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Shadow of a Sin (Dramatic reading)

<h2>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> It was in September that the poor distraught girl went in the madness of her grief and pain to the doctor's house, and if she had been a child of the house, she could not have been more kindly treated. It was October when she opened her eyes with a faint gleam of reason in their troubled depths. She looked around in wonder; she had not the least idea where she was. The room she was in was exquisitely neat and clean, there were some fine engravings on the walls, the furniture was of quaint design, and there were a few vases and ornaments; yet it was neither the almost royal grandeur of Queen's Chase nor the simple luxury of the hotel at Bergheim. Where was she? Why was she lying in this strange place with this feeling of weakness and weariness upon her? [Pg 103] Presently a kind, motherly, comely face bent over her, and a quiet, soothing voice said: "I am so glad to find you a little better, my dear." "Have I been very ill?" she asked; and the sound of her voice was so faint, so unlike her own that it seemed as though it came from a great distance. "Yes, you have been very ill, dear child." "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. [Pg 104] "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 passed since she stood in the assize 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 principal of which was Queen Mab. Such kindness could spring only from noble 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[Pg 105] 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.[Pg 106] 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." "She has never done anything wrong, Robert," interrupted Mrs. Chalmers, addressing her son; "take my word for it. Look at that innocent face, those clear, true eyes—no[Pg 107] one could believe they were coupled with guilt. I trust you, my dear," she added, turning to Hyacinth. "Keep your secret—never mind it; I believe in you, and shall never ask what it is." A grateful look came over the girl's face. "Thank you," she said. "You are right; I am not wicked. In one action of my life I was imprudent and foolish; the consequences of that action, which could not have been foreseen by any one, have crushed me. I am not wicked. See, I ask you to let me kiss your face; if my lips were stained with false words, I would not—I could not do so. I clasp your hands—ah, such true, kind hands they have been to me!—in my own; but, if mine were stained with crime, I could not do it." "I believe you, my dear child," said Mrs. Chalmers; "you need say no more." "I may tell you this," continued the girl. "I had a name as old and honored as any in the land; but I have laid it down and shall never use it again. I had friends—kind, strict, noble, generous; I have looked my last upon them. I had—oh, dear Heaven, it is hard to say!—I had a lover, whom I loved dearly, and his face I have looked upon for the last time. I am dead to all—dead in life!" Her voice faltered, she broke into a passionate fit of weeping. During this time the doctor had spoken never a word, but now he bent over her. "Child," he said, "you are so young, so simple, that, if any wrong has been done, you have been sinned against, not the sinner. Like my mother, I trust you. We have neither daughter nor sister; you shall be both. Our home shall be your home—what we have you shall share with us as long as life lasts." She kissed the strong hand clasped in her own; her warm tears fell on it. "You are very good to me," she said, "and though I tell you that I come to you as one risen from the dead—though I have no name, no friends—you will trust me, you will believe in me?" "Yes," replied Dr. Chalmers, calmly. "I have not studied the human face all these years to be mistaken at last. I trust you implicitly." "You must have a name," cried Mrs. Chalmers; "all the world need not know what we know. People will think you are a ward or protégée of mine; but you must have a name." [Pg 108] "Let her take ours, mother," suggested her son. But Hyacinth's face flushed. "That would hardly do," said Mrs. Chalmers. "I will give you mine, my dear—the name that was mine in my girlhood—people used to think it a pretty one—Millicent Holte." <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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