_ VOLUME I CHAPTER XXII. LEOPOLD
She re-entered her room with the gait of a new-born goddess treading the air. Her brother was yet prostrate where she had left him. He raised himself on his elbow, seized with trembling hand the glass she offered him, swallowed the brandy at a gulp, and sank again on the floor. The next instant he sprang to his feet, cast a terrified look at the window, bounded to the door and locked it, then ran to his sister, threw his arms about her, and clung to her like a trembling child. But ever his eyes kept turning to the window.
Though now twenty years of age, and at his full height, he was hardly so tall as Helen. Swarthy of complexion, his hair dark as the night, his eyes large and lustrous, with what Milton calls "quel sereno fulgor d' amabil nero," his frame nervous and slender, he looked compact and small beside her.
She did her utmost to quiet him, unconsciously using the same words and tones with which she had soothed his passions when he was a child. All at once he raised his head and drew himself back from her arms with a look of horror, then put his hand over his eyes, as if her face had been a mirror and he had seen himself in it.
"What is that on your wristband, Leopold?" she asked. "Have you hurt yourself?"
The youth cast an indescribable look on his hand, but it was not that which turned Helen so deadly sick: with her question had come to her the ghastly suspicion that the blood she saw was not his, and she felt guilty of an unpardonable, wicked wrong against him. But she would never, never believe it! A sister suspect her only brother of such a crime! Yet her arms dropped and let him go. She stepped back a pace, and of themselves, as it were, her eyes went wandering and questioning all over him, and saw that his clothes were torn and soiled--stained--who could tell with what?
He stood for a moment still and submissive to their search, with face downcast. Then, suddenly flashing his eyes on her, he said, in a voice that seemed to force its way through earth that choked it back,
"Helen, I am a murderer, and they are after me. They will be here before daylight."
He dropped on his knees, and clasped hers.
"O sister! sister! save me, save me!" he cried in a voice of agony.
Helen stood without response, for to stand took all her strength. How long she fought that horrible sickness, knowing that, if she moved an inch, turned from it a moment, yielded a hair's-breadth, it would throw her senseless on the floor, and the noise of her fall would rouse the house, she never could even conjecture. All was dark before her, as if her gaze had been on the underside of her coffin-lid, and her brain sank and swayed and swung in the coils of the white snake that was sucking at her heart. At length the darkness thinned; it grew a gray mist; the face of her boy-brother glimmered up through it, like that of Dives in hell-fire to his guardian-angel as he hung lax-winged and faint in the ascending smoke. The mist thinned, and at length she caught a glimmer of his pleading, despairing, self-horrified eyes: all the mother in her nature rushed to the aid of her struggling will; her heart gave a great heave; the blood ascended to her white brain, and flushed it with rosy life; her body was once more reconciled and obedient; her hand went forth, took his head between them, and pressed it against her.
"Poldie, dear," she said, "be calm and reasonable, and I will do all I can for you. Here, take this.--And now, answer me one question"
"You won't give me up, Helen?"
"No. I will not."
"Swear it, Helen."
"Ah, my poor Poldie! is it come to this between you and me?"
"Swear it, Helen."
"So help me God, I will not!" returned Helen, looking up.
Leopold rose, and again stood quietly before her, but again with downbent head, like a prisoner about to receive sentence.
"Do you mean what you said a moment since--that the police are in search of you?" asked Helen, with forced calmness.
"They must be. They must have been after me for days--I don't know how many. They will be here soon. I can't think how I have escaped them so long. Hark! Isn't that a noise at the street-door?--No, no.--There's a shadow on the curtains!--No! it's my eyes; they've cheated me a thousand times. Helen! I did not try to hide her; they must have found her long ago."
"My God!" cried Helen; but checked the scream that sought to follow the cry.
"There was an old shaft near," he went on, hurriedly. "If I had thrown her down that, they would never have found her, for there must be choke-damp at the bottom of it enough to kill a thousand of them. But I could not bear the thought of sending the lovely thing down there--even to save my life."
He was growing wild again; but the horror had again laid hold upon Helen, and she stood speechless, staring at him.
"Hide me--hide me, Helen!" he pleaded. "Perhaps you think I am mad. Would to God I were! Sometimes I think I must be. But this I tell you is no madman's fancy. If you take it for that, you will bring me to the gallows. So, if you will see me hanged,----"
He sat down and folded his arms.
"Hush! Poldie, hush!" cried Helen, in an agonized whisper. "I am only thinking what I can best do. I cannot hide you here, for if my aunt knew, she would betray you by her terrors; and if she did not know, and those men came, she would help them to search every corner of the house. Otherwise there might be a chance."
Again she was silent for a few moments; then, seeming suddenly to have made up her mind, went softly to the door.
"Don't leave me!" cried Leopold.
"Hush! I must. I know now what to do. Be quiet here until I come back."
Slowly, cautiously, she unlocked it, and left the room. In three or four minutes she returned, carrying a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine. To her dismay Leopold had vanished. Presently he came creeping out from under the bed, looking so abject that Helen could not help a pang of shame. But the next moment the love of the sister, the tender compassion of the woman, returned in full tide, and swallowed up the unsightly thing. The more abject he was, the more was he to be pitied and ministered to.
"Here, Poldie," she said, "you carry the bread, and I will take the wine. You must eat something, or you will be ill."
As she spoke she locked the door again. Then she put a dark shawl over her head, and fastened it under her chin. Her white face shone out from it like the moon from a dark cloud.
"Follow me, Poldie," she said, and putting out the candles, went to the window.
He obeyed without question, carrying the loaf she had put into his hands. The window-sash rested on a little door; she opened it, and stepped on the balcony. As soon as her brother had followed her, she closed it again, drew down the sash, and led the way to the garden, and so, by the door in the sunk fence, out upon the meadows. _