Blind Love

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.