Millbank;

Hester Floyd was sick. Exposure to a heavy rain had brought on an attack of fever, which confined her to her bed, where she lay helpless and cross, and sometimes delirious. She would have no one with her but Magdalen. Every other person made her nervous, she said. Magdalen’s hands were soft; Magdalen’s step was light; Magdalen knew what to do; and so Magdalen stayed by her constantly, glad of an excuse to keep away from Frank, with whom she had held but little intercourse since that night in the library, which she remembered with so much regret. Hester’s illness she looked upon as a godsend, and stayed all day by the fretful old woman’s bedside, only leaving the room at meal time, or to make a feint of watching Mrs. Walter Scott, for whom Hester evinced a strong dislike or dread.

“Snoopin’, pryin’ thing,” she said to Magdalen. “She’ll be up to all sorts of capers now that I’m laid up and can’t head her off. I’ve found her there more than once; I knew what she was after, and took it away, and then like a fool lugged it back again, and it’s there now, and you must get it, and put it—put it—oh, for the dear Lord’s sake what nonsense be I talkin’. What was I sayin’, Magdalen?”

Hester came to herself with a start, and stared wildly at Magdalen, who was bending over her, wondering what she meant, and what it was which she must bring from the garret and hide. Whatever it was, it troubled Hester Floyd greatly, and when she was delirious, as was often the case, she was sure to talk of it, and beg of Magdalen to get it, and put it beyond the reach of Mrs. Walter Scott.

“How am I to get it when I don’t know what it is nor where it is,” Magdalen said to her one night when she sat watching by her, and Hester had insisted that she should go to the garret, and “head off that woman. She’s there, and by and by she’ll find that loose board in the floor under the rafters where I bumped my head so hard. Go, Magdalen, for Heaven’s sake, if you care for Roger.”

Magdalen’s face was very white now, and her eyes like burning coals as she questioned Hester. At the mention of Roger a sudden suspicion had flashed upon her, making her grow faint and cold as she grasped the high post of the bedstead and asked, “How she could get it when she did not know what it was, nor where it was.”

The sound of her voice roused the old woman a little, but she soon relapsed into her dreamy, talkative mood, and insisted that Mrs. Walter Scott was in the garret and Magdalen must “head her off.”

“I’ll go,” Magdalen said at last, taking the candle which Hester always used for going about the house. “Hush!” she continued, as Hester began to grow very restless; “I’m going to the garret. Be quiet till I come back.”

“I will, yes,” was Hester’s reply, her eyes wide open now, and staring wildly at Magdalen, whose dress she tried to clutch with her hand as she whispered, “The loose board, way down under the eaves. You must get on your knees. Bring it to me, and never tell.”

The house was very quiet, for the family had long since retired, and the pale spring moonlight came struggling through the windows, and lighting up the halls through which Magdalen went on her strange errand to the garret. The stairs which led to it were away from the main portion of the building, and she felt a thrill of something like fear as she passed into the dark, narrow hall, and paused a moment by the door of the stairway. What should she find,—was Mrs. Walter Scott there, as Hester had averred; and if so, what was she doing, and what excuse could Magdalen make for being there herself?

“I’ll wait, and let matters take their course,” she thought; and then summoning all her courage, she opened the door, and began the ascent of the steep narrow way, every stair of which creaked with her tread, for Magdalen did not try to be cautious. “If any one is there, they shall know I am coming,” she thought; and she held her candle high above her head, so that its light might shine to the farthest crevice of the garret and give warning of her approach.

But there was no one there, and only the accumulated rubbish of the house met her view, as she came fully into the garret and cast her eyes from corner to corner and beam to beam. Through the dingy window at the north the moon was looking in, and lighting up that end of the garret with a weird, ghostly kind of light, which made Magdalen shiver more than utter darkness would have done. She knew she was alone; there was no sign of life around her, except the huge rat, which, frightened at this unlooked-for visitation, sprang from Magdalen knew not where, and running past her disappeared in a hole low down under the eaves, reminding Magdalen of what Hester had said of “the loose plank under the rafters where you have to stoop.”

At sight of the rat Magdalen had uttered a cry, which she quickly suppressed, and then stood watching the frightened animal, until it disappeared from sight.

