Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/498

19, 1860.] kitchen fire, her arms pressed tightly across her chest, rocking herself to and fro. She neither spoke nor wept, but as Parish looked down on her, there was such a hard, dry, rigid agony cut with such ineffaceable lines into her face, that the words of reproach died away on her lips as she gazed. At length the woman roused herself like one trying to shake off an overwhelming dream; and stood up before the housekeeper, terrible in her misery.

“I crouched into a dark corner,” she began, in a slow, measured voice, very different from her former vehement tone; “and she, my daughter, passed me, and knew not that I was there. Her dress brushed across my face, and I kissed it as it passed; and for one brief moment the soft perfume of her presence was about me; and this is all of her that I may know. Sad, is it not? And yet she is my own—people may say what they will, but she is my own Carry, my own daughter. She used to call me ‘mamma,’ and go to sleep on my breast; and now I may neither touch her, nor kiss her, not even speak to her. Sad again, is it not? Oh yes, I know all about its being my own fault; but is that any comfort to me? Don’t be alarmed. I am not going to intrude myself before her, and shut out the happiness of her life. I have a touch of my old pride yet. But I want you to feel how sad it is that I may not speak to my own darling. It has come into my head, Jane Parish, that there is one thing you can do for me—one little kindness you can do to a poor wretched woman, once your mistress, now a beggar before you. Procure me a lock of my darling’s hair. Will you?”

“I will; you may trust me.”

“Then let me go; my business here is done. I will meet you to-morrow evening in the street; and after that you shall see me no more. I dare not come here again. If I did, I should drown myself afterwards; and I am not fit to die.”

Parish opened the door.

“Dear ones, farewell!” murmured the unhappy woman; and passing out was lost to view.

Captain Luard lingered on for some time after this, apparently neither better nor worse than before; but one morning, when Parish entered his room, she found that a dread visitor had been there in the night, and that in silence and darkness her master had departed with him.

When the first burst of grief was over, and the necessity of immediate action made itself felt, Parish telegraphed for Welford, who was not long in answering the summons; and all the onerous duties which must be performed at such a time he took upon himself. The events of the next few days need not be dwelt on here. It was finally arranged that Caroline, accompanied by Parish, should go and reside with a maiden aunt in Derbyshire. From the wreck of the captain’s property was saved sufficient to enable them both to live in modest independence.

Whatever fleeting clouds had at one time interposed between Caroline and Welford had now vanished for ever. They could not speak of love at such a season, but they understood each other without words.

On the afternoon of the last day of the year, they set off, arm-in-arm, to pay a last visit to the cemetery where all that remained of Captain Luard now lay; for Carry was to leave London on the following morning. The sky was overcast when they set out, and the weather bitterly cold. A few premonitory flakes of snow fell at intervals, forerunners of what the night would bring. They passed slowly into the field of the dead, took their last look in silence, and then turned to depart.

A short distance from the path stood a woman, faded and miserable looking, whose eyes were fixed earnestly on them as they drew near. Instinctively Welford slipped a coin out of his pocket, and offered it to the woman; but she drew back with a slight wave of the hand. Welford coloured up.

“I ask your pardon for the mistake,” said he.

The woman did not reply, but drew her shawl more closely round her; and Caroline, looking back at the turn of the walk, saw her still standing there, with her eyes fixed earnestly on