Sarah, who had for about a half minute been examining Mave on her part, now started, and exclaimed with flashing eyes, and we may add, a bursting and distracted heart--

"Well, Mave Sullivan, I have often seen you, but never so well as now.

You have goodness an' truth in your face. Oh, it's a purty face--a lovely face. But why do you state a falsehood here--for what you've just said is false; I know it."

Mave started, and in a moment her pale face and neck were suffused by one burning blush, at the idea of such an imputation. She looked around her, as if enquiring from all those who were present the nature of the falsehood attributed to her; and then with a calm but firm eye, she asked Sarah what she could mean by such language.

"You're afther sayin'," replied Sarah, "that you're come here to nurse Nancy there. Now that's not true, and you know it isn't. You come here to nurse young Con Dalton: and you came to nurse him, bekaise you love him. No, I don't blame you for that, but I do for not saying so, without fear or disguise--for I hate both."

"That wouldn't be altogether true either," replied Mave, "if I said so; for I did come to nurse Nancy, and any others of the family that might stand in need of it. As to Con, I'm neither ashamed to love him, nor afeard to acknowledge it; and I had no notion of statin' a falsehood when I said what I did. I tell you, then, Sarah M'Gowan, that you've done me injustice. If there appeared to be a falsehood in my words, there was none in my heart."

"That's truth; I know, I feel that that's truth," replied Sarah, quickly; "but oh, how wrong I am," she exclaimed, "to mention that or anything else here that might distract him! Ah," she proceeded, addressing Mave, "I did you injustice--I feel I did, but don't be angry with me, for I acknowledge it."

"Why should I be angry with you?" replied Mave, "you only spoke what you thought, an' this, by all accounts, is what you always do."

"Let us talk as little as possible here," replied Sarah, the sole absorbing object of whose existence lay in Dalton's recovery. "I will speak to you on your way home, but not here--not here;" and while uttering the last words she pointed to Dalton, to intimate that further conversation might disturb him.

"Dear Mave," observed Mary, now rising from her chair, "you are stayin'

too long; oh, for G.o.d's sake, don't stop; you can't dhrame of the danger you're in."

"But," replied Mave, calmly, "you know, Mary, that I came to stop and to do whatever I can do till the family comes round. You are too feeble to undertake anything, and might only get into a relapse if you attempted it."

"But, then we have Sarah M'Gowan," she replied, "who came, as few would--none livin' this day, I think, barrin' yourself and her--to stay with us, and to do anything that she can do for us all. May G.o.d for ever bless her! for short as the time is, I think she has saved some of our lives--Condy's without a doubt."

Mave turned towards Sarah, and, as she looked upon her, the tears started to her eyes.

"Sarah M'Gowan," said she, "you are fond of truth, an' you are right; I can't find words to thank you for doin' what you did, G.o.d bless and reward you!"

She extended her hand as she spoke, but Sarah put it back. "No," said she, indignantly, "never from you; above all that's livin' don't you thank me. You, you, why you arn't his wife yet," she exclaimed, in a suppressed voice of deep agitation, "an maybe you never will. You don't know what may happen--you don't know--"

She immediately seemed to recollect something that operated as a motive to restrain any exhibition of strong feeling or pa.s.sion on her part, for all at once she composed herself, and sitting down, merely said:--

"Mave Sullivan, I'm glad you love truth, and I believe you do; I can't, then, resave any thanks from you, nor I won't; an' I would tell you why, any place but here."

"I don't at all understand you," replied Mave; "but for your care and attention to him, I'm sure it's no harm to say, may G.o.d reward you! I will never forget it to you."

"While I have life," said Dalton feebly, and fixing his eyes upon Sarah's face, "I, for one, won't forget her kindness."

"Kindness!" she re-echoed--"ha, ha!--well, it's no matter--it's no matter!"

"She saved my life, Mave; I was lyin' here, and hadn't even a drink of water, and there was no one else in the house; Mary, there, was out, an'

poor Nancy was ravin' an' ragin' with illness and pain; but she, Sarah, was here to settle us, to attend us, to get us a drink whenever we wanted it--to raise us up, an' to put it to our lips, an' to let us down with as little pain as possible. Oh, how could I forget all this? Dear, dear Sarah, how could I forget this if I was to live a thousand years?"

Con's face, while he spoke, became animated with the enthusiasm of the feeling to which he gave utterance, and, as his eyes were fixed on Sarah with a suitable expression, there appeared to be a warmth of emotion in his whole manner which a sanguine person might probably interpret in something beyond grat.i.tude.

Sarah, after he had concluded, looked upon him with a long, earnest, but uncertain gaze; so long, indeed, and so intensely penetrating was it, that the whole energy of her character might, for a time, be read clearly in the singular expression of her eyes. It was evident that her thoughts were fluttering between pleasure and pain, cheerfulness and gloom; but at length her countenance lost, by degrees its earnest character, the alternate play of light and shadow over it ceased, and the gaze changed, almost imperceptibly, into one of settled abstraction.

