Shirley

"Up here, sir; but if you object, she shall go down again."

"Is this a place or am I a person to bring a lady to, you absurd lad?"

"No; so I'll take her off."

"Martin, you will stay here. Who is she?"

"Your grandmother from that château on the Scheldt Miss Moore talks about."

"Martin," said the softest whisper at the door, "don't be foolish."

"Is she there?" inquired Moore hastily. He had caught an imperfect sound.

"She is there, fit to faint. She is standing on the mat, shocked at your want of filial affection."

"Martin, you are an evil cross between an imp and a page. What is she like?"

"More like me than you; for she is young and beautiful."

"You are to show her forward. Do you hear?"

"Come, Miss Caroline."

"Miss Caroline!" repeated Moore.

And when Miss Caroline entered she was encountered in the middle of the chamber by a tall, thin, wasted figure, who took both her hands.

"I give you a quarter of an hour," said Martin, as he withdrew, "no more. Say what you have to say in that time. Till it is past I will wait in the gallery; nothing shall approach; I'll see you safe away. Should you persist in staying longer, I leave you to your fate."

He shut the door. In the gallery he was as elate as a king. He had never been engaged in an adventure he liked so well, for no adventure had ever invested him with so much importance or inspired him with so much interest.

"You are come at last," said the meagre man, gazing on his visitress with hollow eyes.

"Did you expect me before?"

"For a month, near two months, we have been very near; and I have been in sad pain, and danger, and misery, Cary."

"I could not come."

"Couldn't you? But the rectory and Briarmains are very near – not two miles apart."

There was pain and there was pleasure in the girl's face as she listened to these implied reproaches. It was sweet, it was bitter to defend herself.

"When I say I could not come, I mean I could not see you; for I came with mamma the very day we heard what had happened. Mr. MacTurk then told us it was impossible to admit any stranger."

"But afterwards – every fine afternoon these many weeks past I have waited and listened. Something here, Cary" – laying his hand on his breast – "told me it was impossible but that you should think of me. Not that I merit thought; but we are old acquaintance – we are cousins."

"I came again, Robert; mamma and I came again."

"Did you? Come, that is worth hearing. Since you came again, we will sit down and talk about it."

They sat down. Caroline drew her chair up to his. The air was now dark with snow; an Iceland blast was driving it wildly. This pair neither heard the long "wuthering" rush, nor saw the white burden it drifted. Each seemed conscious but of one thing – the presence of the other.

"So mamma and you came again?"

"And Mrs. Yorke did treat us strangely. We asked to see you. 'No,' said she, 'not in my house. I am at present responsible for his life; it shall not be forfeited for half an hour's idle gossip.' But I must not tell you all she said; it was very disagreeable. However, we came yet again – mamma, Miss Keeldar, and I. This time we thought we should conquer, as we were three against one, and Shirley was on our side. But Mrs. Yorke opened such a battery."

Moore smiled. "What did she say?"

"Things that astonished us. Shirley laughed at last; I cried; mamma was seriously annoyed. We were all three driven from the field. Since that time I have only walked once a day past the house, just for the satisfaction of looking up at your window, which I could distinguish by the drawn curtains. I really dared not come in."

"I have wished for you, Caroline."

"I did not know that; I never dreamt one instant that you thought of me. If I had but most distantly imagined such a possibility – "

"Mrs. Yorke would still have beaten you."

"She would not. Stratagem should have been tried, if persuasion failed. I would have come to the kitchen door; the servants should have let me in, and I would have walked straight upstairs. In fact, it was far more the fear of intrusion – the fear of yourself – that baffled me than the fear of Mrs. Yorke."

"Only last night I despaired of ever seeing you again. Weakness has wrought terrible depression in me – terrible depression."

"And you sit alone?"

"Worse than alone."

"But you must be getting better, since you can leave your bed?"

"I doubt whether I shall live. I see nothing for it, after such exhaustion, but decline."

"You – you shall go home to the Hollow."

"Dreariness would accompany, nothing cheerful come near me."

"I will alter this. This shall be altered, were there ten Mrs. Yorkes to do battle with."

"Cary, you make me smile."

"Do smile; smile again. Shall I tell you what I should like?"

"Tell me anything – only keep talking. I am Saul; but for music I should perish."

"I should like you to be brought to the rectory, and given to me and mamma."

"A precious gift! I have not laughed since they shot me till now."

"Do you suffer pain, Robert?"

"Not so much pain now; but I am hopelessly weak, and the state of my mind is inexpressible – dark, barren, impotent. Do you not read it all in my face? I look a mere ghost."