There it ended.
The heart of Iris sank as she read that melancholy farewell, expressed
in language at once wild and childish. If he survived his desperate
attempt at self-destruction, to what end would it lead? In silence, the
woman who loved him put his letter back in her bosom. Watching her
attentively--affected, it was impossible to say how, by that mute
distress--Fanny Mere proposed to go downstairs, and ask once more what
hope there might be for the wounded man. Iris knew the doctor too well
to let the maid leave her on a useless errand.
"Some men might be kindly ready to relieve my suspense," she said; "the
man downstairs is not one of them. I must wait till he comes to me, or
sends for me. But there is something I wish to say to you, while we are
alone. You have been but a short time in my service, Fanny. Is it too
soon to ask if you feel some interest in me?"
"If I can comfort you or help you, Miss, be pleased to tell me how."
She made that reply respectfully, in her usual quiet manner; her pale
cheeks showing no change of colour, her faint blue eyes resting
steadily on her mistress's face. Iris went on: "If I ask you to keep what has happened, on this dreadful day, a secret
from everybody, may I trust you--little as you know of me--as I might
have trusted Rhoda Bennet?"
"I promise it, Miss." In saying those few words, the undemonstrative
woman seemed to think that she had said enough.
Iris had no alternative but to ask another favour.
"And whatever curiosity you may feel, will you be content to do me a
kindness--without wanting an explanation?"
"It is my duty to respect my mistress's secrets; I will do my duty." No
sentiment, no offer of respectful sympathy; a positive declaration of
fidelity, left impenetrably to speak for itself. Was the girl's heart
hardened by the disaster which had darkened her life? Or was she the
submissive victim of that inbred reserve, which shrinks from the frank
expression of feeling, and lives and dies self-imprisoned in its own
secrecy? A third explanation, founded probably on a steadier basis, was
suggested by Miss Henley's remembrance of their first interview.
Fanny's nature had revealed a sensitive side, when she was first
encouraged to hope for a refuge from ruin followed perhaps by
starvation and death. Judging so far from experience, a sound
conclusion seemed to follow. When circumstances strongly excited the
girl, there was a dormant vitality in her that revived. At other times
when events failed to agitate her by a direct appeal to personal
interests, her constitutional reserve held the rule. She could be
impenetrably honest, steadily industrious, truly grateful--but the
intuitive expression of feeling, on ordinary occasions, was beyond her
reach.