"It might be," she said, as if thinking aloud--"it might be--but time will tell; and, in the manetime, everything must be done fairly--fairly; still, if it shouldn't come to pa.s.s--if it should not--it would be betther if I had never been born; but it may be, an' time will tell."

Mave had watched her countenance closely, and without being able to discover the nature of the conflict that appeared in it, she went over, and placing her hand gently upon Sarah's arm, exclaimed--

"Don't blame me for what I'm goin' to say, Sarah--if you'll let me call you Sarah; but the truth is, I see that your mind is troubled. I wish to G.o.d I could remove that trouble, or that any one here could! I am sure they all would, as willingly as myself."

"She is troubled," said Mary; "I know by her manner that there's something distressing on her mind. Any earthly thing that we could do to relieve her we would; but I asked her, and she wouldn't tell me."

It is likely that Mary's kindness, and especially Mave's, so gently, but so sincerely expressed, touched her as they spoke. She made no reply, however, but approached Mave with a slight smile on her face, her lips compressed, and her eyes, which were fixed and brilliant, floating in something that looked like moisture, and which might as well have been occasioned by the glow of anger as the impulse of a softer emotion, or perhaps--and this might be nearer the truth--as a conflict between the two states of feeling. For some moments she looked into Mave's very eyes, and after a little, she seemed to regain her composure, and sat down without speaking. There was a slight pause occasioned by the expectation that she had been about to reply, during which Dalton's eyes were fixed upon her. In her evident distress, she looked upon him. Their eyes met, and the revelation that that glance of anguish, on the part of Sarah, gave to him, disclosed the secret.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" he exclaimed, involuntarily and unconsciously, "is this possible?"

Sarah felt that the discovery had been made by him at last; and seeing that all their eyes were still upon her, she rose up, and approaching Mave, said--

"It is true, Mave Sullivan, I am troubled--Mary, I am troubled;" and as she uttered the words, a blush so deep and so beautiful spread itself over her face and neck, that the very females present were, for the moment, lost in admiration of her radiant youth and loveliness. Dalton's eyes were still upon her, and after a little time, he said--

"Sarah, come to me."

She went to his bedside, and kneeling, bent her exquisite figure over him; and as her dark brilliant eyes looked into his, he felt the fragrance of her breath mingling with his own.

"What is it?" said she.

"You are too near me," said he.

"Ah, I feel I am," she said, shaking her head.

"I mane," he added, "for your own safety. Give me your hand, dear Sarah."

He took her hand, and raising himself a little on his right side, he looked upon her again; and as he did so, she felt a few warm tears falling upon it.

"Now," he said, "lay me down again, Sarah."

A few moments of ecstatic tumult, in which Sarah was unconscious of anything about her, pa.s.sed. She then rose, and sitting down on the little stool, she wept for some minutes in silence. During this quiet paroxysm no one spoke; but when Dalton turned his eyes upon Mave Sullivan, she was pale as ashes.

Mary, who had noticed nothing particular in the incidents just related, now urged Mave to depart; and the latter, on exchanging glances with Dalton, could perceive that a feeble hectic had overspread his face. She looked on him earnestly for a moment, then paused as if in thought, and going round to his bedside, knelt down, and taking his hand, said--

"Con, if there is any earthly thing that I can do to give ease and comfort to your mind, I am ready to do it. If it would relieve you, forget that you ever saw me, or ever--ever--knew me at all. Suppose I am not living--that I am dead. I say this, dear Con, to relieve you from any pain or distress of mind that you may feel on my account. Believe me, I feel everything for you, an' nothing now for myself. Whatever you do, I tell you that a harsh word or thought from me you will never have."

Mave, while she spoke, did not shed a tear; nor was her calm, sweet voice indicative of any extraordinary emotion. Sarah, who had been weeping until the other began to speak, now rose up, and approaching Mave, said--

"Go, Mave Sullivan--go out of this dangerous house; and you, Condy Dalton, heed not what she has said. Mave Sullivan, I think I understand your words, an' they make me ashamed of myself, an' of the thoughts that have been troublin' me. Oh, what am I when compared to you?--nothing nothing."

Mave had, on entering, deposited the little matters she had brought for their comfort, and Mary now came over, and placing her hand on her shoulder, said:

"Sarah is right, dear Mave; for G.o.d's sake do not stay here. Oh, think--only think if you tuck this faver, an' that anything happened you."

"Come," said Sarah, "leave this dangerous place; I will see you part of the way home--you can do nothing here that I won't do, and everything that I can do will be done." Her lover's eyes had been fixed upon her, and with a feeble voice--for the agitation had exhausted him--he added his solicitations for her departure to theirs.

"I hope I will soon be better, dear Mave, and able to get up too--but may G.o.d bless you and take care of you till then!"

Mave again went round and took his hand, on which he felt a few tears fall.