Millbank;

It was a warm morning in early August when Magdalen came fully to herself and looked around her with a feeling of wonder and uncertainty as to where she was and what had happened to her. The last thing she could remember distinctly was of being cold and chilly, and that the night wind blew upon her as she groped her way back to her room. Now the doors and windows were opened, and the warm summer rain was falling on the lawn outside and sifting down among the green leaves of the honeysuckle which was trained across the window. There were flowers in her room,—summer flowers,—such as grew in the garden beds, and it must be that it was summer now, and many weeks had passed since that dreadful night whose incidents she finally recalled, knowing at last what had happened in part. She had found the will, and Mrs. Walter Scott had carried it to Roger, who was not as angry as she had feared he might be. Nay, he was not angry at all, and his manner towards her when she went to him in the library had belied what Frank had said, and her cheeks flushed and her pulse throbbed with delight as she felt again the kisses Roger had rained upon her lips and forehead and hair, and heard his voice calling her—“Magda, my darling, my darling.” He had done all this on that night which must have been so long ago, and that meant love, and Frank was mistaken or wished to deceive her, and she should tell him so and free herself wholly from him and then wait for Roger to follow up his words and acts, as he was bound in honor to do. Of all this Magdalen thought, and then she wondered what had been done about the will, and if Roger would really go away from Millbank; and if so, would he take her with him or leave her for awhile and come for her again. That he had gone she never for a moment suspected. She had been delirious, she knew, but not so much so that some subtle influence would not have told her when Roger came to say good-by. He was there still. He had arranged those beautiful bouquets which looked so fresh and bright, and had set those violets just where she could see them. He had remembered all her tastes, and would come soon to see her and be so glad when he found how much better she was. At last there was a step in the hall; somebody was coming, but it was not Roger, nor Frank, nor yet Celine. She had finally been sent away, though she had stood her ground bravely for a time in spite of Mrs. Walter Scott’s lofty ways and cool hints that Miss Lennox would do quite as well with a stranger, inasmuch as she did not know one person from another. She called her Miss Lennox now altogether. Magdalen would have been too familiar and savored too much of relationship, real or prospective, and this the lady was determined to prevent. But she said nothing as yet. The time for talking had not come, and might never come if Magdalen only had sense enough to answer Frank in the negative. He was still anxious, still waiting for that torpor to pass away and leave Magdalen herself again. In his estimation she was already his, for surely she could not refuse him now when everybody looked upon the marriage as a settled thing, and he insisted that everything should be done for her comfort, and every care given to her which would be given to Mrs. Franklin Irving. And in this his mother dared not cross him. His will was stronger on that point than her own, and hence the perfect order in the sick-room, and the evidences of kind, thoughtful attention which Magdalen had been so quick to detect. In one thing, however, Mrs. Walter Scott had had her way. She had dismissed Celine outright, and put in her place a maid of her own choosing, and it was her step which Magdalen heard, coming towards her room. She was not a bad-faced girl, and she smiled pleasantly as she spoke to Magdalen and said, “You are better this morning, Miss Lennox.”

“Yes, a great deal better. Have I been sick long, and where are they all? Who are you, and where is Celine?” Magdalen asked, and the girl replied, “She left here some two weeks ago and I came in her place; I am Sarah King; can I do anything for you?”

“Nothing but answer my questions. How long have I been sick, and where are Hester Floyd and Mr. Irving?”

She meant Roger, but the girl was thinking of Frank, and replied, “Mr. Irving went to Springfield yesterday, but will be home to-night, I guess, and so glad to find you better; he has been so concerned about you, and is in here two or three times a day.”

“Is he?” and Magdalen’s face flushed at this proof of Roger’s interest in her.

“Don’t you remember anything about it?” the girl asked, and Magdalen replied, “Nothing; it is all like a long, disturbed sleep. Where is Hester, did you say?”

“You mean Mrs. Floyd, I suppose; she has been gone some time,—to Schodick, or some such place. She went with old Mr. Irving, Mr. Franklin’s uncle, I believe. He is West somewhere now, I heard madam say. I have never seen him, nor Mrs. Floyd.”

She meant Roger by old Mr. Irving, and ordinarily Magdalen would have laughed merrily at the mistake, but now she was too much surprised and pained to give it more than a thought.

“Roger, Mr. Roger Irving gone, and Hester, too?” she cried. “When did they go, and why did they leave me here so sick? Has everybody gone? Tell me, please, all you know about it.”

Sarah knew very little, but that little she told, and then Magdalen knew that of all the once happy household at Millbank she was left alone. Hester was gone, the old servants gone, and Roger was gone, too. That was the hardest part of all, and the tears sprang to her eyes as a feeling of homesickness came stealing over her.

