The Shadow of a Sin Part 22

"Where am I?" she asked; and the kind face smiled again.

"I will tell you all about it when you are a little better. You are quite safe and with good friends. Try to drink this and go to sleep again."

Hyacinth drank something that was warm and nice, and then looked up in the kindly face.

"Do you know," she said, "it is very strange, but I have really forgotten my own name!" She laughed a little hysterical laugh, and Mrs.

Chalmers looked anxious.

"I must forbid you to speak again," she said; "my son is the doctor, and, if you disobey me, I shall summon him."

Hyacinth closed her eyes; a quiet sense of rest fell over her, and she was asleep again.

"Poor child," said Mrs. Chalmers, looking at her. "Who is she? I wonder what is her name?"

She slept so long that the kind-hearted woman began to feel uneasy. She went down and told her son.

"Sleeping, is she? Then do not wake her; sleep is the best medicine for her. Mind she has plenty of port wine and beef-tea."

"She says she has forgotten her own name," said Mrs. Chalmers, anxiously.

"She will be all right by and by, mother. I only hope the return of memory will not bring her pain."

The next time Hyacinth opened her eyes, she saw a keen, kind, shrewd face looking at her own, and a pair of dark eyes that smiled as she smiled.

"You are getting better," said Dr. Chalmers.

She raised her hand to her head, and then a slight look of alarm crossed her face. "Where is my hair?" she asked, wonderingly.

"We sacrificed your hair to save your brain," he replied; "it was all cut off."

Then he heard her give a profound sigh, and he guessed that memory was returning. He took one of the thin worn hands in his.

"I do not want you to think of painful things just now," he said. "Will you bear in mind that nothing but absolute rest will restore you to health, and compose yourself accordingly?"

Hyacinth did as she was advised: she discarded all painful thoughts from her mind, and consequently slept as she had not slept for many long weeks. She awoke one morning calm and composed, with reason and memory fully restored. She knew that she was Hyacinth Vaughan. Slowly and by degrees the terrible past returned to her.

"I was in time, thank Heaven!" she said. "I was in time!" She remembered the crowded court--the hundreds of eyes that had been turned upon her--the thunder of applause that none of the officers could repress--the ringing cheers that followed Claude's release. But after that all was a blank. She remembered nothing that had pa.s.sed since she stood in the a.s.size court, blind and dizzy, until she opened her eyes in that pretty room.

White, fragile, worn almost to a shadow, helpless as a child, she lay there now with reason in full sway. Dead to her old life, to her friends, her hopes, her plans--dead to her lover and her love--she was painfully beginning a new life, in which none of these had any part--a new life into which she felt that hope, love, or happiness could never come.

A week later, and Hyacinth Vaughan, looking like a frail shadow of her former self, sat, propped up by pillows, in a large easy-chair that had been placed for her near the window; her nerveless hands were clasped, her large eyes, so sad and dreamy, lingered on the clouds that drifted rapidly over the sky.

She was alone and deeply engrossed in thought; the time had come when she must speak to these people who had been so kind to her--when she must tell something of herself. They had been so kind to her, so attentive, so considerate--they had not even asked her name. Mrs.

Chalmers always called her "child." Her son had a variety of names for her, the princ.i.p.al of which was Queen Mab. Such kindness could spring only from n.o.ble and generous hearts. Both mother and son had refrained from asking her any questions. Said Dr. Chalmers to his mother:

"When she knows us, and feels that she can trust us she will speak."

They had both divined that there had been some terrible sorrow in the girl's life--some sorrow that had struck her down and brought her to the brink of the grave. They knew, too, that she must be a lady of good birth and refinement. But never by word or deed did they distress her by the least symptom of curiosity. They had gone still further--when she attempted to say anything, Mrs. Chalmers had laid kindly fingers on her trembling lips, and said:

"Hush! Wait till you are stronger and better, my dear and then you shall talk."

But now the time had come when she knew that she must speak to them--must thank them for such kindness as the world rarely shows--must tell them how she was dead, but had risen to this new, fresh life in which the past was to have neither share nor place. The task was terrible to her, but she must undergo it. It seemed a direct answer to her thoughts when the door opened, and Dr. Chalmers came in with his mother. The doctor carried with him a bunch of purple grapes, which he laid before her.

"How kind you are to me!" she said, with trembling lips. "I have been thinking all the morning. How can I thank you? How can I ever repay you?"

"Doctors never expect thanks," said Dr. Chalmers; "and we are repaid by your recovery."

But the beautiful eyes were filled with tears. She took the old lady's hand and raised it to her lips. The doctor held up his finger in warning, but Hyacinth said:

"Let me speak--do let me speak. I cannot live in this silence and constraint any longer."

"Let her speak, Robert," said his mother; "it is best."

Hyacinth kissed again the kindly hand she held in hers. She took the doctor's and clasped them both together.

"You have been so kind to me," she said. "I can never repay you. I have no money to pay even for the necessaries you have given me. I know you do not want it, but I cannot understand how it is that you have been so good to me."

"My dear child," cried Mrs. Chalmers, "we have done nothing but what every Christian should. You came by accident to us, sick unto death, unhappy, friendless, and homeless, as it seemed--what less could we do than to take you in and succor you? We could not send you sick and almost dying into the streets."

"No! but you might have sent me to some hospital. I am sure that few would have done to me as you have done."

"We have only done what we thought to be right--no more."

"What you have done to me," returned Hyacinth, "I pray Heaven to return to you a thousandfold. I can never sufficiently thank you, but I want to say something else to you."

Her face grew so white, and her lips trembled so, that the doctor was on the point of forbidding another word. She looked piteously at him.

"Let me speak," she said; "the weight on my heart is so great I can hardly bear it. Were I to do what I wish, I should tell you all my story; but think of me as mercifully as you can--I am dead in life."

They looked at her in utter wonder. In the same faint voice she continued:

"I am dead to my home--I shall never see it again, and to my friends--I shall never see them again. I am dead to all the hopes that once made earth like heaven for me."

Her voice died away in a faint, moaning sob, and there was silence--silence that was broken at last by the clear, deep voice of the doctor.

"Will you tell us why this is?" he asked.

"I cannot," she replied, "I can only trust to your mercy. I cannot tell you either my name or my station, or what has slain me, when life was most sweet."

"Did you do something very wrong?" asked Mrs. Chalmers, with a shadow on her kindly face.

Hyacinth raised her beautiful eyes to the drifting clouds, which she could see from the window.

"I did something," she replied--"but, no--I don't think it was so very wrong; hundreds do it, and never think it wrong at all. I only planned it; a fear that it might be wrong came over me, and I did not do it. But the consequences of even the little I did--the shadow as it were of a sin--fell over me, and my whole life is darkened."

"You can tell us no more?" said the doctor.

"No!" she replied; mournfully; "I throw myself on your mercy."