CHAPTER XLVIII.

COMING OUT OF A DANGEROUS ILLNESS.

I asked if it was late--if I had overslept myself. It was Lottie to whom I spoke. She bent her face to mine; she looked into my eyes with a fervor of gladness in hers that made my nerves shrink. She caught up both my hands and kissed them; then burst into tears, and ran into the hall, crying out,--

"Miss Jessie, oh, Miss Jessie!"

My darling came, looking pale and harassed; but for the moment her face lighted up, and she approached me eager and breathless.

"You are better, dear Aunt Matty? Say that you know me."

"Know you, my darling?"

I tried to say this, and felt very helpless when my voice died away in a strange whisper; but a glow was on my face, and I know that my lips smiled, though they could not speak.

"You know me!" she cried, joyously.--"Oh! Lottie, it is true, she knows us--she will get well!"

Had I been ill? Was that the reason I felt so like a little child?

Jessie read this question in my eyes and answered it, kissing my forehead with her cool lips.

"Oh, yes, Aunt Matty, _so_ ill! Out of your head, poor soul!"

Out of my head! The thought troubled me. Why? Had I anything to conceal? To question one's soul requires strength, for it is a stern task. I was very weak, and so put the subject aside. The very sight of Jessie's face had wearied me.

She sat down on the bed, and then I saw how sad and thoughtful she had become. Her very lips were pale, and her eyes were shaded by their inky lashes, which threw her whole face into mourning. Had she suffered so much because I was ill, or were other sorrows distressing her?

She held my hand in hers, clasping it tenderly. I strove to return the caress; but my poor fingers only fluttered in hers like the wings of a birdling when it first sees food. She knew that I wanted to return her love, and smiled upon me; but oh! how sad her smile was! Then I fell off into a quiet sleep.

The next day I could ask questions. How long was it? Four weeks--four weeks, in which they had been so anxious! The doctors had given me up, but she and Lottie had always hoped. It seemed as if I could not be taken from her just when she wanted me so much.

"And her mother, was all well?"

Mrs. Lee was better, stronger, and more cheerful than she had been for weeks before I was taken ill. Indeed, she had once crept to my chamber, and cried over me like a child.

"Mrs. Lee better, and more cheerful? Then why was Jessie so sad?"

The dear girl turned away her face and made no answer. Her silence cut me to the heart.

Then I remembered the letter; that sheet of paper, with its red lines, and crowded with figures, came before me with a pang, as if some one had struck me on the heart. The grief that convulsed my face frightened Jessie; she understood it and strove to reassure me.

"It is all well," she said; "never think of it again."

She might as well have asked a wounded man to forget the bullet rankling in his flesh. How much that package had hurt me, no human being could ever tell!

"Father has been very anxious about you," she said; "I never saw him suffer so much."

"What have you done with it?" I inquired.

She knew what I meant, and answered, gently,--

"I gave them back to my father--all except the letter, which I burned."

"Thank you, dear child."

There was silence awhile. I wanted to ask a question, but it made me faint. I think she would have answered that without waiting for words, only that the subject was a pain to her, as it was agony to me.

"Is _she_ here yet?"

I knew that a whiteness was creeping over my lips as I uttered the words, and I felt a thrill of disgust pass over Jessie.

"She is here."

The bitter distress in her voice told me all that was in her heart. But it was a subject we could not speak upon.

"I have done everything in my power to send her away; but she will understand no hint, and I have no right to take decisive steps while my parents both like her so much."

"Both?" I questioned.

"Yes; I think so. Mother seemed pleased to have her in the room."

"And is she much there?" I questioned, faintly.

"Yes, very often, and for hours together."

"Alone?" I inquired, starting from my pillow and falling back from weakness.

"Seldom--never, I think. Father is generally with them, and Lottie--what a dear, faithful creature she is!--will never leave the room. If they drive her out, she is sure to retreat into her own little den and will leave the door ajar."

"Faithful, good Lottie!" I murmured.

Jessie kissed me and said, with mournful lovingness, that I must not talk, for I was all the friend she had to stand by her. She hesitated a moment and added, "Except, of course, my parents."

