"We have heard so;"--and then the Doctor entered, and after the usual formalities said, "I have just met Earl Hyde and his Countess parading themselves in the fine carriage he brought with him, 'Tis a thousand pities the President did not wait in New York to see the sight."
"Was Lady Annie with them?" asked Mrs. Wiley, "we were just talking about her."
"Yes, but one forgets that she is there--or anywhere. She seems as if she were an accident."
"And the young lord?"
"The young lord affects the democratic."
Such conversations were not uncommon, and Mrs. Moran could not with any prudence put a sudden stop to them. They kept Cornelia full of wondering irritation, and gradually drove the doubt into her soul--the doubt of her lover's sincerity which was the one thing she could not fight against. It loosened all the props of life; she ceased to struggle and to hope. The world went on, but Cornelia's heart stood still; and at the end of the third week things came to this--her father looked at her keenly one morning and sent her instantly to bed. At the last the breakdown had come in a night, but it had found all ready for it.
"She has typhoid, or I am much mistaken," he said to the anxious mother. "Why have you said nothing to me? How has it come about? I have heard no complaining. To have let things go thus far without help is dreadful--it is almost murder."
"John! John! What could I do? She could not bear me to ask after her health. She said always that she was not sick. She would not hear of my speaking to you. I thought it was only sorrow and heart-ache."
"Only sorrow and heart-ache. Is not that enough to call typhoid or any other death? What is the trouble? Oh I need not ask, I know it is that young Hyde. I feel it. I saw this trouble coming; now let me know the whole truth."
He listened to it with angry amazement. He said he ought to have been told at the time--he threw aside all excuses--for being a man how could he understand why women put off, and hope, and suffer? He was sure the rascal ought to have been brought to explanation the very first day:-- and then he broke down and wept his wife's tears, and echoed all her piteous moan for her daughter's wronged love and breaking heart.
"What is left us now, is to try and save her dear life," said the miserable father." Suffering we cannot spare her. She must pass alone through the Valley of the Shadow; but it may be she will lose this sorrow in its dreadful paths. I have known this to happen often; for THERE the soul has to strip itself of all encumbrances, and fight for life, and life only."