ford’s face was white and haggard, and her eyes hollow, while just between her eyebrows there was a slight fold, telling of a world of mental suffering.‘Miss Ford!’ exclaimed Ellen, almost shocked; ‘you shouldn’t have done that. I could have got my supper ready without so much trouble.’‘Come, sit down and refresh yourself, Ellen, for I am sure you will be tired,’ said Sara, composedly. And she insisted upon Ellen’s sitting down, and eating and drinking, while she asked little questions about England, sitting upright in her chair, and even laughing once or twice, but always with the same blanched face, the same unnatural fixity of the eyes; and once Ellen saw how, in a momentary silence, a visible shudder shook her–how she caught her breath and bit her lips.All this took away Ellen’s appetite. She scarcely ate anything, but professed herself mightily refreshed with what she had taken; and then she rose and began to take away the things, and suggested that it was time Miss Ford had her supper too.‘I don’t want anything, thank you,’ she said; and it was in vain that Ellen urged her to take something–a glass of wine; a bit of bread–for she dreaded the results of a long fast and a long vigil, coming upon this present mental and moral anguish.Sara refused, and there was that in her manner, with all its gentleness, which prevented Ellen from approaching a step nearer. She could only grieve silently, and wish intensely that her young lady had a single friend to whom to turn in this emergency. But there was no one, neither father nor mother nor brother, to help her with sympathising heart and strong protecting hand. There was no one but Ellen herself, and her mental attitude towards the girl always wasand had been one of deference, with all the motherly love she felt towards her. Amongst Miss Ford’s various friends and acquaintances at Elberthal, she could think only of one whose face had impressed her, whose manner and–to use the expressive German word–whose wholeWesenhad carried to her mind the conviction that he was trustworthy–and that was Rudolf Falkenberg. But he was, so far as she knew, a new friend, and a man; not one who could be appealed to in such a case. Thus, nothing remained to the poor woman but, when her mistress insisted upon it, to go to bed. She did so, on receiving from Sara a promise that she also would not be long in seeking her room.Wearied with five days’ almost incessant travelling, and exhausted with the mingled emotions which had filled the last forty-eight hours, Ellen, though she had determined not to rest till her mistress went to bed, was soon overcome with her fatigue, and dropped asleep; nor didshe awaken again until daylight, pouring into her room, told her it must be growing late. She sprang up, and throwing on a dressing-gown, opened the door and looked into the parlour. No one was there, and all was still. Perhaps Sara slept. Ellen knocked at the closed door of the bedroom, and was bidden by a composed but weary voice to come in. She entered, and saw that Sara had never undressed. She had thrown a wrapping gown about her, and was just then seated on a chair beside her bed, which, as Ellen saw with dismay, had not been disturbed. As the woman entered Sara looked at her–her face whiter than ever, her eyes distended, an expression of such blank, utter woe in her whole look and attitude as appalled Ellen, who said in a trembling tone:‘Child, you promised me to rest!’‘Did I, Ellen? Then I forgot it, and if I had remembered, I could not have kept my promise. I could not have lain still for two seconds.’‘But, Miss Sara, you’ll make yourself very ill, and you will break my heart.’‘Oh, what nonsense!’ she said, with a sound like a little laugh. ‘What is the use of lying down when one can’t sleep. By-and-by I shall be so tired that I can’t help sleeping, and when I feel like that, I will go to bed.’She folded her hands, and leaned back her head, and there was the same expression upon her face as that which had been there ever since she had given Ellen the little parcel containing Jerome’s ring to post–an expression like the changeless one of some beautiful marble mask from which a pair of restless, wretched human eyes looked forth, haunting all who can read the language they speak.Fear seized Ellen’s heart at the long duration of this strained, unnatural calm. She dreaded the end of it. A terrible vision of heryoung mistress, with perhaps reason for ever overturned, leading an existence worse than death, occurred to her.