The Diamond Coterie Part 53

Aliston, and question her as you have me."

"Good!" cries Mr. Wedron. "_Excellent!_"

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

AN APPEAL TO THE WARDOUR HONOR.

During the night that saw Sybil Burrill's reason give way under the long, horrible strain, that had borne upon it; the night that witnessed the downfall of Frank Lamotte's cherished hopes, and closed the earthly career of John Burrill; Mrs. Lamotte and Mrs. Aliston hovered over the bed where lay Sybil, now tossing in delirium, now sinking into insensibility. Early in the evening, Dr. Heath had been summoned, and he had responded promptly to Mrs. Lamotte's eager call.

They could do little, just then, save to administer opiates; he told them there was every symptom of brain fever; by to-morrow he would know what course of treatment to pursue; until then, keep the patient quiet, humor all her whims, so far as was possible; give her no stimulants, and, if there was any marked change, send for him at once.

The two anxious women hung upon his words; afterward, they both remembered how cheerful, how brave and strong he had seemed that night; how gentle his voice was; how kindly his glance; how soothing and rea.s.suring his manner.

In the gray of the morning, Sybil dropped into one of her lethargies after hours of uneasy mutterings, that would have been mad ravings, but for the doctor's powerful opiate; and then, after a word combat with Mrs. Lamotte, just such an argument as has occurred by hundreds of sick beds, where two weary, anxious watchers vie with each other for the place beside the bed, and the right to watch in weariness, while the other rests; after such an argument, Mrs. Aliston yielded to the solicitations of her hostess, and withdrew, to refresh herself with a little sleep.

The vigil had been an unusual one, and Mrs. Aliston was very weary. No sound disturbed the quiet of the elegant guest chamber where she lay; and so it happened that a brisk rapping at her door; at ten o'clock in the morning, awoke her from heavy, dreamless slumber, and set her wandering wits to wondering vaguely what all this strangeness meant.

Then suddenly recalling the events of the previous night, she sat up in bed and called out:

"Who is there?"

"It's ten o'clock, madam," replied the voice of Mrs. Lamotte's maid; "and will you have breakfast in your room, or in the dining room?"

Slipping slowly out from the downy bed, Mrs. Aliston crossed to the door, and peering out at the servant, said:

"I will breakfast here, Ellen. How is Sybil?"

"She is worse, I think, madam, and Mrs. Lamotte is very uneasy; I think she wishes to speak with you, or she would not have had you wakened."

"Tell her I will come to her at once;" and Mrs. Aliston closed the door and began a hurried toilet; before it was completed, Mrs. Lamotte herself appeared; she was pale and heavy eyed, and seemed much agitated.

"Pardon my intrusion," she began, hurriedly; "I am uneasy about Sybil; she is growing very restless, and for more than an hour has called unceasingly for Constance. Do you think your niece would come to us this morning? Her strong, cool nerves might have some influence upon poor Sybil."

"I am sure she will come," replied Mrs. Aliston, warmly "and without a moment's delay. I will drive home at once, Mrs. Lamotte, and send Constance back."

"Not until you have had breakfast, Mrs. Aliston. And how can I thank you for your goodness, and your help, during the past horrible night?"

"By saying nothing at all about it, my dear, and by ordering the carriage the moment I have swallowed a cup of coffee," replied the good-hearted soul, cheerily. "I hope and trust that Sybil will recover very soon; but if she grows worse, you must let me help you all I can."

Half an hour later the Lamotte carriage rolled swiftly across the bridge and towards Wardour; and so Mrs. Aliston, for the time at least, was spared the shock that fell upon the house of Mapleton, scarce fifteen minutes later, the news of John Burrill's murder, and the finding of the body.

Little more than an hour later, Constance Wardour sprang from the carriage at the door of Mapleton, and ran hurriedly up the broad steps.

The outer door stood wide open, and a group of servants were huddled about the door of the drawing room, with pale, affrighted faces, and panic-stricken manner.

Seeing them, Constance at once takes the alarm. Sybil must be worse; must be very ill indeed. Instantly the question rises to her lips:

"Is Sybil--is Mrs. Burrill worse?" and then she hears the startling truth.

"John Burrill is dead. John Burrill has been murdered." In bewilderment, in amazement, she hears all there is to tell, all that the servants know. A messenger came, telling only the bare facts. John Burrill's body has been found in an old cellar; Frank has just gone, riding like a madman, to see that the body is cared for, and to bring it home. Mrs.

Lamotte has been told the horrible news; has received it like an icicle; has ordered them to prepare the drawing room for the reception of the body, and has gone back to her daughter.

