IX.
THE TWO SISTERS.
When Frank returned again to Marston he did not hesitate to tell Edgarthat "he had business relations with Miss Cavanagh." This astonished thedoctor, who was of a more conservative nature, but he did not mingle hisastonishment with any appearance of chagrin, so Frank took heart, andbegan to dream that he had been mistaken in the tokens which MissCavanagh had given of being moved by the news of Dr. Sellick's return.
He went to see her as soon as he had supped with his friend, and thistime he was introduced into a less formal apartment. Both sisters werepresent, and in the moment which followed the younger's introduction, hehad leisure to note the similarity and dissimilarity between them, whichmade them such a delightful study to an interested observer.
Emma was the name of the younger, and as she had the more ordinary andless poetic name, so at first view she had the more ordinary and lesspoetic nature. Yet as the eye lingered on her touching face, with itsunmistakable lines of sadness, the slow assurance gained upon the mindthat beneath her quiet smile and gentle self-contained air lay the sameforce of will which spoke at once in the firm lip and steady gaze of theolder woman. But her will was beneficent, and her character noble, whileHermione bore the evidences of being under a cloud, whose shadow wasdarkened by something less easily understood than sorrow.
Yet Hermione, and not Emma, moved his heart, and if he acknowledged tohimself that a two-edged sword lay beneath the forced composure of hermanner, it was with the same feelings with which he acknowledged thescar which offended all eyes but his own. They were both dressed inwhite, and Emma wore a cluster of snowy pinks in her belt, but Hermionewas without ornament. The beauty of the latter was but faintly shadowedin her younger sister's face, yet had Emma been alone she would havestood in his mind as a sweet picture of melancholy young womanhood.
Hermione was evidently glad to see him. Fresh and dainty as this, theirliving room, looked, with its delicate white curtains blowing in thetwilight breeze, there were hours, no doubt, when it seemed no more thana prison-house to these two passionate young hearts. To-night cheer andan emanation from the large outside world had come into it with theiryoung visitor, and both girls seemed sensible of it, and brightenedvisibly. The talk was, of course, upon business, and while he noticedthat Hermione led the conversation, he also noticed that when Emma didspeak it was with the same clear grasp of the subject which he hadadmired in the other. "Two keen minds," thought he, and became moredeeply interested than ever in the mystery of their retirement, andevident renouncement of the world.
He had to tell them he could do nothing for them unless one or both ofthem would consent to go to New York.
"The magistrate whom I saw," said he, "asked if you were well, and whenI was forced to say yes, answered that for no other reason than illnesscould he excuse you from appearing before him. So if you will not complywith his rules, I fear your cause must go, and with it whatever itinvolves."
Emma, whose face showed the greater anxiety of the two, started as hesaid this, and glanced eagerly at her sister. But Hermione did notanswer that glance. She was, perhaps, too much engaged in maintainingher own self-control, for the lines deepened in her face, and she all atonce assumed that air of wild yet subdued suffering which had made himfeel at the time of his first stolen glimpse of her face that it was themost tragic countenance he had ever beheld.
"We cannot go," came forth sharply from her lips, after a short butpainful pause. "The case must be dropped." And she rose, as if she couldnot bear the weight of her thoughts, and moved slowly to the window,where she leaned for a moment, her face turned blankly on the streetwithout.
Emma sighed, and her eyes fell with a strange pathos upon Frank's almostequally troubled face.
"There is no use," her gentle looks seemed to say. "Do not urge her; itwill be only one grief the more."
But Frank was not one to heed such an appeal in sight of the nobledrooping figure and set white face of the woman upon whose happiness hehad fixed his own, though neither of these two knew it as yet. So, witha deprecating look at Emma, he crossed to Hermione's side, and with aslow, respectful voice exclaimed:
"Do not make me feel as if I had been the cause of loss to you. An olderman might have done better. Let me send an older man to you, then, orpray that you reconsider a decision which will always fill me withregret."
But Hermione, turning slowly, fixed him with her eyes, whose meaning hewas farther than ever from understanding, and saying gently, "The matteris at end, Mr. Etheridge," came back to the seat she had vacated, andmotioned to him to return to the one he had just left. "Let as talk ofother things," said she, and forced her lips to smile.
He obeyed, and at once opened a general conversation. Both sistersjoined in it, and such was his influence and the impulse of their ownyouth that gradually the depth of shadow departed from their faces and acertain grave sort of pleasure appeared there, giving him many a thrillof joy, and making the otherwise dismal hour one to be happilyremembered by him through many a weary day and night.
When he came to leave he asked Emma, who strangely enough had now becomethe most talkative of the two, whether there was not something he coulddo for her in New York or elsewhere before he came again.
She shook her head, but in another moment, Hermione having steppedaside, she whispered:
"Make my sister smile again as she did a minute ago, and you will giveme all the happiness I seek."
The words made him joyous, and the look he bestowed upon her in returnhad a promise in it which made the young girl's dreams lighter thatnight, for all the new cause of anxiety which had come into her secludedlife.