‘I wish he could see her,’ she thought bitterly. ‘It would haunt him to his dying day, and if it drove him mad, it is only what he would deserve. To think of an empty fool like that playing with the heart of a woman like this. ’Tis enough to make one believe there’s nothing but evil to prevail in the world.’She dressed herself hastily, and prepared some coffee, of which she induced Sara to partake. The day dragged on. No one came near. Even Falkenberg failed in his usual call. Sara said nothing to Ellen of any suffering she endured. The woman could only guess from the utter transformation of her usual ways and habits that she was enduring tortures, and her own pain and perplexity increased. Once Sara went to her studio, and began to paint; but in a moment she flung down brushand palette, and began to pace about the bare boards, restlessly.She did not resume the effort: it had been in the first instance mechanical.The day appeared like a week to Ellen. It was November, when the daylight soon faded. The weather was cold; there was a foretaste already of a biting winter, in a sharp, black frost, and a leaden sky, which caused the day to close in even earlier than usual.It was evening. Sara had taken up a book, and was gazing unseeingly at the page, and turning over the leaves restlessly. Suddenly she closed the book, and said:‘Is not this Wednesday, Ellen?’‘Yes, Miss Sara, it is.’‘It is Frau Wilhelmi’s evening at home. I shall go. And if I do, it is time to get ready at once. Will you just go and get my dress?’‘Miss Ford! you are not fit to go out,’ exclaimed Ellen, desperationlending boldness to her.Sara looked at her, and repeated her order. Ellen, in distress, asked which dress she would wear.‘Oh, any. The old black velvet–that will be best, for it is cold.’Ellen was perforce obliged to go and get out the dress, and help Sara to make her toilette, feeling all the time that it was as if she attired a ghost. When she was ready the young lady looked beautiful, as usual, but it was with a kind of beauty which no sane person cares to see. Face and lips were ghastly white; there was a deathlike composure and calm in her expression; only those beautiful eyes looked restlessly forth, dark and clouded, and full of a misery which surpassed the power of words to utter, or tears to alleviate. Sara hardly knew herself why she was going out; there was a vague consciousness that her own thoughts and the horrible suffering they brought with them werebecoming rapidly intolerable; that soon, if she did not see and speak to some other beings, she would shriek aloud, or lose her reason, or that something terrible would happen. She looked at herself in the glass, and Ellen suggested that she wanted a little rouge.‘Rouge!’ repeated Sara, laughing drily; ‘why, I am in a fever. Feel my hand!’Ellen took it, and incidentally felt as well, while her finger rested on Miss Ford’s wrist, that her pulse was beating with an abnormal rapidity. But the hand was burning as she had said.With a dark foreboding of evil, Ellen threw a cloak around the girl’s shoulders, and put on her own shawl and bonnet to accompany her, for the Wilhelmi’s house was hard by, and at Elberthal it was the custom to walk to every kind of entertainment.‘Oh, how cool and refreshing!’ exclaimed Sara with a deep sigh, as theicy air struck upon her burning face.Ellen’s reply was a shiver. They soon stood at the Wilhelmis’ door, and, as Ellen left her, Sara bade her return for her at half-past ten. It was then after half-past eight.The door was opened. Ellen watched her mistress as she passed into the blaze of light in the hall, and, standing there, unfastened her cloak. Then the door was closed again. Repressing her forebodings as well as she could, Ellen returned home, and set herself to counting the minutes until it should be time for her to return to Professor Wilhelmi’s.
Decorated HeadingSTAGE V.Decorated horizntal rule.CHAPTER I.SARA.‘For life is not as idle ore,But iron dug from central gloom:And heated hot with burning fears,And dipped in baths of hissing tears,And battered with the strokes of doom,To shape and use.’Decorated Horizontal Rule.Ellen Nelsonhad conjured her young lady not to fret, for that there was no man in the world who was worth it. But her words had been spoken into ears made unconscious of their meaning by the heart’s agony–and foranswer, Miss Ford had fainted in her old nurse’s arms; or, if not absolutely fainting, she had been stunned and stupid with despair and the shock and horror of the blow. But that merciful unconsciousness did not last long. Soon she roused again to reality; opening her eyes, and perplexed at first to account for the blank dejection she felt–for the throbbing of her temples, and the aching of her heart. Then it all rushed over her mind: Ellen’s arrival; her brief, portentous words–the letter she had brought–Sara started up.‘Ellen, where is the letter I was reading?’‘Never mind the letter, Miss Ford. It will do you no good to read it.’‘I wish to see it. Give it to me, if you please.’Reluctantly, Ellen was obliged to yield up the hated scrap of paper, which her mistress read through again, with a calm and unmoved countenance. Then she took off Jerome’s ring, and with hands that were now as steady as need be, made it up into a little parcel, directedit, and said:‘Ellen, I am very sorry to send you out again, so tired as you are; but if you love me, you must go and put this in the post for me–get it registered, or whatever it needs–I don’t know. There is a quarter of an hour. I dare not trust it to anyone else.’