“There can be no harm in seeing if there is a loose board there,” Magdalen thought; and setting her candle upon a little table she groped her way after the rat, bumping her head once as old Hester had bumped hers; and then crouching down upon her knees, she examined the floor in that part of the garret, growing faint and cold and frightened when she found that far back under the roof there was a board, shorter than the others, which looked as if it might with a little trouble be lifted from its place.

It fitted perfectly, and, but for what old Hester had said, might never have been discovered to be loose and capable of being moved from its position. Magdalen was not quite sure, even now, that she could raise it, and if she could, did she wish to, and for what reason? “Was there anything hidden under it, and if so, was it—?”

Magdalen did not dare repeat the last word even to herself, and, as she thought it, there came rushing over her a feeling as if she were already guilty of making Roger Irving a beggar.

“No, no, I can’t do that. If there is anything under there,—which I do not believe,—it may remain there for all of me,” she said; and her face was very pale as she drew back from beneath the roof, and took the candle in her hand.

The moon had passed under a cloud, leaving the garret in darkness, and Magdalen heard the rising wind sweeping past the windows as she went down the stairs and out again into the hall, where she breathed more freely, and felt less as if there were a nightmare’s spell upon her. Mrs. Walter Scott’s door stood ajar just as it had done when Magdalen passed it on her way to the garret, and, impelled by a feeling she could not resist, she looked cautiously in. The lady was sleeping soundly, with her hair in the hideous curl papers, and her white hands resting peacefully outside the counterpane. She had not been near the garret. She knew nothing of the loose plank under the roof, and with a feeling that injustice had been done to the sleeper, Magdalen passed on toward Hester’s room, her heart beating rapidly and the blood rushing in torrents to her face and neck as she heard Hester’s sharp, querulous tones mingled with another voice which seemed trying to quiet her. It was a man’s voice,—Roger’s voice,—and Roger himself was bending over the restless woman and telling her that Magdalen would soon be back, and that nobody was going to harm him.

“Here she is now,” he continued, as Magdalen glided into the room, looking like some ghost, for the blood which had crimsoned her face a moment before had receded from it, leaving it white as marble, and making her dark eyes seem larger and brighter and blacker than their wont. “Why, Magda,” Roger exclaimed, coming quickly to her side, “what is the matter? Have you, too, been hearing burglars?”

“Burglars!” Magdalen repeated, trying to smile as she put her candle upon the table and hastened to Hester, who was sitting up in bed, and who demanded of her, “Did you find it? Was she there?”

“No, no. There was nobody there,” Magdalen said, soothingly; and then as Hester became quiet, and seemed falling away to sleep as suddenly as she sometimes awoke, Magdalen turned to Roger, who was looking curiously at her, and as she fancied with a troubled expression on his face. “You spoke of burglars. What did you mean?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he replied, laughingly. “Only I have been restless all night,—too strong coffee for dinner, I dare say. Suppose you see to it yourself to-morrow. I remember a cup you made me once, and I never tasted better.”

“Yes; but what of the burglars, and why are you up?” Magdalen continued.

She knew there was some reason for Roger’s being there at that hour of the night, and she wished to get at it.

“I could not sleep,” he replied, “and I thought I heard some one about the house. The post-office was entered last week, and as it would not be a very improbable thing for the robbers to come here, I dressed, and fearing that you might be alarmed at any unusual sound about the house, I came directly here, and learned from Hester that you were rummaging,—you or somebody. I could hardly understand what she did mean, she was so excited.”

“I rummaging!” Magdalen stammered. “Hester has queer fancies. She took it into her head that Mrs. Irving was rummaging, as she calls it, and insisted that I should go and see; so I went, to quiet her.”

“And got a cobweb in your hair,” Roger added, playfully brushing from her hair the cobweb which she had gotten under the roof, and which he held up before her.

“Oh, Mr. Irving!” Magdalen exclaimed, in real distress, for she did not like the expression of the eyes fastened upon her. “I don’t know what Hester may have said to you, but she has such queer ideas, and she would make me go where she said Mrs. Irving was, and I went; but I meant no harm, believe me, won’t you?”

Her cheeks were scarlet, and her eyes were filling with tears as they looked up to Roger, who laughed merrily, and said:

“Of course I believe you; for what possible harm could there be in your going to the garret after Mrs. Irving, or what could Hester think she was there for?”

