She was about to make a very lively demonstration, but Helen checked her.
“Be not alarmed,” she said, hastily; “make no noise; do as I direct you, for I shall need your assistance.”
“You are really and truly Miss Grahame come home again?” asked the girl, her eyes almost starting out of their sockets.
Helen almost smiled as she answered in the affirmative, for the features of the inquirer betrayed so singular an expression.
“Oh, how happy you will make Miss Eva!” she exclaimed; “she has done nothing but weep and sigh for you since you have been away.”
Helen felt a rush of tears to her eyes, but she made no remark in answer to this observation; she however put some questions to the girl respecting her own room, and finding that it remained precisely as she left it, she went to it, followed by the maid.
In a desk belonging to her--and which in her illness she had hidden, for it contained many of Hugh’s letters--was a store of money, sums the balances of many quarters’ allowances, hoarded under the impression that one day they would collectively be sufficient to buy some coveted jewelled trinket which would exceed in price an amount her father would be likely to approach in the purchase of a gift for her. The gold was needed for a very different purpose now.
She discovered the desk precisely as she had left it, and she made herself at once mistress of what she came to obtain. She went to her wardrobe. Her dresses hung there as she had left them, and after surveying them for a minute, she turned to Evangeline’s maid, and said abruptly--
Having selected her most elegant and becoming apparel, she proceeded to make her toilet, and quickly appeared in full evening dress. When the girl had almost completed attiring her, Helen said to her--
“Ascertain whether dinner is over, but not a word that I am here.”
The girl, with an air of mystery stamped on her features, proceeded on tip-toe to the dining-room, and having conferred with the butler, returned, and said--
“That is well,” muttered Helen, “_I_ will face them now.”
There was a strange expression upon her features. There was no humility: her eye, her brow, her lips were all defiant. Having obtained what she came for, her object in facing her relatives was not altogether clear, even to herself. It was an impulse she could not resist. She knew how little real affection she had experienced from her parents and her sister Margaret; they were all too proud to be fond, and she could not endure the sting of their accusing thoughts or remarks. She had no intention to let them know the truth even now, but at the same time, she wished them to feel that she had acted in a spirit of independent self-will, and that her course in future would be governed by the same influence.