Blind Love

Like the Irish lord, Miss Henley was "in two minds," while she rose,

and dressed herself. There were parts of the letter for which she loved

the writer, and parts of it for which she hated him.

What a prospect was before that reckless man--what misery, what horror,

might not be lying in wait in the dreadful future! If he failed in the

act of vengeance, that violent death of which he had written so

heedlessly might overtake him from another hand. If he succeeded, the

law might discover his crime, and the infamy of expiation on the

scaffold might be his dreadful end. She turned, shuddering, from the

contemplation of those hideous possibilities, and took refuge in the

hope of his safe, his guiltless return. Even if his visions of success,

even if his purposes of reform (how hopeless at his age!) were actually

realised, could she consent to marry the man who had led his life, had

written this letter, had contemplated (and still cherished) his

merciless resolution of revenge? No woman in her senses could let the

bare idea of being his wife enter her mind. Iris opened her

writing-desk, to hide the letter from all eyes but her own. As she

secured it with the key, her heart sank under the return of a terror

remembered but too well. Once more, the superstitious belief in a

destiny that was urging Lord Harry and herself nearer and nearer to

each other, even when they seemed to be most widely and most surely

separated, thrilled her under the chilling mystery of its presence. She

dropped helplessly into a chair. Oh, for a friend who could feel for

her, who could strengthen her, whose wise words could restore her to

her better and calmer self! Hugh was far away; and Iris was left to

suffer and to struggle alone.

Heartfelt aspirations for help and sympathy! Oh, irony of

circumstances, how were they answered? The housemaid entered the room,

to announce the arrival of a discharged servant, with a lost character.

"Let the young woman come in," Iris said. Was Fanny Mere the friend

whom she had been longing for? She looked at her troubled face in the

glass--and laughed bitterly.