He knew then where she had been. Hester had let that out, but had she told him anything further? Magdalen did not know. She was resolved, however, that she would tell him nothing herself, so she merely replied:

“Hester is often out of her head, and when she is she seems to think that Mrs. Irving meditates some harm to you.”

“I discovered that from what she said while you were gone,” Roger rejoined; and then, looking at the clock, he saw it was nearly one, and asked Magdalen if she would not like him to watch while she slept.

If he knew of the loose plank, or had a thought of the will, he gave no sign of his knowledge; he only seemed anxious about Magdalen, and afraid that she would over-exert herself, and when she refused to sleep, he insisted upon sitting with her and sharing her vigils.

“It must be tedious to watch alone,” he said, and then he brought the large chair he was accustomed to read in, and made Magdalen sit in it, and found a pillow for her head, and bade her keep quiet and try to rest.

It was pleasant to be cared for, especially as she was tired and worn, and Magdalen sat very still, with her head upon the pillow and her face in the shadow, until her eyelids began to droop and her hands to slide down into her lap, and when Roger asked if it was time for the medicine, he received no answer, for Magdalen was asleep.

“Poor child,” he said, as he stood looking at her. “She has grown pale and thin with nursing Hester. I must get some one to take her place, and persuade Hester to be reasonable for once. Magda must not be allowed to get sick if I can help it. How very beautiful she is, with the long eyelashes on her cheek and her hair rippling away from her forehead! I wonder are all young girls as beautiful in their sleep as Magda.”

Roger was strangely moved as he stood looking at the tired sleeping girl. Little by little, day by day, week by week, she had been growing into his heart, until now she filled every niche and corner of it, and filled it so completely, that to have torn her from it would have left it bleeding and desolate. She was not his daughter now, nor his ward, nor his sister. She was Magda, his princess, his queen, whose bright eyes and clear, ringing voice thrilled him with a new sense of happiness, and made him long to clasp her in his arms and claim her for his own in the only way she could ever satisfy him now. And he did not greatly fear what her answer might be, for he had noted the bright flush which always came to her cheek, and the kindling light in her starry eyes when he appeared suddenly before her. He did not believe he was indifferent to her, and as he sat by her until the gray dawn broke, he resolved that ere long he would end his suspense, and know from her own lips if she could love him enough to be his wife. Gradually, as her slumber grew more profound, the pillow slipped, and her head dropped into a position which looked so uncomfortable, that Roger ventured to lift it up and place it more easily against the back of the chair. An hour later and Magdalen woke with a start, exclaiming when she saw the daylight through the shutters and Hester’s medicine untouched upon the table, “Why didn’t you wake me? Hester has not taken her medicine, and the doctor will blame me.”

“Hester is just as well without it,” Roger answered. “She has slept quietly every moment, and sleep will do her more good than drugs. My word for it she will be better when she wakes; but, Magda, I shall get her a nurse to-day, and relieve you. I cannot let you grow pale and thin. You are looking like a ghost now. Come with me into the open air, which you need after this close room.”

He wrapped a shawl around her, and taking her hood from the table in the hall tied it upon her head and then led her out upon the wide piazza, where the fresh breeze from the river was blowing, and where he walked up and down, with her hand on his arm, until the color came back to her cheeks, and her eyes had in them their old, restless brightness, as she stood by him and looked off upon the hills just growing red in the light of the rising sun.

It was too early yet for many flowers, but the April winds had melted the snow from off the Millbank grounds, and here and there patches of green grass were beginning to show, and the golden daffodil was just opening its leaves upon the borders of the garden walk. Millbank was nothing to what it would be a few weeks later, but it was handsome even now, and both Roger and Magdalen commented upon its beauty, while the former spoke of some improvements he had in contemplation, and should commence as soon as the ground was settled. A fountain here, and a terrace there for autumn flowers, and another winding walk leading to the grove toward the mill he meant to have, he said, and a pretty little summer-house down by the brook, like one he had seen in England.

And as he talked of the summer-house by the brook, with its rustic seats and stands, the sun passed into a bank of clouds, the wind began to freshen and blow up from the river in raw, chilling gusts, which made Magdalen shiver, and brought to her mind last night’s adventure in the garret where the loose plank was. And with thoughts of that plank there crept over her a deeper chill,—a feeling of depression, as if the brightness of Millbank was passing away forever, and that the change was somehow being wrought by herself.