She knew the words were not lightly written, and that his reproachful appeal had broken from the depths of his aching heart, and was intended to rouse her to some action.
"I can do nothing, say nothing! Must sit still and wait patiently-- prayerfully. To-day, if I could put out my hand and touch Mr. Murray, and bind him to me for ever, I would not. No, no! Not a finger must I lift, even between him and Estelle! But he will not marry her! I know--I feel that he will not. Though I never look upon his face again, he belongs to me! He is mine, and no other woman can take him from me."
A strange, mysterious, shadowy smile settled on her pallid features, and faintly and dreamily she repeated: "And yet I know past all doubting, truly--A knowledge greater than grief can dim--I know as he loved, he will love me duly, Yea, better, e'en better than I love him. And as I walk by the vast, calm river, The awful river so dread to see, I say, 'Thy breadth and thy depth for ever Are bridged by his thoughts that cross to me.'"
Her lashes drooped, her head fell back against the top of the chair, and she lost all her woes until Felix's voice roused her, and she saw the frightened boy standing at her side, shaking her hand and calling piteously upon her.
"Oh! I thought you were dead! You looked so white and felt so cold. Are you very sick? Shall I go for mamma?"
For a moment she looked in his face with a perplexed, bewildered expression, then made an effort to rise.
"I suppose that I must have fainted, for I had a terrible pain here, and--" She laid her hand over her heart.
"Felix, let us go down-stairs. I think if your mother would give me some wine, it might strengthen me."
Notwithstanding the snow, Mrs. Andrews had gone out; but Felix had the wine brought to the school-room, and after a little while the blood showed itself shyly in the governess's white lips, and she took the boy's Latin book and heard him recite his lesson.
The day appeared wearily long, but she omitted none of the appointed tasks, and it was nearly nine o'clock before Felix fell asleep that night. Softly unclasping his thin fingers which clung to her hand, she went up to her own room, feeling the full force of those mournful words in Eugenie de Guerin's Journal: "It goes on in the soul. No one is aware of what I feel; no one suffers from it. I only pour out my heart before God--and here. Oh! to-day what efforts I make to shake off this profitless sadness-- this sadness without tears--arid, bruising the heart like a hammer!"