Helen staggered to her chair as she concluded the epistle. She pressed her hands to her throbbing temples; her brain was in a whirl; she had not the power for a minute or two to summon a single thought to her aid.
Remember that night! Ay! the events crowded into it were not likely to be forgotten by her. As her hot palms pressed down her eyelids, she saw as in a vision the ruined abbey, desolate and silent, in the broad moon-light, the moss-grown, ivy-bound walls, the dilapidated aisles, the triple-arched windows, mouldering and falling away, very skeletons of what they had once been; the rude masses of masonry half buried in the long, rank grass; but, above all, that cross.
It now glittered and sparkled and wreathed before her eyes as if it were living flame, and darted out long, forked, arrowy tongues, to blister and consume her if she violated her oath.
She sprang to her feet with a scream and a shudder of horror. She gazed affrightedly round her; the sight of her maid, Chayter, who had, with noiseless step, reentered the room, however, dispelled the vision, and restored her to something like composure.
She looked for her letter; it was open upon the table where it had fallen; waving her hand, she said, in a voice hoarse with emotion--
“Leave me, Chayter; I will ring when I require your services.”
The girl glanced at the letter and then at her mistress. She gave a short cough.
“It is growing late, miss!” she said, hesitatingly, “I thought----”
“Leave me!” almost shrieked the haughty beauty, stamping her foot violently.
The girl dropped a hurried curtsey, and slunk swiftly out of the room.
She had been witness to small displays of irritability, but never to such an ebullition of temper as this.
When alone, Helen strode to the door and locked it. She threw herself into her chair, and again pressed her beating temples with her hands.
“Is he mad?” she murmured. “Fly with him and to India! How selfish--how unreasonable!”
He asked for a sacrifice as the test of her love; but what a sacrifice! She loved him--he ought to know that. What had she not done to give him proofs of it? If the proofs he had already received were insufficient, what could suffice? Not even the very sacrifice he called upon her to make. He had spoken of sacrifices, he had reminded her of their mutual vow, but now he sought to make her crown those cumulative sacrifices by inducing her to fling away all personal considerations, and follow his fortunes--to minister to his happiness by the surrender of her own.