‘Surely I will, ma’am, this moment. And ... you won’t be working yourself into a state again, while I am out?’‘Certainly not. Why should I? That packet that you hold in your hand–when it is safely gone, I shall be at peace.’‘I am glad of it, ma’am,’ said Ellen, taking the letter, and hastening as quickly as she might, to and from the Post-Office.On her return she found that her young lady had indeed not been idle. One end of the table was spread with a cloth, and she had placed upon it bread and butter, and cold meat. The gas-stand was lighted, and thelittle kettle upon it was singing cheerily–everything looked bright and cheerful, only that Miss Ford’s face was white and haggard, and her eyes hollow, while just between her eyebrows there was a slight fold, telling of a world of mental suffering.‘Miss Ford!’ exclaimed Ellen, almost shocked; ‘you shouldn’t have done that. I could have got my supper ready without so much trouble.’‘Come, sit down and refresh yourself, Ellen, for I am sure you will be tired,’ said Sara, composedly. And she insisted upon Ellen’s sitting down, and eating and drinking, while she asked little questions about England, sitting upright in her chair, and even laughing once or twice, but always with the same blanched face, the same unnatural fixity of the eyes; and once Ellen saw how, in a momentary silence, a visible shudder shook her–how she caught her breath and bit her lips.All this took away Ellen’s appetite. She scarcely ate anything, but professed herself mightily refreshed with what she had taken; and then she rose and began to take away the things, and suggested that it was time Miss Ford had her supper too.‘I don’t want anything, thank you,’ she said; and it was in vain that Ellen urged her to take something–a glass of wine; a bit of bread–for she dreaded the results of a long fast and a long vigil, coming upon this present mental and moral anguish.Sara refused, and there was that in her manner, with all its gentleness, which prevented Ellen from approaching a step nearer. She could only grieve silently, and wish intensely that her young lady had a single friend to whom to turn in this emergency. But there was no one, neither father nor mother nor brother, to help her with sympathising heart and strong protecting hand. There was no one but Ellen herself, and her mental attitude towards the girl always wasand had been one of deference, with all the motherly love she felt towards her. Amongst Miss Ford’s various friends and acquaintances at Elberthal, she could think only of one whose face had impressed her, whose manner and–to use the expressive German word–whose wholeWesenhad carried to her mind the conviction that he was trustworthy–and that was Rudolf Falkenberg. But he was, so far as she knew, a new friend, and a man; not one who could be appealed to in such a case. Thus, nothing remained to the poor woman but, when her mistress insisted upon it, to go to bed. She did so, on receiving from Sara a promise that she also would not be long in seeking her room.Wearied with five days’ almost incessant travelling, and exhausted with the mingled emotions which had filled the last forty-eight hours, Ellen, though she had determined not to rest till her mistress went to bed, was soon overcome with her fatigue, and dropped asleep; nor didshe awaken again until daylight, pouring into her room, told her it must be growing late. She sprang up, and throwing on a dressing-gown, opened the door and looked into the parlour. No one was there, and all was still. Perhaps Sara slept. Ellen knocked at the closed door of the bedroom, and was bidden by a composed but weary voice to come in. She entered, and saw that Sara had never undressed. She had thrown a wrapping gown about her, and was just then seated on a chair beside her bed, which, as Ellen saw with dismay, had not been disturbed. As the woman entered Sara looked at her–her face whiter than ever, her eyes distended, an expression of such blank, utter woe in her whole look and attitude as appalled Ellen, who said in a trembling tone:‘Child, you promised me to rest!’‘Did I, Ellen? Then I forgot it, and if I had remembered, I could not have kept my promise. I could not have lain still for two seconds.’‘But, Miss Sara, you’ll make yourself very ill, and you will break my heart.’‘Oh, what nonsense!’ she said, with a sound like a little laugh. ‘What is the use of lying down when one can’t sleep. By-and-by I shall be so tired that I can’t help sleeping, and when I feel like that, I will go to bed.’She folded her hands, and leaned back her head, and there was the same expression upon her face as that which had been there ever since she had given Ellen the little parcel containing Jerome’s ring to post–an expression like the changeless one of some beautiful marble mask from which a pair of restless, wretched human eyes looked forth, haunting all who can read the language they speak.Fear seized Ellen’s heart at the long duration of this strained, unnatural calm. She dreaded the end of it. A terrible vision of heryoung mistress, with perhaps reason for ever overturned, leading an existence worse than death, occurred to her.