Obedient to her gentle command, I closed my eyes; but the anxieties that had taken flight in temporary insanity crowded back upon me, and my poor brain labored fearfully under them.

Was I right--knowing what I knew, and thinking what I thought--to keep anything back from Jessie? I had been so in the habit of mingling Mrs. Dennison's acts with those of Mr. Lee, that it seemed impossible to separate them, or speak of her without condemning him, at least by implication. I could not do this with his own child; for it was very doubtful if Jessie's entire and now very evident dislike of the woman had not sprung exclusively from the course she had taken with Lawrence. By word or look she had never given a sign of any other thought.

After pondering over these things in my mind, I remembered that, after all, Mr. Lee was not connected with anything I knew, except in my own suspicions; and even then I was not base enough to impute a wrong motive, much less a wrong act to him. Why should I fear, then, to speak openly to Jessie? While chained to that pillow--as I must be for days to come--who could guard Mrs. Lee as well as her own daughter?

While these reflections passed through my brain, Jessie had been sitting motionless on the bed, afraid to move lest she might disturb the sleep into which she fancied me to have fallen. When I opened my eyes, she smiled down upon me.

"You have been a little troubled with dreams, I fear," she said, smoothing the hair back from my temples.

"No, Jessie; I have not been asleep, but thinking. Lie down here on my pillow; I want to tell you something."

She laid her beautiful face close to mine. In a weak voice, and at intervals, I told her everything, but never once mentioning her father, even remotely. Indeed, there was no occasion; for I am certain he knew as little as the innocent girl at my side of that wicked night-work, in which our invalid had sunk so rapidly.

I never saw horror and dismay exhibit itself so forcibly on any countenance as it appeared on that lovely face. It touched mine like marble.

"What can we do?--what must we do?" she said. "Why did you not tell papa at once?"

"I had no proof--he would not have believed me."

"But your word--who ever doubted that?"

"Her word would have prevailed against mine. Oh! Jessie, Jessie, she is a terrible woman!"

"And my mother--my poor, suffering mother! What can her object be? No dove was ever more blameless than poor, dear mamma!" she said, with tender pathos. "Was she not content with what she had done against me? But I will go at once to papa and tell him everything about her."

"No," I said, trying to hold her with my feeble hand; "he will not believe you."

"Not believe me, Aunt Matty?"

"I fear not--Jessie, don't look so wounded! But he would demand your authority, and you would, of course, give me."

"Not without your permission."

"You would have it; but all might end in her triumph over us both. You remember the letter which came to me, that account of his stewardship? Ask yourself if it was the work of Mr. Lee's own heart."

"No, no, I am sure it was not!"

"Yet it came on the very next day."

"And broke your heart, dear Aunt Matty. I could not understand it. The first lines about money fastened themselves upon me I don't know how. I did not think, in my fright, when Lottie told me that you were ill, about its being a private letter; still I only read that and carried the paper back. What was in the letter I did not know; but I burned it to pacify you."

"The rest was only a kind dismissal from the house, Jessie!"

"A dismissal from the house! You--you?"

"Yes. I am only here now on sufferance," I answered, with feeble bitterness, which ended in a flood of more feeble tears.

Jessie was terribly distressed; but she made gentle efforts at soothing me, and at last I sobbed myself into quietness like a child, with my head resting on her shoulder.

"But you shall never go--never while I live," she said, with her old queenliness of manner. "I may stand by and see this woman robbing me of the love that was mine, when pride forbids me to cry out; but you, my oldest, my best friend! She must not attempt that."

Her eyes sparkled, her beautiful face took a positive expression. How I loved her!

"But about my poor mother," she said; "what can we do?"

"Wait and watch," I answered.

She was very thoughtful, and the look of distress upon her face made my heart ache.

"Lottie is honest," she said. "Now I understand why she would never leave the room even to nurse you. Good girl! she has been more faithful to my mother than her own child; but who could have known this?"

"Be dutiful!" I whispered, for this conversation had taken away my last remnant of strength.

"I will,--and watchful. Others may doubt this,--I believe it."