“I’d better call Mrs. Irving,” Sarah said, puzzled to know why Magdalen should cry, and she left the room to do so.

Fifteen minutes later and Mrs. Walter Scott came in, habited in white, with puffs and tucks and rich embroidery wherever there was a place for it, and on her head a jaunty little morning cap of the softest Valenciennes, with a bit of lavender ribbon to relieve it. She was not all smiles and tenderness now, and there was about her a studied politeness wholly different from her old caressing manner toward Magdalen.

“Sarah tells me you are better this morning, and you do look greatly improved,” she said, standing back a little from the bed and feigning not to see the hand which Magdalen held toward her.

Magdalen felt the change in a moment and understood the cause. Mrs. Irving was now the undisputed mistress of Millbank, and she the poor dependant, left there on the lady’s hands, a burden and a drag whom nobody wanted. That was the way Magdalen put it, and her tears fell like rain as she replied, “Yes, I am better, but I,—I—don’t understand it at all, or why I should be left here alone; why didn’t they take me with them?”

“I suppose because you were too sick to be moved, though I knew but little about their movements. Mrs. Floyd was so very rude and ill-bred that I kept out of her way as much as possible, and as Roger avoided me, I saw but little of them. It is not worth while to distress yourself unnecessarily,” the cruel woman went on as she saw how Magdalen cried. “We have taken every possible care of you and shall continue to do so until you are well, when, if you, wish to join your friends in Schodick, we will provide the means for you to do so.”

Nothing could be cooler than her tone and manner and words, and but for her face, which there was no mistaking, Magdalen would have doubted her identity with the oily-tongued woman who used to caress and pet her so much, and to whom at one time she had paid a kind of child-worship. But it was the same woman, and she stood a moment longer, looking coldly at Magdalen, and picking a dried leaf or two from the vase of flowers on the stand; then consulting her watch she said, “You must excuse me now, as I have an engagement at ten. Sarah will see that you have everything you want. You will find her an excellent nurse. I chose her myself from a dozen applicants for the place. I’ll see you again by and by. I wish you good-morning.”

For a few moments Magdalen lay like one stunned; then, as she began to reason upon the matter and to understand it more clearly, her pride came to her aid; and when at last Sarah went back to her, she found her with flushed cheeks and a resolute, determined look in her eyes, which flashed and sparkled with much of their former fire.

Frank did not return till the next night. There was a horserace in Springfield and he had Firefly there and put him on the course and won a bet and made for himself quite a reputation as a horse-jockey; and he paid Holt’s bills at the Massasoit House, and sent bottles of champagne to sundry other “good fellows” who had praised his skill in driving and praised his horse and flattered him generally. Then he promised to look at another horse which somebody recommended as unsurpassed in the saddle, and took several shares in a new speculation which was sure to go if “the rich Mr. Irving patronized it,” and which if it went was sure to pay double. Judge Burleigh, of Boston, who was stopping at the Massasoit, had sought him out and introduced his daughter Bell, a handsome, haughty girl, who had made fun of his light mustache and boyish face before she knew who he was, and then been very gracious to him after. Bell Burleigh was poor and fashionable and extravagant, and on the lookout for a husband. Frank Irving was rich, and master of the finest residence in the county, and worth cultivating, and so she expended upon him every art known to a thorough woman of the world, and walked with him through the halls and sat with him in the parlor in the evening, and went out in the morning to see him drive Firefly round the course, and had her father ask him to their table at dinner time, and flattered and courted him until he began to wonder why other people beside Bell Burleigh had not discovered what an entertaining and agreeable man he was! But through it all he never for a moment wavered in his allegiance to Magdalen. Bell’s influence could not make him do that; but it inflated his pride and made him less able to bear the humiliation to which Magdalen was about to subject him.

After her first interview with Magdalen, Mrs. Walter Scott did not see her again until her son returned, though she sent twice to know how she was feeling and if she would have anything. To these inquiries Magdalen had answered that she was doing very well and did not want anything more than she already had, and this was all that had passed between the two ladies when Frank came home from Springfield. He heard from Sarah of the change in Magdalen; but heard, too, that she could not see him that night, as she had been sitting up some little time and was very tired. The next day it was the same, and the next. She was too weak to talk, and would rather Mr. Irving should wait before she saw him. And so Frank waited and chafed and fretted and lost his temper with his mother, who maintained through all the utmost reserve with regard to Magdalen, feeling intuitively that matters were adjusting themselves to her satisfaction. She guessed what the delay portended, and on the strength of it went once or twice to the sick-room, and was a little more gracious than at first. But Magdalen was very reserved toward her now, barely answering her questions, and seeming relieved when she went away.