‘I wish he could see her,’ she thought bitterly. ‘It would haunt him to his dying day, and if it drove him mad, it is only what he would deserve. To think of an empty fool like that playing with the heart of a woman like this. ’Tis enough to make one believe there’s nothing but evil to prevail in the world.’She dressed herself hastily, and prepared some coffee, of which she induced Sara to partake. The day dragged on. No one came near. Even Falkenberg failed in his usual call. Sara said nothing to Ellen of any suffering she endured. The woman could only guess from the utter transformation of her usual ways and habits that she was enduring tortures, and her own pain and perplexity increased. Once Sara went to her studio, and began to paint; but in a moment she flung down brushand palette, and began to pace about the bare boards, restlessly.She did not resume the effort: it had been in the first instance mechanical.The day appeared like a week to Ellen. It was November, when the daylight soon faded. The weather was cold; there was a foretaste already of a biting winter, in a sharp, black frost, and a leaden sky, which caused the day to close in even earlier than usual.It was evening. Sara had taken up a book, and was gazing unseeingly at the page, and turning over the leaves restlessly. Suddenly she closed the book, and said:‘Is not this Wednesday, Ellen?’‘Yes, Miss Sara, it is.’‘It is Frau Wilhelmi’s evening at home. I shall go. And if I do, it is time to get ready at once. Will you just go and get my dress?’‘Miss Ford! you are not fit to go out,’ exclaimed Ellen, desperationlending boldness to her.Sara looked at her, and repeated her order. Ellen, in distress, asked which dress she would wear.‘Oh, any. The old black velvet–that will be best, for it is cold.’Ellen was perforce obliged to go and get out the dress, and help Sara to make her toilette, feeling all the time that it was as if she attired a ghost. When she was ready the young lady looked beautiful, as usual, but it was with a kind of beauty which no sane person cares to see. Face and lips were ghastly white; there was a deathlike composure and calm in her expression; only those beautiful eyes looked restlessly forth, dark and clouded, and full of a misery which surpassed the power of words to utter, or tears to alleviate. Sara hardly knew herself why she was going out; there was a vague consciousness that her own thoughts and the horrible suffering they brought with them werebecoming rapidly intolerable; that soon, if she did not see and speak to some other beings, she would shriek aloud, or lose her reason, or that something terrible would happen. She looked at herself in the glass, and Ellen suggested that she wanted a little rouge.‘Rouge!’ repeated Sara, laughing drily; ‘why, I am in a fever. Feel my hand!’Ellen took it, and incidentally felt as well, while her finger rested on Miss Ford’s wrist, that her pulse was beating with an abnormal rapidity. But the hand was burning as she had said.With a dark foreboding of evil, Ellen threw a cloak around the girl’s shoulders, and put on her own shawl and bonnet to accompany her, for the Wilhelmi’s house was hard by, and at Elberthal it was the custom to walk to every kind of entertainment.‘Oh, how cool and refreshing!’ exclaimed Sara with a deep sigh, as theicy air struck upon her burning face.Ellen’s reply was a shiver. They soon stood at the Wilhelmis’ door, and, as Ellen left her, Sara bade her return for her at half-past ten. It was then after half-past eight.The door was opened. Ellen watched her mistress as she passed into the blaze of light in the hall, and, standing there, unfastened her cloak. Then the door was closed again. Repressing her forebodings as well as she could, Ellen returned home, and set herself to counting the minutes until it should be time for her to return to Professor Wilhelmi’s.
Decorated Heading
STAGE V.
Decorated horizntal rule.
‘For life is not as idle ore,But iron dug from central gloom:And heated hot with burning fears,And dipped in baths of hissing tears,And battered with the strokes of doom,To shape and use.’
‘For life is not as idle ore,But iron dug from central gloom:And heated hot with burning fears,And dipped in baths of hissing tears,And battered with the strokes of doom,To shape and use.’
‘For life is not as idle ore,But iron dug from central gloom:And heated hot with burning fears,And dipped in baths of hissing tears,And battered with the strokes of doom,To shape and use.’
‘For life is not as idle ore,But iron dug from central gloom:And heated hot with burning fears,And dipped in baths of hissing tears,And battered with the strokes of doom,To shape and use.’
‘For life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom:
And heated hot with burning fears,
And dipped in baths of hissing tears,
And battered with the strokes of doom,
To shape and use.’
Decorated Horizontal Rule.
