The Shadow of a Sin

"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."

"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."

CHAPTER XXV

"Millicent Holte – that is the name you must assume," said Mrs. Chalmers to Hyacinth; "and, though I never was so pretty or so sweet as you are, still I was a very happy girl – and I do not like to see a young life blighted. Kiss me, Millicent; you shall be like a daughter to me."

"I do not remember my own mother," observed the girl, simply, laying her fair head on the kindly breast, "and I thank Heaven for sending me to you."

"Before we finish this subject at once and forever," said the doctor, "let me ask you, Millicent, is there anything that I can do for you in connection with your secret? If so, speak to me just as freely as though I were your brother, and command me as you will."

"You can do nothing," she answered, mournfully. "I should not have given up but that I knew all hope was past, nothing can undo what has been done – nothing can remove, nothing lighten its shadow."

"Are you unjustly punished?" he asked.

"Sometimes I think so, but I cannot tell."

"We will not mention the matter again," said the doctor, kindly; "we will think only of the new life and getting well. As a preparatory step to the latter, let me tell you that you must eat all these grapes, and then lie down and sleep again."

For the sweet face had grown so white and worn, so pale and tired – he saw that the effort she had made had been a most painful one.

"We will leave her alone, mother," he said.

But before Mrs. Chalmers quitted the room she unlocked a drawer and took from it a small purse; this she placed in Millicent's hand.

"This is yours, my dear," she said; "it fell from your pocket the evening you came here."

The sight of the little purse almost unnerved her. She remembered how Adrian had laughed at it, and had promised to buy her one with golden clasps. She took it, and then looked wistfully in the lady's face.

"No, my dear," said Mrs. Chalmers, "it is not to be thought of for one moment. What my son and I have done has not been for gain. Keep it, my poor child; you will need it in this new life that lies before you."

Then they left her alone, and the thoughts that mastered her were very sad ones. This new life looked almost terrible now that she was brought face to face with it. She began to wonder what they were doing at home, whether she should hear their names again, whether Adrian was still with them, and what he now thought of her. How he must despise himself for having ever loved her – she who had been the subject of popular comment and gossip – she whose name had been upon every lip! He who admired delicacy and refinement, how he must dislike her! She checked herself.

"I must not think of it," she said, "or I shall go mad."

Meanwhile mother and son had gone down to the cozy dining-room, and stood looking at each other in silence.

"It is a strange story, mother," said Dr. Chalmers; "I cannot understand it. What should you think the poor girl has been doing?"

"I cannot even form an idea," replied Mrs. Chalmers; "she has done nothing wrong – I am quite sure of that."

"Yet it must have been something very grave and serious to drive a girl from her home and her friends – to cause her to give up her name, and to be, as she says, dead to life."

"Something unusually grave, no doubt, but without wrong on her part; I could no more doubt her than I could myself. However unhappy or unfortunate she may be, she is good, true, pure, innocent, and simple as a child."

"Yes, I believe so, but it puzzles me greatly to know what her story can be. Still, we have taken her to ourselves, poor child; so we must make her strong and well and happy."

"Robert," said Mrs. Chalmers, gently – and she looked anxiously at her son's handsome, clever face – "be as kind as you will to her, but, my dear, do not fall in love with her."

"You may depend upon it, mother," he returned – and his face flushed and he laughed uneasily – "that, even if I should do so, I will never say one word about it. I shall think of Millicent, poor child, as of some petted younger sister, and do my best for her." Then the doctor opened a ponderous volume, and his mother knew that all conversation was at an end.

They were not rich, those good Samaritans, although the doctor was making rapid strides in his profession. Theirs had been a hard struggle. The mother had been left a widow when quite young; she had only a small income, the son was desirous of a good education, and then he chose the profession he felt most inclination for. But it had been up-hill work – they had no friends and no influence. They had nothing but his skill and industry to rely upon. Both, however, soon made their way. His practice increased rapidly, and when Hyacinth found refuge with him he had begun to save money, and was altogether in what the people of the world call comfortable circumstances. It was most probably the remembrance of their early struggles that made both mother and son so kind and charitable to the unhappy girl who had fallen under their hands. Perhaps, had they always been prosperous, they might have had harder hearts. As it was, the memory of their past struggles softened them and made them kinder to the whole world.

