Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/561

 a piece of string to tie up some bush in the garden.

“Is your letter from”

The captain stopped without concluding the sentence, stopped abruptly, and Jane’s heart fluttered. She believed he had been going to say “from Clarice,” and she felt thankful that the long barrier of silence observed to her by her father in regard to that name, should at length be broken. No such thing, however; the captain’s obstinacy was unconquerable.

“It is only from Plymouth, papa.”

“Oh,” said the captain indifferently; and, taking the string which she had been getting for him he moved away, all unconscious that even in that slight incident she was sparing him pain in her duty and love. The letter was from a creditor at Plymouth, pressing for money on account of some long-standing debt.

Jane set Lucy to her lessons, and then went up-stairs to her sister’s room. Laura had flung herself upon the bed, and lay there with her hands pressed to her temples. It may be questioned which of the two sisters had passed the more unhappy night. The discovery of the previous evening had been one of dire dismay to Jane Chesney, and she had lain awake in her distress, wondering how it was to end, wondering whether Laura could be recalled to a sense of what was right. In her own simple rectitude of feeling, Jane looked on the affair, on Laura’s having allowed herself to meet in secret Mr. Carlton, almost as a crime, certainly as a heavy disgrace. And Laura? Laura could not but regard with shrinking fear the step she was about to take. She had tossed on her uneasy bed, asking herself whether she should not yet draw back from it. Even now the conflict was not over, and she lay there in dire perplexity and distress.

“Laura,” began Jane in a low tone as she entered, “this must end.”

Laura sprang off the bed, startled and vexed at having been found on it. “I feel tired this morning,” she stammered with a lame attempt at apology, “I did not sleep well last night.”

“I say, Laura, this must end,” continued Jane, too agitated with grief to set about her task in any artistic manner, “You have permitted yourself to meet in secret that man—the surgeon, Carlton. O, Laura! what strange infatuation can have come over you?”

Laura Laid her hand upon her chest to still its heavy beating. Found out! In her dismay and perplexity it seemed to her that there was nothing for it but denial. And she stooped to it.

“Who says I have? Whatever will you accuse me of next, Jane?”

“Hush, Laura! falsehood will not mend wrong-doing. Evening after evening you steal out to meet him. Last night I wanted you and I heard you were outside. I saw you come in, Laura, with the disguising shawl over your head. Laura, my dearest sister, I do not wish to speak harshly, but surely you cannot have reflected on how great is the degradation!”

Strange to say, the effect of the discovery was to harden her. With every moment, now that the first startling shock had passed, Laura’s spirit grew more defiant. She made no reply to her sister.

“I speak only for your own sake,” pleaded Jane. “It is for your sake I beg you to break off all intimacy with Mr. Carlton. Laura, I feel certain that he is not the man to make you happy, even were attendant circumstances favourable.”

“It is a strange prejudice, this that you have taken against Mr. Carlton!” resentfully spoke Laura.

“I am not singular in it; papa dislikes him also. But, Laura, answer me a question; what end do you, can you, propose to yourself in this intimacy with him?”

Laura coloured, hesitated, and then took courage to speak out. But the answer was a partially evasive one.

“Mr. Carlton speaks of marriage. In time, when all your prejudices shall be overcome.”

“Do not cherish it, do not glance at it,” said Jane with emotion. “Our objections to Mr. Carlton never can be overcome. And I tell you that he would not make you happy.”

“We must see—wait and see. If the worst comes to the worst, and everybody remains obdurate, we must then—we must then—join common cause against you for ourselves.”

Laura spoke with agitation, but her agitation was as nothing compared to that which seized upon Jane at the words. It was impossible for her to mistake their hidden meaning. Her lips were white, her throat was working, and she held her sister’s hands in hers.

“You do not know what you say. Never so speak again; you would not were you to weigh your words. I pray you—Laura, by the remembrance of our dead mother I pray you—never suffer so mistaken a thought to enter your mind, as that of quitting clandestinely your father’s house to become a wife. A marriage entered upon in disobedience and defiance could never prosper. Laura, I don’t think you are happy.”

Laura burst into a flood of hysterical tears and laid her face down on the dressing-table,