The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [1530]
He left her.
She walked to the window, and looked out at the fair morning. No one to feel for her--no one to understand her--nothing nearer that could speak to poor mortality of hope and encouragement than the bright heaven, so far away! She turned from the window. "The sun shines on the murderer," she thought, "as it shines on me."
She sat down at the table, and tried to quiet her mind; to think steadily to some good purpose. Of the few friends that she possessed, every one had declared that she was in the wrong. Had they lost the one loved being of all beings on earth, and lost him by the hand of a homicide--and that homicide free? All that was faithful, all that was devoted in the girl's nature, held her to her desperate resolution as with a hand of iron. If she shrank at that miserable moment, it was not from her design--it was from the sense of her own helplessness. "Oh, if I had been a man!" she said to herself. "Oh, if I could find a friend!"
CHAPTER LIII.
THE FRIEND IS FOUND.
Mrs. Ellmother looked into the parlor. "I told you Mr. Mirabel would call again," she announced. "Here he is."
"Has he asked to see me?"
"He leaves it entirely to you."
For a moment, and a moment only, Emily was undecided. "Show him in," she said.
Mirabel's embarrassment was visible the moment he entered the room. For the first time in his life--in the presence of a woman--the popular preacher was shy. He who had taken hundreds of fair hands with sympathetic pressure--he who had offered fluent consolation, abroad and at home, to beauty in distress--was conscious of a rising color, and was absolutely at a loss for words when Emily received him. And yet, though he appeared at disadvantage--and, worse still, though he was aware of it himself--there was nothing contemptible in his look and manner. His silence and confusion revealed a change in him which inspired respect. Love had developed this spoiled darling of foolish congregations, this effeminate pet of drawing-rooms and boudoirs, into the likeness of a Man--and no woman, in Emily's position, could have failed to see that it was love which she herself had inspired.
Equally ill at ease, they both took refuge in the commonplace phrases suggested by the occasion. These exhausted there was a pause. Mirabel alluded to Cecilia, as a means of continuing the conversation.
"Have you seen Miss Wyvil?" he inquired.
"She was here last night; and I expect to see her again to-day before she returns to Monksmoor with her father. Do you go back with them?"
"Yes--if you do."
"I remain in London."
"Then I remain in London, too."
The strong feeling that was in him had forced its way to expression at last. In happier days--when she had persistently refused to let him speak to her seriously--she would have been ready with a light-hearted reply. She was silent now. Mirabel pleaded with her not to misunderstand him, by an honest confession of his motives which presented him under a new aspect. The easy plausible man, who had hardly ever seemed to be in earnest before--meant, seriously meant, what he said now.
"May I try to explain myself?" he asked.
"Certainly, if you wish it."
"Pray, don't suppose me capable," Mirabel said earnestly, "of presuming to pay you an idle compliment. I cannot think of you, alone and in trouble, without feeling anxiety which can only be relieved in one way--I must be near enough to hear of you, day by day. Not by repeating this visit! Unless you wish it, I will not again cross the threshold of your door. Mrs. Ellmother will tell me if your mind is more at ease; Mrs. Ellmother will tell me if there is any new trial of your fortitude. She needn't even mention that I have been speaking to her at the door; and she may be sure, and you