For a few minutes the young girl stood in deep thought, then, with a remarkable alteration of tone and manner, she said, suddenly—
“Come, Joy, come; we will go to Uncle Gray, our breakfast should be waiting.”
She opened the door which led into the larger room, and crossing that, closely followed by the dog, passed out of it by another door that opened upon the staircase. Slowly then, she descended the creaking, time-worn steps and pushing open a small door at their feet, entered the room which has already been described to the reader, and in which we last left Jacob Gray.
Gray was in the room, and he cast a suspicious glance at the young creature who entered the room, as if he would read from her countenance in what mood she was in that morning.
“Oh,” he said, “you have risen early, Harry, and—and Joy, too, is with you—poor dog!”
Joy’s only answer to this hypocritical pity was a low growl, and getting under a chair, he exhibited a formidable mouthful of teeth as a warning to Jacob Gray not to attempt any familiarity.
“Do not call me Harry,” cried the girl, “you know it is not a fitting name for me, Uncle.”
Gray’s face assumed a paler shade, as he replied in a low tone—
“Wherefore this sudden passion—eh?”
“Uncle Gray, I have been thinking—”
“Thinking of what, child?”
“Call me child no more,” replied the girl, pushing the dark ringlets from her brow, and gazing steadily at Gray. “Call me child no more, Uncle Gray, and to prove to you that I am something more, I tell you now that the poor tale that frightened the child will not now do for me.”
“W—w—what do you mean?” gasped Gray, his lips trembling with ghastly fear.
“I mean,” continued the other, “that the time has come when I must know all. Who am I—my name—my lineage—my friends—kindred—where, and who are they? Why am I here an innocent victim to the crimes, perchance of others? The reasons of this solitary confinement, its duration, the circumstances that would rescue me from it—this—all this I want to know fully—amply, and I must know it, Uncle Gray.”
To describe the wild stare of astonishment and dismay that sat upon the face of Jacob, as the fragile and beautiful creature before him poured forth with earnest firmness this torrent of questions, would be impossible: rage, fear, dismay, all seemed struggling for mastery in Gray’s countenance, and the girl had done, and stood in an attitude that a sculptor might have envied, bending half forward with a flush of excitement upon her cheeks, awaiting the answer of the panic-stricken man before her. It was several minutes before that answer came. Once, twice, thrice, did Jacob Gray try to speak in vain, and when he did produce an articulate sound, his voice was hollow and awful to hear.
“W—what devil,” he said, “has prompted you to this? What busy fiend has whispered in your ears? Speak—speak!”
“I have spoken,” said the girl. “I ask but that I have the right to know.”
“The right! How know you that?”
“How know I that! My heart tells me. ’Tis a right of nature, born with the lowest, and no greater with the highest.”
“Then—you would destroy me!”
“No, I would destroy no one; give no one even a passing pang; but oh! Uncle, I am young, and life is new and precious. I have read of sunny skies, and smiling happy flowers; I have read of music’s witchery, until my heart has sighed to create its own dear melody. I have read of love, pure, holy love, such as could knit together young hearts for ever in a sweet companionship; and oh! How my heart has yearned for the sunlight, the flowers, the music, the sweet murmuring sound of moving waters, the dear love that gilds them all with more than earthly beauty, because it, and it alone, is the one gift that clings yet to man from Heaven! How my heart has leaped upwards, like a living thing, to read of kind words softly spoken, of purest vows breathed from heart to heart, making as it were sweet music, and its still sweeter echo! Oh! How I have clasped my hands an cried aloud for music filling the sunny air width a mild embroidery of tones! I have asked of Heaven to send me warm hearts to love me; to place me on the mountains, that I may look around me and adore the God that made the valleys look so beautiful! I have prayed to wander through the verdant valleys, that I might look up to the mountains, so lifting my thoughts to the great Creator. I have wept—sobbed aloud for all the dear companionships of youth—the thousand sparkling, glowing charms that lend life its romance, and make the world an Eden, Heaven a dear inheritance! The dreary echo of my own voice alone has answered me! My own deep sobs have come back to my ears in endless mockery, and I was alone; a chill would then gather round my heart, for I was alone. The smile of a father never—never gladdened my heart! A mother’s gentle kiss never rested on my brow! I—I am a lonely thing; a blight and a desolation is around me; no—no one loves me!”
To describe the exquisite intonation of voice with which these words were uttered would be impossible. The gushing tenderness, the deep pathos, the glowing tones! Oh, what must be the construction of that heart that could listen unmoved to such an appeal? Gray trembled like an aspen leaf, his eyes glared from their sockets, and he stretched out his hands before him as he would keep off some spectre that blasted his sight, and seared his very brain.
“Peace! Peace!” he shrieked; “peace! You want to—kill me, to drive me mad; but that voice—that manner—those speaking eyes!—Peace, Ada; peace, I say!”
“Ada!” cried the girl; “that, then, is my name?”
“No, no, no, no!” cried Gray. “God of Heaven!—no, no, no, no!—I—did not say Ada?”
“You did, and something tells me that it is my name—the name you have concealed from me so long. I am Ada. Uncle, some strong passion, some awful fear at your heart overcame your caution. I am Ada; but Ada what? Tell me, for the love of Heaven, all, and if you have done me wrong, Uncle, I will, forgive you, as I live!”
Jacob Gray’s voice trembled and the perspiration stood in cold drops upon his brow, as he said, faintly—
“Water! Water! Water!—I—I am faint!”
Ada, for henceforward we will call her by that name, filled a glass with sparkling cold water, and handed it in silence to the trembling man. With a shaking hand he raised it to his lips, and drank deeply of it; the glass dropped from his nervous grasp, and lay in fragments on the floor.
“I—I am better now,” said Gray.
Ada stood before him—her dark eyes bent on his with a scrutinising glance, beneath which he shrunk abashed.
“Now then, Uncle Gray,” she said, “now that you are better, will you answer me?”
Gray looked at her for a moment or two in silence before he replied; then he said slowly—
“What if I refuse to answer the question you ask?”
“Then is our compact broken,” cried Ada.
“And—and—what will you do? What, can you do?”
“What can I do? I can toil, work, attend upon those who may perchance repay my service with a smile, ample and dear wages to the poor, desolate child of harshness and misfortune. I will leave you and this gloomy