Mrs. Chalmers, well-born and well-bred herself, was quick to recognize that Hyacinth was a gentlewoman – one who had been accustomed not only to a life of refinement, but of luxury. She was quick also to recognize the pure mind, the innocent, simple, gentle heart.

It was all settled, and Millicent – as Hyacinth Vaughan was now called – became one of the family. Mrs. Chalmers always treated her as though she was her own daughter. The doctor spoiled, indulged, teased, and worshipped her. They did all that was possible for her; still the girl was not happy. She regained her health and strength very slowly, but no color returned to that delicate, lovely face – the beautiful eyes were always shadowed – no one ever saw her smile. As she grew stronger, she busied herself in doing all kinds of little services for Mrs. Chalmers; but this life among the middle class was all new to her. She had never known anything but the sombre magnificence of Queen's Chase and the hotel life at Bergheim. She was lost, and hardly knew what to do. It was new to her to live in small rooms – to be waited on by one servant – to hear and know all that passed in the household – new, strange, and bewildering to her. But she busied herself in attending to Mrs. Chalmers. She did many little services, too, for the doctor; and at last he grew to love the beautiful, sad face and plaintive voice as he had never loved anything before. She grew stronger, but not happier, and they became anxious about her.

"It is so unnatural in a girl of her age," said Mrs. Chalmers; "the trouble must have been a great one, since she cannot forget it. In my opinion, Robert, nothing will rouse her but change of scene and work. She seems to be always in a sorrowful dream."

What Mrs. Chalmers said the young girl often thought. After a time she wearied inexpressibly of the dull routine of her every-day life.

"I am dying," she would say to herself – "dying of inanition. I must begin to work."

One day, when the doctor sat alone in his surgery, she went to him and told him.

"If you will only be kind enough to let me work," she said. "I shall always love this my home; but it seems to me that in body and mind I should be much better if I could work."

"And work you shall," decided the doctor; "leave all to me."

CHAPTER XXVI

Dr. Chalmers was getting on in the world. His practice had at first been confined exclusively to the locality in which he lived; but of late noble ladies had sent for him, and his name was mentioned with great honor in the medical journals. He had been consulted in some very difficult cases, and people said he saved Lady Poldean's life when all the physicians had pronounced her case hopeless. Honors were falling thick and fast upon him.

Lady Dartelle, of Hulme Abbey, was one of those who placed implicit faith in him. Her ladyship was credited with passing through life with one eye firmly fixed on the "main chance." She never neglected an opportunity of saving a guinea; and she was wont to observe that she had much better advice from Dr. Chalmers for five guineas than she could procure from a fashionable physician for twenty. Her youngest daughter, Clara, had been ailing for some time, and Lady Dartelle decided on leaving Hulme Abbey and coming up to town for the benefit of the doctor's advice.

Lady Dartelle was a widow – "left," as she was accustomed to observe, emphatically, "with four dear children." The eldest, the son and heir, Sir Aubrey, was travelling on the Continent; her two daughters, Veronica and Mildred, were accomplished young ladies who had taken every worldly maxim to heart, and never bestowed a thought upon anything save of the most frivolous nature.

They had made their début some years before, but it had not been a very successful one. The young ladies were only moderately good looking, and they had not the most amiable of tempers. Perhaps this latter fact might account in some degree for several matrimonial failures. The young ladies had not accompanied Lady Dartelle to town – they objected to be seen there out of season – so that her ladyship had the whole of the mansion to herself.

Dr. Chalmers had one day been sitting for some time by the child, examining her, talking to her and asking her innumerable questions. She was a fair, fragile, pretty child, with great earnest eyes and sensitive lips. The doctor's heart warmed to her; and when Lady Dartelle sent to request his presence in her room, he looked very anxious.

"I want you to tell me the truth, doctor," she said. "The child has never been very well nor very ill. I want to know if you think she is in any danger."

"I cannot tell," he replied. "It seems to me that the child's chances are equal for life or death."