All this Constance hears, and then, strangely startled, and vaguely thankful that Frank is not in the house, she goes up to the sick room.

Mrs. Lamotte rises to greet her, with a look upon her face that startles Constance, even more than did the news she has just heard below stairs.

Intense feeling has been for so long frozen out of that high-bred, haughty face, that the look of the eyes, the compression of the lips, the fear and horror of the entire countenance, amount almost to a transfiguration.

She draws Constance away from the bed, and into the dressing room beyond. Then, in a voice husky with suppressed emotion, she addresses her as follows:

"Constance Wardour, I am about to place my honor, my daughter's life, the honor of all my family, in your hands. There is not another living being in whom to trust, and I must trust some one. I must, for my child's sake, have relief, or _my_ reason, too, will desert me.

Constance, that sick room holds a terrible secret--Sybil's secret. If you can share it with me, for Sybil's sake, I will try to brave this tempest, as I have braved others; if you refuse"--she paused a moment, and then whispered fiercely:

"If you refuse, I will lock that chamber door, and Sybil Lamotte shall die in her delirium before I will allow an ear that I can not trust, within those walls, or the hand of a possible enemy to administer one life-saving draught."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Sybil Lamotte shall die in her delirium."]

Over the face of Constance Wardour crept a look of horror indescribable.

In an instant her mind is illuminated, and all the fearful meaning of Mrs. Lamotte's strange words, is grasped and mastered. She reels as if struck by a heavy hand, and a low moan breaks from her lips. So long she stands thus, mute and awe-stricken, that Mrs. Lamotte can bear the strain of suspense no longer.

"For G.o.d's sake, speak," she gasps; "there have been those of your race who could not abandon a fallen friend."

Over the cheek, and neck, and brow, the hot, proud, loyal Wardour blood, comes surging. The gray eyes lift themselves with a proud flash; low and firm comes the answer:

"The Wardours were never Summer friends. Sybil has been as a sister, in prosperity; I shall be no less than a sister now. You may trust me as you would yourself; and--I am very glad you sent for me, and trusted no other."

"G.o.d bless you, Constance! No one else _can_ be trusted. With your help I must do this work alone."

Then comes a cry from the sick room; they go back, and Constance enters at once upon her new, strange task. Her heart heavy; her hand firm; her ears smitten by the babbling recitation of that awful secret; and her lips sealed with the seal of the Wardour honor.

All that day she is at her post. Mrs. Lamotte, who is resolved to retain her strength for Sybil's sake, lies down in the dressing room and sleeps from sheer exhaustion.

As the day wears on there is movement and bustle down stairs, they are bringing in the body of the murdered man. The undertaker goes about his work with pompous air, and solemn visage; and when darkness falls, John Burrill's lifeless form lies in state in the drawing room of Mapleton, that room over the splendors of which his plebeian soul has gloated, his covetous eyes feasted and his ambitious bosom swelled with a sense of proprietorship. He is clothed in finest broadcloth, surrounded with costly trappings; but not one tear falls over him; not one heart grieves for him; not one tongue utters a word of sorrow or regret; he has schemed and sinned, to become a member of the aristocracy, to ally himself to the proud Lamottes; and to-night, one and all of the Lamottes, breathe the freer, because his breathing has forever ceased.

Even Constance Wardour has no pitying thought for the dead man; she keeps aloof from the drawing room, shuddering when compelled to pa.s.s its closed doors; living, John Burrill was odious to her; dead, he is loathsome.

The day pa.s.ses, and Doctor Heath does not visit his patient. At intervals during the long afternoon, they have discussed the question, "What shall we do to keep the patient quiet when the doctor comes?"

It is Constance who solves the problem.

"We must send for Doctor Benoit, Mrs. Lamotte; Doctor Heath's tardiness will furnish sufficient excuse, and Doctor Benoit's partial deafness will render him our safest physician."

It is a happy thought; Doctor Benoit is old, and partially deaf, but he is a thoroughly good and reliable physician.

Late that night, Jasper Lamotte applies for admittance at the door of his daughter's sick room. Constance opens the door softly, and as his eyes fall upon her, she fancies that a look of fierce hatred gleams at her for a moment from those sunken orbs and darkens his haggard countenance. Of course it is only a fancy. In another moment he is asking after his daughter, with grave solicitude.

"She is quiet; she must not be disturbed;" so Constance tells him. And he glides away softly, murmuring his grat.i.tude to his daughter's friend, as he goes.

It is midnight at Mapleton; in Sybil Lamotte's room the lights burn dimly, and Mrs. Lamotte and Constance sit near the bed, listening, with sad, set faces, to the ravings of the delirious girl.