Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-39.djvu/92

82 another thing that gave her happiness was that she was ill, and knew she would not recover. We were sisters together again, and we used to laugh and chat, sometimes, as we did when we were children: when there is no hope, peace comes again. At other times she told me about her love.—Oh, my sister! my darling sister!"

She hid her face upon the cushion of the couch,—where that dead body had lain a week before,—and wept like a summer storm.

Her tears ceased as abruptly as they had come, and she sat erect again, composed and stern, and spoke rapidly and coldly:

"At the end she gave me the ring, and asked me, if I ever met him, to return it to him and to give him a message. It was a loving message: there was no reproach in it. I took the ring, and promised; and I made a promise to myself also, which I did not tell her of. Afterwards I learned from my father that this Henry Mainwaring was a relative of ours; but perhaps he had not recognized my sister as his cousin, under her married name. I did not tell my father that Henry was the man, for I meant to punish him myself, and in my own way. You know the rest,—how much I succeeded, and how much I failed."

She rose to her feet at this point, and I rose also. I thought she was going to leave me; but, instead, she came a step nearer, and laid one hand upon my shoulder. The expression of her face was sad.

"It was you that made me hesitate until it was too late," said she.

"I? How?"

"Only because you were his brother."

It was said so quietly and sadly that a moment passed before I comprehended the significance of that admission. It was no delusion: she had loved me. But there was no invitation, no consent, in her eyes. Her hand, which had seemed to hold me, kept me back. It was like balancing on the partition between life and death.

"Let me know what it is to be, Sinfire," I said. "I fathom you less than ever. Are you angry that I misjudged you? My soul knew what my reason questioned: you could not be yourself and not be pure. Was it my perjury that offended you? In what other way could I have kept you? And the sin is mine."

"What do you call it, to keep me? Would you rather I died loving you, or despised you and lived?"

"Do you despise me?"

"Despise you! Oh, what shall I say to you!" she cried out, in a voice of mingled menace and anguish. "Why don't you speak? Why do you hide yourself from me? Was there no other way to clear me than by staining me? Could you have told no other story of that