Mrs. Cheyne started up with an hysterical scream, and caught hold of Phillis. "Come," she said, almost wildly, "we will not stay here. The children will not come to-night, for who could hear their voices in such a storm? My little angels!--but they shall not see me like this. Come, come!" And, taking the girl by the arm, she almost dragged her from the room, and led the way with rapid and disordered footsteps to a large luxurious chamber, furnished evidently as a dressing-room, and only divided from the sleeping-room by a curtained archway.
As Mrs. Cheyne threw herself down in an arm-chair and hid her face in her hands, the curtain was drawn back, and Miss Mewlstone came in with an anxious, almost frightened expression on her good-natured countenance. She hurried up to Mrs. Cheyne and took her in her arms as though she were a child.
"Now, Magdalene, now, my dear," she said, coaxingly, "you will try to be good and command yourself before this young lady. Look at her: she is not a bit afraid of the storm:--are you, Miss Challoner? No, just so; you are far too sensible."
"Oh, that is what you always tell me," returned Mrs. Cheyne, wrenching herself free with some violence. "Be sensible,--be good,--when I am nearly mad with the oppression and suffocation, here, and here," pointing to her head and breast. "Commonplaces, commonplaces; as well stop a deluge with a teacup. Oh, you are an old fool, Barby: you will never learn wisdom."
"My poor lamb! Barby never minds one word you say when you are like this."
"Oh, I will beg your pardon to-morrow, or when the thunder stops. Hark! there it is again," cowering down in her chair. "Can't you pray for it to cease, Barby? Oh, it is too horrible! Don't you recollect the night he rode away,--right into the storm, into the very teeth of the storm? 'Good-bye, Magdalene; who knows when we may meet again?' and I never looked at him, never kissed him, never broke the silence by one word; and the thunder came, and he was gone," beating the air with her hands.
"Oh, hush, my dear, hush! Let me read to you a little, and the fever will soon pass. You are frightening the poor young lady with your wild talk, and no wonder!"
"Pshaw! who minds the girl? Let her go or stop; what do I care? What is the whole world to me, when I am tormented like this? Three years, four years--more than a thousand days--of this misery! Oh, Barby! do you think I have been punished enough? do you think where he is, up in heaven with the children, that he forgives and pities me, who was such a bad wife to him?"