Ellen Nelsonhad conjured her young lady not to fret, for that there was no man in the world who was worth it. But her words had been spoken into ears made unconscious of their meaning by the heart’s agony–and foranswer, Miss Ford had fainted in her old nurse’s arms; or, if not absolutely fainting, she had been stunned and stupid with despair and the shock and horror of the blow. But that merciful unconsciousness did not last long. Soon she roused again to reality; opening her eyes, and perplexed at first to account for the blank dejection she felt–for the throbbing of her temples, and the aching of her heart. Then it all rushed over her mind: Ellen’s arrival; her brief, portentous words–the letter she had brought–Sara started up.
‘Ellen, where is the letter I was reading?’
‘Never mind the letter, Miss Ford. It will do you no good to read it.’
‘I wish to see it. Give it to me, if you please.’
Reluctantly, Ellen was obliged to yield up the hated scrap of paper, which her mistress read through again, with a calm and unmoved countenance. Then she took off Jerome’s ring, and with hands that were now as steady as need be, made it up into a little parcel, directedit, and said:
‘Ellen, I am very sorry to send you out again, so tired as you are; but if you love me, you must go and put this in the post for me–get it registered, or whatever it needs–I don’t know. There is a quarter of an hour. I dare not trust it to anyone else.’
‘Surely I will, ma’am, this moment. And ... you won’t be working yourself into a state again, while I am out?’
‘Certainly not. Why should I? That packet that you hold in your hand–when it is safely gone, I shall be at peace.’
‘I am glad of it, ma’am,’ said Ellen, taking the letter, and hastening as quickly as she might, to and from the Post-Office.
On her return she found that her young lady had indeed not been idle. One end of the table was spread with a cloth, and she had placed upon it bread and butter, and cold meat. The gas-stand was lighted, and thelittle kettle upon it was singing cheerily–everything looked bright and cheerful, only that Miss Ford’s face was white and haggard, and her eyes hollow, while just between her eyebrows there was a slight fold, telling of a world of mental suffering.
‘Miss Ford!’ exclaimed Ellen, almost shocked; ‘you shouldn’t have done that. I could have got my supper ready without so much trouble.’
‘Come, sit down and refresh yourself, Ellen, for I am sure you will be tired,’ said Sara, composedly. And she insisted upon Ellen’s sitting down, and eating and drinking, while she asked little questions about England, sitting upright in her chair, and even laughing once or twice, but always with the same blanched face, the same unnatural fixity of the eyes; and once Ellen saw how, in a momentary silence, a visible shudder shook her–how she caught her breath and bit her lips.
All this took away Ellen’s appetite. She scarcely ate anything, but professed herself mightily refreshed with what she had taken; and then she rose and began to take away the things, and suggested that it was time Miss Ford had her supper too.
‘I don’t want anything, thank you,’ she said; and it was in vain that Ellen urged her to take something–a glass of wine; a bit of bread–for she dreaded the results of a long fast and a long vigil, coming upon this present mental and moral anguish.
Sara refused, and there was that in her manner, with all its gentleness, which prevented Ellen from approaching a step nearer. She could only grieve silently, and wish intensely that her young lady had a single friend to whom to turn in this emergency. But there was no one, neither father nor mother nor brother, to help her with sympathising heart and strong protecting hand. There was no one but Ellen herself, and her mental attitude towards the girl always wasand had been one of deference, with all the motherly love she felt towards her. Amongst Miss Ford’s various friends and acquaintances at Elberthal, she could think only of one whose face had impressed her, whose manner and–to use the expressive German word–whose wholeWesenhad carried to her mind the conviction that he was trustworthy–and that was Rudolf Falkenberg. But he was, so far as she knew, a new friend, and a man; not one who could be appealed to in such a case. Thus, nothing remained to the poor woman but, when her mistress insisted upon it, to go to bed. She did so, on receiving from Sara a promise that she also would not be long in seeking her room.
Wearied with five days’ almost incessant travelling, and exhausted with the mingled emotions which had filled the last forty-eight hours, Ellen, though she had determined not to rest till her mistress went to bed, was soon overcome with her fatigue, and dropped asleep; nor didshe awaken again until daylight, pouring into her room, told her it must be growing late. She sprang up, and throwing on a dressing-gown, opened the door and looked into the parlour. No one was there, and all was still. Perhaps Sara slept. Ellen knocked at the closed door of the bedroom, and was bidden by a composed but weary voice to come in. She entered, and saw that Sara had never undressed. She had thrown a wrapping gown about her, and was just then seated on a chair beside her bed, which, as Ellen saw with dismay, had not been disturbed. As the woman entered Sara looked at her–her face whiter than ever, her eyes distended, an expression of such blank, utter woe in her whole look and attitude as appalled Ellen, who said in a trembling tone:
‘Child, you promised me to rest!’
