Eveline Mandeville | Page 7

have others to hear for the wealth of India. Why? Listen for a few moments:
"Oh, how dark! all dark! Nothing but clouds! No sun, no moon, no stars! When will morning come? Who made it dark? Oh, God! that my father, my own father, should do this!"
Thus would the unconscious child talk into the very ear of her parent, often wringing her hands and manifesting the utmost distress. Then her thoughts would take another direction, on this wise:
"What a load is on my heart; oh, so heavy! It weighs me down to the earth. Who will take it away? Alas, there is no one to pity me! No one will come to me and lift this great burden from my bosom; and it is crushing the life-blood from my heart! Hark! don't you hear the drops fall as they are pressed out? Patter, patter, patter! Well, it will soon be over; they will see the blood; yes, and he, my once good, dear, kind father; oh, may he never know that his hand wrung it out and wrenched my heart in twain! Poor father! he knew not that he was killing me--me his only daughter. May he never be wiser! Ah, I am going."
She would sink down exhausted, and lay sometimes for hours in a stupor, after these paroxysms of excitement, and the heavy-hearted father often feared she would never rouse again. But a higher stage of fever would awaken her from the state of lethargy, and then the ears of the agonized parent would be greeted and his heart pierced by words like these:
"Oh, hear him, father, hear him! I know he can explain it to your satisfaction. How can Charles bear such charges? I wonder at his patience and self-command. Father, father! How unjust! How cruel! Do let him speak! Convinced! Yes, on what grounds? Whose word is entitled to more credit than that of Charles? That's it! The name--the name of the base slanderer. I know it is some villain. Father! how can you deny him the only means of defense? 'Unpleasant rencounter!' yes, to the vile miscreants, no doubt. 'Confidence!' My life! isn't Charles worthy of confidence, too? His word alone is worth a thousand oaths of such heartless slanderers as those that stab in the dark! Don't get angry, Charles, he's my father. Nobly done! How respectfully he acts when so abused and insulted! All will yet be right. Ah! I'll tell him how I spurn the accusation! How my soul burns with indignation that his fair name should be assailed! I am so glad he is coming; I know he feels deeply the wrong--What!"
At this point the startled look of the poor girl alarmed the father. She bent her head, in a listening attitude, as if eager to catch every word that was spoken by some one in the distance. Ah, too well the wretched parent knew on what her thoughts were running. Too well he knew where and when the blow had fallen that smote his child to the dust--perhaps had opened to her the gate of death. A deep, stifled, half sigh, half groan escaped from her lips, and she murmured in a hoarse whisper:
"Father, father! you will kill your child. Oh, God! this is too much! Turned from our door! without a word of comfort! How deadly pale he is! My own parent to call him 'unworthy!' and then forbid him to speak!"
At this point a shriek from her lips would lift the father to his feet, the cold drops of agony on his brow. That soul-rending cry he had heard before, but it lost none of its horrors by being repeated. Alas, it told but too plainly of the wreck his cruel words had made, and he trembled lest only the beginning of sorrows was upon him. How he blamed himself for being so rash and precipitate; and, as Eveline sunk back in exhaustion, the awful thought kept forcing itself into his mind:
"If she dies, I am her murderer!" What a reflection for a parent over an almost dying child! Who can measure the anguish it created in his breast?
There lay his precious child before him, prostrated by his own act, hovering on the very brink of the grave, life trembling on a breath--and he, oh, he might never whisper a word of comfort in her ear! Poor man! For all this there was no repentance in his soul; it was only regret and remorse--but oh, remorse how bitter! Not that his belief was changed as to the guilt and innocence of the parties, for he still had confidence in Duffel, and was fully persuaded of Hadley's evil intentions. He was glad that the designs of the latter had been frustrated, but blamed himself for the manner in which it