CHAPTER XLIV.

THE MIDNIGHT DISCOVERY.

About an hour after this I arose, bathed my forehead, and went into Mrs. Lee's chamber, for the pain of my solitary thoughts became unendurable. The poor lady was lying on the sofa, with her eyes closed, looking more wan than ever. Something troubled her, I am sure; for tears were swelling under the transparent whiteness of her eyelids, and her hands were clasped over her bosom. This was an attitude habitual to her when disturbed by any grief, and seeing it, I turned to go away; but she heard my footstep and opened her eyes. There was something in her manner that went to my heart--a sort of mournful constraint, as if she shrunk from my presence. Still she held forth her hand.

I sat down in my old place, and she closed her eyes again, as if any effort at speech was beyond her strength. In the broader light which fell upon her face, I saw that she had been crying--an unusual thing with her at any time; for all sources of trouble had been kept so sedulously from that room, that grief amounting to tears seldom found its way there.

After a prolonged silence that chilled me to the heart, she laid her hand on mine, and I saw that her earnest eyes were searching my face.

"Dear Miss Hyde, we have been so happy together--I thought no family was ever united like ours!"

I understood the pathos in her voice, the meaning of her words. Mr. Lee had begun the subject; already they were about to prove how troublesome and useless I had been--how much my place was wanted for another.

"You do not speak," she said, "surely, nothing has been said to wound you?"

"No," I answered, "I only come to see if you were in want of anything."

"Ah! you have always been so attentive, so kind! How shall I get along without you?"

So it was decided. He had spoken, and they had settled my destiny; the gentle invalid yielding without a murmur while her best friend was driven from under her roof. I had no heart to continue the conversation, and she, poor lady! evidently lacked the courage to speak plainer. Thus, with apprehensions and grief, we remained together in silence. Her eyes were closed, but not with sleep, I am sure of that; and I felt a dead heaviness creeping over me, which carried with it a dreary sense of pain.

It was getting dark when I left the chamber. The depression was so heavy upon me that I went down to the kitchen, thinking to ask the cook for a cup of warm tea. Lottie was there busy at the range, and, singular enough, making tea, as if my wants had been divined.

"A handful, cook," she said, holding out the silver teapot for a renewed supply. "I want it good and strong, something that will make one's eyes snap."

When the cook turned to put her canister in its place, Lottie went to the closet and brought out two cups and saucers.

"Miss Hyde," she said, "you have just come in time. I knew it'd be wanted: try a good, strong cup, it will have the ache out of your head in no time."

I thanked her and took the cup she offered. It was strong to bitterness, and I did not like the taste; but when I passed it back, Lottie put in more sugar and cream, but no water. I was too weary for protest, and drank the bitterness without further comment.

Lottie seemed pleased, and insisted earnestly that I should take a second cup, filling her own for the third time, and draining it with what I thought must be heroism instead of desire.

"There," she said, setting her cup down, "that will do, I reckon; it makes my head as light as a cork. How do you feel, Miss Hyde?"

"It is very, very strong, Lottie, and I fear it will keep me awake all night."

"Fear!" cried the girl, "fear! Why, of course it will! To tell you the truth," she added, bending toward me, and whispering, "I begin to think this isn't the house where one can sleep honestly. Now just go up to your room, if you please, and don't let them see you looking so miserable. There's trouble enough without that."

The cook came toward us before I could answer. She was preparing to send up tea for the family, and muttered something about ladies always being in the way in a kitchen. So great was the depression of my spirits, that I allowed this to wound me, and went away in deeper dejection.

No human soul came near me during the evening. I could not sleep--the stimulus urged my brain into swift action. I reviewed all the difficulties of my position over and over again; strange projects came into my mind, ways by which my wrongs--for I had been wronged--should be redressed; speeches more eloquent than ever could reach my lips inspired me, and these were to be addressed to Mr. Lee, in the presence of that woman. A thousand wild fancies seized upon my brain and held it. I had no wish to change my position. Having thrown myself on the bed in my clothes, I remained there, thinking, thinking, thinking till my brain ached, but would not pause for rest--a terrible inspiration was upon me.

