standing at the bedside with some tea, ready to drop it into her mouth by spoonfuls.
She did not see the face of honest joy, of earnest thankfulness,—the clasped hands, the beaming eyes,—the trembling eagerness of gesture, of one who had long awaited her awakening, and who now stood behind the curtains watching through some little chink her every faint motion; or if she had caught a glimpse of that loving, peeping face, she was in too exhausted a state to have taken much notice, or have long retained the impression that he she loved so well was hanging about her, and blessing God for every conscious look which stole over her countenance.
She fell softly into slumber, without a word having been spoken by any one during that half-hour of inexpressible joy. And again the stillness was enforced by a sign and whispered word, but with eyes that beamed out their bright thoughts of hope. Jem sat by the side of the bed, holding back the little curtain, and gazing as if he could never gaze his fill at the pale, wasted face, so marbled and so chiselled in its wan outline.
She wakened once more; her soft eyes opened, and met his overbending look. She smiled gently, as a baby does when it sees its mother tending its little cot; and continued her innocent, infantine gaze into his face, as if the sight gave her much unconscious pleasure. But by-and-by a different expression came into her sweet eyes; a look of memory and intelligence; her white flesh flushed the brightest rosy red, and with feeble motion she tried to hide her head in the pillow.
It required all Jem’s self-control to do what he knew and felt to be necessary, to call Mrs. Sturgis, who was quietly dozing by the fireside; and that done, he felt almost obliged to leave the room to keep down the happy agitation which would gush out in every feature, every gesture, and every tone.
From that time forward Mary’s progress towards health was rapid.
There was every reason, but one, in favour of her speedy removal home. All Jem’s duties lay in Manchester. It was his mother’s dwelling-place, and there his plans for life had been to be worked out; plans which the suspicion and imprisonment he had fallen into, had thrown for a time into a chaos, which his presence was required to arrange into form. For he might find, in spite of a jury’s verdict, that too strong a taint was on his character for him ever to labour in Manchester again. He remembered the manner in which some one suspected of having been a convict was shunned by masters and men, when he had accidentally met with work in their foundry; the recollection smote him now, how he himself had thought it did not become an honest upright man to associate with one who had been a prisoner. He could not choose but think on that poor humble being, with his downcast conscious look; hunted out of the workshop, where he had sought to earn an honest livelihood, by the looks, and half-spoken words, and the black silence of repugnance (worse than words to bear), that met him on all sides.
Jem felt that his own character had been attainted; and that to many it might still appear suspicious. He knew that he could convince the world, by a future as blameless as his past had been, that he was innocent. But at the same time he saw that he must have patience, and nerve himself for some trials; and the sooner these were undergone, the sooner he was aware of the place he held in men’s estimation, the better. He longed to have presented himself once more at the foundry; and then the reality would drive away the pictures that would (unbidden) come of a shunned man, eyed askance by all, and driven forth to shape out some new career.
I said every reason “but one” inclined Jem to hasten Mary’s return as soon as she was sufficiently convalescent. That one was the meeting which awaited her at home.
Turn it over as Jem would, he could not decide what was the best course to pursue. He could compel himself to any line of conduct that his reason and his sense of right told him to be desirable; but they did not tell him it was desirable to speak to Mary, in her tender state of mind and body, of her father. How much would be implied by the mere mention of his name! Speak it as calmly, and as indifferently as he might, he could not avoid expressing some consciousness of the terrible knowledge she possessed.
She, for her part, was softer and gentler than she had even been in her gentlest mood; since her illness, her motions, her glances, her voice were all tender in their languor. It seemed almost a trouble to her to break the silence with the low sounds of her own sweet voice, and her words fell sparingly on Jem’s greedy, listening ear.
Her face was, however, so full of love and confidence, that Jem felt no uneasiness at the state of silent abstraction into which she often fell. If she did but love him, all would yet go right; and it was better not to press for confidence on that one subject which must be painful to both.
There came a fine, bright, balmy day. And Mary tottered once more out into the open air, leaning on Jem’s arm, and close to his beating heart. And Mrs. Sturgis watched them from her door, with a blessing on her lips, as they went slowly up the street.
They came in sight of the river. Mary shuddered.
“O Jem! take me home. Yon river seems all made of glittering, heaving, dazzling metal, just as it did when I began to be ill.”
Jem led her homewards. She dropped her head as searching for something on the ground.
“Jem!” He was all attention. She paused for an instant. “When may I go home? To Manchester, I mean. I am so weary of this place; and I would fain be at home.”
She spoke in a feeble voice; not at all impatiently, as the words themselves would seem to intimate, but in a mournful way, as if anticipating sorrow even in the very fulfilment of her wishes.
“Darling! we will go whenever you wish; whenever you feel strong enough. I asked Job to tell Margaret to get all in readiness for you to go there at first. She’ll tend you and nurse you. You must not go home. Job proffered for you to go there.”
“Ah! but I must go home, Jem. I’ll try and not fail now in what’s right. There are things we must not speak on” (lowering her voice), “but you’ll be really kind if you’ll not speak against my going home. Let us say no more about it, dear Jem. I must go home, and I must go alone.”
“Not alone, Mary!”
“Yes, alone! I cannot tell you why I ask it. And if you guess, I know you well enough to be sure you’ll understand why I ask you never to speak on that again to me, till I begin. Promise, dear Jem, promise!”
He promised; to gratify that beseeching face, he promised. And then he repented, and felt as if he had done ill. Then again he felt as if she were the best judge, and knowing all (perhaps more than even he did), might be forming plans which his interference would mar.
One thing was certain! it was a miserable thing to have this awful forbidden ground of discourse; to guess at each other’s thoughts, when eyes were averted, and cheeks blanched, and words stood still, arrested in their flow by some casual allusion.
