The thought overpowered her. Just then her part recurred, but her voice died away in a miserable quaver, and again she buried her face in her hands. Suddenly she sprang from the piano, darted through the low-cut open window near, and a moment later ordered her startled maid from the room, turned the key, and was alone.
Her father explained coldly to the astonished audience and the half-paralyzed tenor (who still stood with his mouth open) that his daughter was not at all well that evening, and ought not to have appeared at all. This Mrs. Von Brakhiem took up and repeated with endless variations. But the evidences of sheer mental distress on the part of Christine had been too clear, and countless were the whispered surmises of the fashionable gossips in explanation.
Mrs. Von Brakhiem herself, burning with curiosity, soon retired, that she might receive from her lovely charge some gushing confidences, which she expected, as a matter of course, would be poured into what she chose to regard as her sympathizing ear. But she knocked in vain at Christine’s door.
Later Mr. Ludolph knocked. There was no answer.
“Christine!” he called.
After some delay a broken voice answered, “You cannot enter—I am not well—I have retired.”
He turned on his heel and strode away, and that night drank more brandy and water than was good for him.
As for Christine, warped and chilled though her nature had been, she was still a woman, she was still young, and, though she knew it not, she had heard the voice which had spoken her heart into life. Through a chain of circumstances for which she was partly to blame, she had been made to suffer as she had not believed was possible. The terrible words of Mr. Bruder’s letter rang continually in her ears—“Mrs. Fleet is not dying a natural death; he has been slain.”
For many long, weary days the conviction had been growing upon her that she had indeed slain him and mortally wounded herself. Until tonight she had kept herself outwardly under restraint, but now the long pent-up feeling gave way, and she sobbed as if her heart would break—sobbed till the power to weep was gone. If now some kind, judicious friend had shown her that she was not so guilty as she deemed herself; that, however, frightful the consequences of such acts, she was really not to blame for what she did not intend and could not foresee; more than all, if she could only have known that her worst fears about Dennis were not to be realized, and that he was now recovering, she might at once have entered on a new and happier life. But there was no such friend, no such knowledge, and her wounded spirit was thrown back upon itself.
At last, robed as she had been for the evening, she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion and grief—for grief induces sleep.
The gems that shone in her dishevelled hair; that rose and fell as at long intervals her bosom heaved with convulsive sobs, like the fitful gusts of a storm that is dying away; the costly fabrics she wore—made sad mockery in their contrast with the pale, tear-stained, suffering face. The hardest heart might have pitied her—yes, even the wholly ambitious heart of her father, incensed as he was that a plebeian stranger of this land should have caused such distress.
When Christine awoke, her pride awoke also. With bitterness of spirit she recalled the events of the past evening. But a new phase of feeling now began to manifest itself.
After her passionate outburst she was much calmer. In this respect the unimpeded flow of feeling had done her good, and, as intimated, if kindness and sympathy could now have added their gentle ministrations, she might have been the better for it all her life. But, left to herself, she again yielded to the sway of her old and worst traits. Chief among these was pride; and under the influence of this passion and the acute suffering of her unsoothed, unguided spirit, she began to rebel in impotent anger. She grew hard, cynical, and reckless. Her father’s lack of sympathy and consideration alienated her heart even from him. Left literally alone in the world, her naturally reserved nature shut itself up more closely than ever. Even her only friend, Susie Winthrop, drifted away. One other, who might have been—But she could think of him only with a shudder now. All the rest seemed indifferent, or censorious, or, worse still, to be using her, like Mrs. Von Brakhiem and even her own father, as a stepping-stone to their personal ambition. Christine could not see that she was to blame for this isolation. She did not understand that cold, selfish natures, like her own and her father’s, could not surround themselves with warm, generous friends. She saw only the fact. But with flashing eyes she resolved that her heart’s secrets should not be pried into a hair-breadth further; that she would be used only so far as she chose. She would, in short, “face out” the events of the past evening simply and solely on the ground that she had not been well, and permit no questions to be asked.
Cold and self-possessed, she came down to a late breakfast. Mrs. Von Brakhiem, and others who had been introduced, joined her, but nothing could penetrate through the nice polished armor of her courteous reserve. Her father looked at her keenly, but she coolly returned his gaze.
When alone with her soon afterward, he turned and said, sharply, “What does all this mean?”
She looked around as if someone else were near.
“Were you addressing me?” she asked, coldly.
“Yes, of course I am,” said her father, impatiently.
“From your