I heard a bustle in the house, as if the family were retiring; then the clock struck eleven, twelve, one. The hours did not seem long, but the stillness almost terrified me. All at once, it was after midnight some time, a sound approached my chamber like the rush of a bird through the air. I started up and listened. The door opened softly, and a figure glided in.

"Miss Hyde, are you awake? Get up this minute and come with me; if your shoes are on, take them off. Come."

I sprang up and followed Lottie swiftly and silently as she had reached my chamber. She drew me through the passage into her own little room. As I passed along the hall which led from the main building to the tower, it seemed to me that my dress brushed against some one crouching in a dark corner; but Lottie had not seen it, and I followed her, holding my breath. She glided through her own room into the chamber where Mrs. Lee slept. The carpets were thick as wood-moss, and our feet gave no sound. When she was fairly in the room, Lottie paused, and I heard a slight, scraping noise; then the sudden flash of a match was followed by the blaze of a candle which the girl carried in her hand.

As the light broke up, a faint cry came from the bed; a figure which bent over it rose up suddenly, and I stood face to face with Mrs. Dennison, the whitest woman that ever my eyes dwelt upon. She held a crystal toilet-bottle in one hand, and in the other a wet pocket-handkerchief.

"Stand by the door, Miss Hyde. Don't let her move a foot. I'll be back in a flash."

Lottie darted from the room as she spoke, leaving the candlestick on the carpet.

The woman turned upon me then with the spirit of a tigress. Her eyes flashed fire, the white teeth shone through her curved lips. She attempted to pass me, but I retreated to the door and kept the threshold. She came forward as if to force me away, still holding the bottle and handkerchief in her hands. Never in my life had I seen a face so beautiful and so fiendish. There was desperation in her eyes, violence in her action; but though weaker and smaller than her, I would have died on the threshold of that door rather than have allowed her to cross it.

All at once her face changed. She was looking, not at me, but over my shoulder; a flash of quick intelligence shot from her eyes, and the next moment she had thrown both arms about my neck and pressed my face to her bosom. I knew that some one came close up behind me, and heard the clink of glass; then a rush of feet through Lottie's room, and along the passage. All this could not have lasted a minute. I struggled from the woman's embrace, and pushed her from me with a violence that made her stagger. Her face had changed to its old look of triumph. She laughed, not naturally--that was beyond even her powers of self-command--but in a way that made me shiver.

"Dear Miss Hyde, is it you?" she said, in a voice that quaked in spite of herself. "How terribly frightened I was! Poor Mrs. Lee must have been very ill. I heard her moaning and calling for help in my room, and came at once; she seems quite insensible now."

I looked toward the bed. Mrs. Lee lay upon it, white, and still as a corpse, her eyes closed, and her lips of a bluish white. Was she dead? Had the woman killed her? A strong, pungent smell filled the room--a smell of chloroform. It was almost suffocating.

Mrs. Dennison seemed to think of this suddenly, and, darting toward the window, flung open two of the sashes before I knew what she was about. A gush of fresh air swept through the room; the pungent odor grew fainter and fainter, at which she smiled on me triumphantly.

I looked at her, as she stood in the light; a toilet-bottle was still in her hand, but it was of crimson glass, spotted with gold; that which she held, when I came in, was white and pure as water. How had she managed to change the crystal flask? What had become of the handkerchief?

Still smiling on me, she approached the bed and scattered fragrant drops from the crimson flask over the pillows and the deathly face of my poor friend. How still she lay! The whiteness of her face was terrible, but I dared not approach her; my post was by the door till Lottie came; but it made my blood run cold to see that woman bending over her, smoothing the pillows with her hand, and filling the room with that lying fragrance.