Frank saw her at last. She was sitting up in her easy chair, and her face was very pale at first, but flushed and grew crimson as Frank bent over her and kissed her forehead and called her his darling, and told her how glad he was to find her better, and how miserable he had been during the last few days because he could not see her.

“It was naughty in you to banish me so long. Don’t you think so, darling?” he said playfully, as he stooped again to kiss her.

He was taking everything for granted, and Magdalen gasped for breath as she put up both hands to thrust him aside, for she felt as if she were smothering with him so near to her.

“Sit down, Frank,” she said, “sit there by the window,” and she pointed to a seat so far from her that more kisses were out of the question.

Something in her tone startled him, and he sat where she bade him sit and then listened breathlessly while she went over the whole ground carefully, and at last, as gently as possible, for she would not unnecessarily wound him, told him she could not be his wife.

“I decided that before I knew Roger had the will,” she said, “and I sent for you to tell you so on that dreadful day when so much happened here. I like you, Frank, and I know you have been very kind to me, but I cannot be your wife; I do not love you well enough for that.”

It was in vain that Frank begged her to consider, to take time to think. She surely did not know what she was doing when she refused him; and he thought of Bell Burleigh and all the flattery he had received in Springfield, and wished Magdalen could know how highly some people esteemed him.

Magdalen understood him in part, and smiled a little derisively as she replied: “I know well what I am doing, Frank; I am refusing one who, the world would say, was far above me,—a poor girl, with neither home, nor friends, nor name.”

“What, then, do you propose to do?” Frank asked, “if, as you say, you are without home or friends.”

“I don’t know. Oh, I don’t know. Some way will be provided,” Magdalen answered sadly, her heart going out in a longing cry after Roger.

As if divining the thought, and feeling jealous and angry on account of it, Frank continued:

“You surely would not go to Schodick now. Even your love for Roger would not allow you to do so unmaidenly a thing as that.”

He spoke bitterly, for he felt bitterly, and when he saw how white Magdalen grew, and how she gasped for breath, he went on pitilessly,—“I think I know what stands between us. You fancy you love Roger best.”

“Hush! Frank, hush!” Magdalen cried, and the color came rushing back into her face. “If I do love Roger best, it is not to be mentioned between us, and you must respect the feeling. He does not care for me, or he would not have left me here so sick, without a word of farewell to be given when I could understand it. Did he leave any message, Frank?”

Had Magdalen been stronger, she would never have admitted what she was admitting to Frank, who, still more piqued and irritated, answered her, “None that I ever heard of.”

“Or come to see me either? Didn’t he do so much as that?”

Frank could have told her of the many nights and days when Roger never left her side, except as it was absolutely necessary; but he would not even tell her that; he merely said: “I dare say he looked in upon you before he left, but I do not know. He was very busy those last few days, and had a great deal to do.”

Magdalen’s lip quivered, but she made a great effort not to show how much she was pained by Roger’s seeming indifference and neglect. Still, it did show upon her face, for she was weak, and tired, and worn, and the great tears came dropping from her eyes, as she thought how mistaken she had been, and how desolate and alone she was in the great world. And Frank pitied her at last, and tried to comfort her, but would not say a word which would give her hope, with regard to Roger. He should not consider her answer as final, he said, when she begged him to leave her. She would feel differently by and by, when she saw matters as they really were. She had no other home but Millbank, as she, of course, would not follow Roger to Schodick. He placed great emphasis on the word follow, and Magdalen felt her blood tingle to her finger tips as he went on to say, that, let her decision be what it might, her rightful place was there at Millbank, which he wished her to consider her home, just as she always had done. She surely ought to be as willing to look to him for support as to Roger, who was in no condition now to enlarge his household, even if he wished to do it.

He left her then, and went at once to his mother. He had staked his all on Magdalen, and he must not lose her,—for aside from the great trial it would be to him, there was the bitter mortification he would be compelled to endure, for he had suffered the people of Belvidere to believe in his engagement, and Magdalen must be won, or at least kept at Millbank and in order to do this there must be a perfect understanding between himself and his mother. And after a half hour’s interview there was a perfect understanding, and Mrs. Walter Scott knew that if by word or sign she helped Magdalen to a knowledge of Roger’s love for her, and so separated her from Frank, just so sure would he carry out his former threat, of deeding Millbank away. That point was settled, and another too, which was, that Magdalen should be treated with all the kindness and attention due to an inmate of the house, and one who might, perhaps, be its mistress.

“But whether she is or not, mother, you’ve got to come down from your stilts, and treat her as you did before the confounded will was found, or, by the Harry, I’ll do something you’ll be sorry for.”

Frank’s recent intercourse with horse-jockeys, and men of the race-course, had not improved his language; but he was in earnest, and his mother promised whatever he required, and kept her promise all the more readily, because she knew that do what he would, and plead as he might, Magdalen would never be his wife.