"Oh, Doctor Grimshaw, shall I send for him? He'd never forgive me; and I promised her, darling Margaret, to send."
"Don't send – on no account yet. Don't bring him here – he's better away. I'll tell you when to send."
The doctor opened the door.
"Still quiet?"
"Yes, sir," whispered Mrs. Graver.
Again he closed the door.
"Nice creature she seems. A relation of yours?" asked the Doctor.
"My cousin."
"When was she married?"
"About a year ago."
"Never any tendency to consumption?"
"Never."
"Nothing to make her low or weak? Is she hysterical?"
"No, hardly that, but nervous and excitable."
"I know; very good. I think she'll do very nicely. If anything goes the least wrong I'll let you know. Now stay quiet in there."
And he shut the door, and she heard his step move softly over the next room floor, so great was the silence; and she kneeled down and prayed as helpless people pray in awful peril; and more time passed, and more, slowly, very slowly. Oh, would the dawn ever come, and the daylight again?
Voices and moans she heard from the room. Again she prayed on her knees to the throne of mercy, in the agony of her suspense, and now over the strange roofs spread the first faint gray of the coming dawn; and there came a silence in the room, and on a sudden was heard a new tiny voice crying.
"The little child!" cried old Anne Sheckleton, springing to her feet, with clasped hands, in the anguish of delight, and such a gush of tears – as she looked up, thanking God with her smiles – as comes only in such moments.
Margaret's clear voice faintly said something; Anne could not hear what.
"A boy," answered the cheery voice of Doctor Grimshaw.
"Oh! he'll be so glad!" answered the faint clear voice in a kind of rapture.
"Of course he will," replied the same cheery voice. And another question came, too low for old Anne Sheckleton's ears.
"A beautiful boy! as fine a fellow as you could desire to look at. Bring him here, nurse."
"Oh! the darling!" said the same faint voice. "I'm so happy."
"Thank God! thank God! thank God!" sobbed delighted Anne Sheckleton, her cheeks still streaming in showers of tears as she stood waiting at the door for the moment of admission, and hearing the sweet happy tones of Margaret's voice sounding in her ears like the voice of one who had just now died, heard faintly through the door of heaven.
For thus it has been, and thus to the end, it will be – the "sorrow" of the curse is remembered no more, "for joy that a man is born into the world."
CHAPTER III.
CLEVE COMES
Tom Sedley was dozing in his chair, by the fire, when he was roused by Mrs. Graver's voice.
"You'll take this note at once, please, to your master; there's a cab at the door, and the lady says you mustn't make no delay."
It took some seconds to enable Tom to account for the scene, the actor and his own place of repose, his costume, and the tenor of the strange woman's language. In a little while, however, he recovered the context, and the odd passage in his life became intelligible.
Still half asleep, Tom hurried down-stairs, and in the hall, with a shock, read the address, "Cleve Verney, Esq." At the hall-door steps he found a cab, into which he jumped, telling the man to drive to Cleve Verney's lodgings.
There were expiring lights in the drawing-room, the blinds of which were up, and as the cab stopped at the steps a figure appeared at one of the windows, and Cleve Verney opened it, and told the driver, "Don't mind knocking, I'll go down."
"Come up-stairs," said Cleve, as he stood at the open door, addressing Sedley, and mistaking him for the person whom he had employed.
Up ran Tom Sedley at his heels.
"Hollo! Sedley– what brings you here?" said Cleve, when Tom appeared in the light of the candles. "You don't mean to say the ball has been going on till now – or is it a scrape?"
"Nothing – only this I've been commissioned to give you," and he placed Miss Sheckleton's note in his hand.
Cleve had looked wofully haggard and anxious as Tom entered. But his countenance changed now to an ashy paleness, and there was no mistaking his extreme agitation.
He opened the note – a very brief one it seemed – and read it.
"Thank God!" he said with a great sigh, and then he walked to the window and looked out, and returned again to the candles and read the note once more.
"How did you know I was up, Tom?"
"The lights in the windows."
"Yes. Don't let the cab go."
Cleve was getting on his coat, and speaking like a man in a dream.
"I say, Tom Sedley, how did you come by this note?" he said, with a sudden pause, and holding Miss Sheckleton's note in his fingers.
"Well, quite innocently," hesitated Sedley.
"How the devil was it, sir? Come, you may as well – by heaven, Sedley, you shall tell me the truth!"
Tom looked on his friend Cleve, and saw his eyes gleaming sharply on him, and his face very white.
"Of course I'll tell you, Cleve," said Tom, and with this exordium he stumbled honestly through his story, which by no means quieted Cleve Verney.
"You d – d little Paul Pry!" said he. "Well, you have got hold of a secret now, like the man in the iron mask, and by – you had better keep it."
A man who half blames himself already, and is in a position which he hates and condemns, will stand a great deal more of hard language, and even of execration, than he would under any other imaginable circumstances.
"You can't blame me half as much as I do myself. I assure you, Cleve, I'm awfully sorry. It was the merest lark – at first – and then – when I saw that beautiful – that young lady – "
"Don't talk of that lady any more; I'm her husband. There, you have it all, and if you whisper it to mortal you may ruin me; but one or other of us shall die for it!"
Cleve was talking in a state of positive exasperation.
"Whisper it! – tell it! You don't in the least understand me, Cleve," said Tom, collecting himself, and growing a little lofty; "I don't whisper or tell things; and as for daring or not daring, I don't know what you mean; and I hope, if occasion for dying came, I should funk it as little as any other fellow."
"I'm going to this d – d place now. I don't much care what you do: I almost wish you'd shoot me."
He struck his hand on the table, looking not at Tom Sedley, but with a haggard rage through the window, and away toward the gray east; and without another word to Sedley, he ran down, shutting the hall-door with a crash that showed more of his temper than of his prudence, and Tom saw him jump into the cab and drive away.
The distance is really considerable, but in Cleve's intense reverie time and space contracted, and before he fancied they had accomplished half the way, he found himself at the tall door and stained pilasters and steps of the old red-brick house.
Anne Evans, half awake, awaited his arrival on the steps. He ran lightly up the stairs, under her covert scrutiny; and, in obedience to Mrs. Graver's gesture of warning, as she met him with raised hand and her frowning "Hish" at the head of the stairs, he checked his pace, and in a whisper he made his eager inquiries. She was going on very nicely.
"I must see Miss Sheckleton – the old lady – where is she?" urged Cleve.
"Here,