The scrutiny seemed to be satisfactory for Clara soon took the hand of
her visitor and said: "Capitola, I will tell you. It is a horrid, horrid story, but you shall
know all. Come with me to my chamber."
Cap pressed the hand that was so confidingly placed in hers and
accompanied Clara to her room, where, after the latter had taken the
precaution to lock the door, the two girls sat down for a confidential
talk.
Clara, like the author of Robin Hood's Barn, "began at the beginning"
of her story, and told everything--her betrothal to Traverse Rocke; the
sudden death of her father; the decision of the Orphans' Court; the
departure of Traverse for the far West; her arrival at the Hidden
House; the interruption of all her epistolary correspondence with her
betrothed and his mother; the awful and mysterious occurrences of that
dreadful night when she suspected some heinous crime had been
committed; and finally of the long, unwelcome suit of Craven Le Noir
and the present attempt to force him upon her as a husband.
Cap listened very calmly to this story, showing very little sympathy,
for there was not a bit of sentimentality about our Cap.
"And now," whispered Clara, while the pallor of horror overspread her
face, "by threatening me with a fate worse than death, they would drive
me to marry Craven Le Noir!"
"Yes, I know I would!" said Cap, as if speaking to herself, but by her
tone and manner clothing these simple words in the very keenest
sarcasm.
"What would you do, Capitola?" asked Clara, raising her tearful eyes to
the last speaker.
"Marry Mr. Craven Le Noir and thank him, too!" said Cap. Then, suddenly
changing her tone, she exclaimed: "I wish--oh! how I wish it was only me in your place--that it was only
me they were trying to marry against my will!"
"What would you do?" asked Clara, earnestly.
"What would I do? Oh! wouldn't I make them know the difference between
their Sovereign Lady and Sam the Lackey? If I had been in your place
and that dastard Le Noir had said to me what he said to you, I do
believe I should have stricken him dead with the lightning of my eyes!
But what shall you do, my poor Clara?"
"Alas! alas! see here! this is my last resort!" replied the unhappy
girl, showing the little pen-knife.
"Put it away from you! put it away from you!" exclaimed Capitola
earnestly, "suicide is never, never, never justifiable! God is the Lord
of life and death! He is the only judge whether a mortal's sorrows are
to be relieved by death, and when He does not Himself release you, He
means that you shall live and endure! That proves that suicide is never
right, let the Roman pagans have said and done what they pleased. So no
more of that! There are enough other ways of escape for you!"