‘Did I, Ellen? Then I forgot it, and if I had remembered, I could not have kept my promise. I could not have lain still for two seconds.’
‘But, Miss Sara, you’ll make yourself very ill, and you will break my heart.’
‘Oh, what nonsense!’ she said, with a sound like a little laugh. ‘What is the use of lying down when one can’t sleep. By-and-by I shall be so tired that I can’t help sleeping, and when I feel like that, I will go to bed.’
She folded her hands, and leaned back her head, and there was the same expression upon her face as that which had been there ever since she had given Ellen the little parcel containing Jerome’s ring to post–an expression like the changeless one of some beautiful marble mask from which a pair of restless, wretched human eyes looked forth, haunting all who can read the language they speak.
Fear seized Ellen’s heart at the long duration of this strained, unnatural calm. She dreaded the end of it. A terrible vision of heryoung mistress, with perhaps reason for ever overturned, leading an existence worse than death, occurred to her.
‘I wish he could see her,’ she thought bitterly. ‘It would haunt him to his dying day, and if it drove him mad, it is only what he would deserve. To think of an empty fool like that playing with the heart of a woman like this. ’Tis enough to make one believe there’s nothing but evil to prevail in the world.’
She dressed herself hastily, and prepared some coffee, of which she induced Sara to partake. The day dragged on. No one came near. Even Falkenberg failed in his usual call. Sara said nothing to Ellen of any suffering she endured. The woman could only guess from the utter transformation of her usual ways and habits that she was enduring tortures, and her own pain and perplexity increased. Once Sara went to her studio, and began to paint; but in a moment she flung down brushand palette, and began to pace about the bare boards, restlessly.
She did not resume the effort: it had been in the first instance mechanical.
The day appeared like a week to Ellen. It was November, when the daylight soon faded. The weather was cold; there was a foretaste already of a biting winter, in a sharp, black frost, and a leaden sky, which caused the day to close in even earlier than usual.
It was evening. Sara had taken up a book, and was gazing unseeingly at the page, and turning over the leaves restlessly. Suddenly she closed the book, and said:
‘Is not this Wednesday, Ellen?’
‘Yes, Miss Sara, it is.’
‘It is Frau Wilhelmi’s evening at home. I shall go. And if I do, it is time to get ready at once. Will you just go and get my dress?’
‘Miss Ford! you are not fit to go out,’ exclaimed Ellen, desperationlending boldness to her.
Sara looked at her, and repeated her order. Ellen, in distress, asked which dress she would wear.
‘Oh, any. The old black velvet–that will be best, for it is cold.’
Ellen was perforce obliged to go and get out the dress, and help Sara to make her toilette, feeling all the time that it was as if she attired a ghost. When she was ready the young lady looked beautiful, as usual, but it was with a kind of beauty which no sane person cares to see. Face and lips were ghastly white; there was a deathlike composure and calm in her expression; only those beautiful eyes looked restlessly forth, dark and clouded, and full of a misery which surpassed the power of words to utter, or tears to alleviate. Sara hardly knew herself why she was going out; there was a vague consciousness that her own thoughts and the horrible suffering they brought with them werebecoming rapidly intolerable; that soon, if she did not see and speak to some other beings, she would shriek aloud, or lose her reason, or that something terrible would happen. She looked at herself in the glass, and Ellen suggested that she wanted a little rouge.
‘Rouge!’ repeated Sara, laughing drily; ‘why, I am in a fever. Feel my hand!’
Ellen took it, and incidentally felt as well, while her finger rested on Miss Ford’s wrist, that her pulse was beating with an abnormal rapidity. But the hand was burning as she had said.
With a dark foreboding of evil, Ellen threw a cloak around the girl’s shoulders, and put on her own shawl and bonnet to accompany her, for the Wilhelmi’s house was hard by, and at Elberthal it was the custom to walk to every kind of entertainment.
‘Oh, how cool and refreshing!’ exclaimed Sara with a deep sigh, as theicy air struck upon her burning face.
Ellen’s reply was a shiver. They soon stood at the Wilhelmis’ door, and, as Ellen left her, Sara bade her return for her at half-past ten. It was then after half-past eight.
The door was opened. Ellen watched her mistress as she passed into the blaze of light in the hall, and, standing there, unfastened her cloak. Then the door was closed again. Repressing her forebodings as well as she could, Ellen returned home, and set herself to counting the minutes until it should be time for her to return to Professor Wilhelmi’s.