CHAPTER XIV.
DRIVEN FROM HOME.
Exhausted by her wild outcries and her frenzied efforts to break down the door, as well as by her long fast of twenty-four hours, Eva sank unconscious to the floor, and lay there for a long time ere she revived.
When consciousness returned she was too spent and weary to do aught but creep to her bed and lie there shivering with the chill of the cool April night, and sobbing like a weary child that weeps all its tears dry ere it falls asleep.
Everything was very quiet; not a sound broke the stillness but the loud voice of Mr. Groves’ big Newfoundland, Link—short for Lincoln—as he bayed at the moon, now low, now loud, but always in direst anguish, as if convinced in the canine mind that some disaster was happening to the ones he loved best, his old master and little Eva.
He knew that the exile had returned, for he had had a most affectionate meeting with her outdoors when she came.
Though he howled and yelped most dismally under her window, he could not coax her out again, but he heard her voice in those prolonged shrieks that assured him she was in trouble.
So, even when all grew still, Link could not rest, but wandered round and round the house, occasionally hurling his huge form against the kitchen door in a vain attempt to force an entrance. Then he would sit down on his haunches and dolorously bay at the moon again.
But despite these mournful sounds of honest canine woe, and despite her own woes, the weary girl at last slept deep and dreamlessly, losing for a while the bitter realization of her griefs.
When she awoke at last the sun rode high in the heavens, and for a moment, as it shone in her face, she forgot her sorrows, and seemed to be again the happy little Eva that used to spring up so eagerly to draw back the curtains to look for the offering of love that so often lay there mutely appealing to her in the name of the giver.
But the white ruffled curtain had been taken away now, and as the midday sun glared on the bare floor that was streaked and stained with dark spots that would not “out,” she gasped and remembered all.
The white matting had been removed, but the blood had soaked through it, and remained to bear terrible witness against the two who had done each other to death that fatal night.
Springing from the bed, she softly tried the door again, but it was still tightly closed, and she wondered if her heartless cousins had forgotten her existence, or intended to starve her to death.
She had not tasted food since her supper the previousnight at the asylum, and she was faint from fasting.
She went to the window, wondering if she would dare try to escape down the honeysuckle vine, but it had been cut down by her jealous cousins, who thought to thus circumvent her daring, unknown lover, if he ever returned. The window, too, was tightly nailed down, having been left to gloom and disuse since the night of the Hallowe’en tragedy.
The air was close and stifling, and full of dust motes, so she caught up a book and dashed it against a pane of glass, shattering it, and letting in a little of the fresh outer air of the morning.
She did not know that Nick observed her action, and reported at the first opportunity that “that poor crazy gal was goin’ on dretful, a-breakin’ out the panes of glass in the winder, and throwin’ out things to hit people.”
The last statement was pure romance, but it added to the interest of his story.
Then, as she sank wearily into a chair, Eva heard strange steps and voices going into Mr. Groves’ room. As they went in another terrifying sound came out to her ears, even through her own close-shut door—the loud, hoarse breathing of the dying man.
Eva was no stranger to death. She had seen her grandmother die. She knew the awful voice of the approaching destroyer.
“Gran’ther is dying—going away from his little Eva forever!” she burst out in anguish, and flew tothe door, beating on it with frenzied little white hands, calling piteously:
“Let me out, let me out! Let me kiss gran’ther good-by!”
No one heeded or heard, and at length she comprehended the full heartlessness of her cousins, who would not even let her approach her grandfather’s deathbed and receive his blessing.
She knelt by the bed and buried her face in the pillows, praying that God would let her die, too, if dear old gran’ther was going, for there was no one else to love her in the wide, weary world.
She forgot in her despair the unknown lover she had adored. He seemed so far away, and perhaps she would never know more of him than now. She only wished to die.
And while she knelt there weeping, the old man passed away with her name on his lips.
She heard the people filing out of the room with noisy whispers of comfort to the twins, who were seized with vociferous grief. She knew that he was dead, and awed by the awful presence of death, sobbed on softly and heartbrokenly, as though fearing she might disturb that peaceful rest.
Moments of sorrow pass so slowly she could not realize that it was but a few moments later that her door opened, admitting an asylum attendant, accompanied by Patty, loudly urging that the dangerous lunatic be taken at once away.
Poor Eva, pale from grief and fasting, her eyes redand swollen with tears, her cheap gray gown crumpled and disordered, was a piteous sight to the kind-hearted attendant, but her misery made no impression on Patty, not even when she sobbed humbly:
“Oh, Cousin Patty, mayn’t I stay here, please, until after gran’ther’s funeral? Oh, I want to see him again. Please, please, please!”
The pleading eyes, the trembling lips, might have moved a heart of stone, but Patty only went on talking glibly to the attendant:
“I positively will not have her longer in the house! We are all in terror of our lives! She has been breaking the window glass, and throwing things out upon our heads, and screaming and disturbing gran’ther’s last hours in her senseless malice! Indeed, I believe her return and the fright she gave him has caused his death. The house is mine and Sister Lydia’s now, and we will not permit her to stay longer. But if you can get her to take some breakfast before she goes, I do not object. She must be hungry, for she has thrown all we brought her out of the window, even the plate and cup and saucer, hoping to kill some of us.”
“Oh, Patty!” remonstrated the astonished girl; but the attendant took her gently by the hand, saying:
“Come, dear, let us find your hat and go. I have a carriage waiting at the door. But would you like some breakfast first?”
“Oh, yes, yes,” murmured the wretched victim, going docilely enough out of the room, and downstairsto the kitchen, where Cousin Tab was bustling about, giving orders to Nick, who stopped and stared in wonder.
“We would like some tea, please,” the attendant said civilly, sitting down with Eva’s cold little hand still fast in her own.
How familiar the old place looked outdoors, with the lilacs swelling and pushing out their purple buds in the sunshine. Eva remembered the last time she had been in the dear old kitchen that fatal Hallowe’en, when she had been refused leave to go on the hay ride. Oh, the changes since that night!
And now gran’ther was dead, and she was being sent away, never to return, because Stony Ledge belonged to the twins now. They had made him disinherit her. He had told her so.
She stifled a bursting sob, because she was afraid of a sharp reproof from the glowering spinster, and the tears brimmed over in her eyes and rained down her cheeks.
A meal was soon spread, but Eva found it impossible to swallow a mouthful. All her hunger had fled, thinking of her terrible bereavement, and when the attendant had satisfied her appetite she followed her in silent despair out to the closed carriage in which she had come from Clarksburg.
Several of the neighbors who had heard of Eva’s flight from the asylum, and her return, were waiting curiously about the door, and she looked at them with a wistful glance, as if imploring their pity.
But no one spoke to her, no one held out a friendly hand, and in silence she passed to the carriage with a mute farewell in her heart to the dear old man lying dead upstairs.
The carriage was closed, and as it rolled away along the pleasant country road she turned to the attendant with a passionate protest, crying:
“I am not mad. Oh, no, no! I wish you would let me tell you all.”
“Tell me what you choose, little Eva,” she replied, in her soothing way, and although she had believed the girl insane at first, she listened now in wonder to her pathetic story, smiling kindly at her vehement denial of the violent behavior Patty had laid at her door.
“Do you not see now that I am not crazy? That they are sending me away through malice, not fear of me?” she cried.
The kind attendant thought to herself:
“How pitiful she talks! These lunatics they are deep ones, and could fool many a one with their tale of woe.”
But aloud she only said:
“Yes, dear; you have been treated very bad, and we must lay the case before the superintendent as soon as we get back to the asylum.”