Her mother,in the adjoining room,commenced knocking at the door,asking what was the matter,but received no answer until Ida saw that the young men were coming toward the house.Then she threw open the door,and told Mrs.Mayhew that she had seen something that looked like a large spider,and that nothing was the matter.
Without waiting for further questioning she flitted hastily down-stairs and from one concealed post of observation to another until she saw the angry party enter Mr.Burleigh's private office.
A small parlor next to it was empty,and once within it,the loud tones spoken on the other side of the slight partition were distinctly heard.
As she listened to the words which Van Berg and Mr.Burleigh addressed to the man whom all in the house had regarded as her accepted lover,or at least her congenial friend,her cheeks grew scarlet,and when he was dismissed from the house,she fled to her room;wishing that it were a place in which she might hide forever,so overwhelming was her sense of shame and humiliation.
How could she meet the guests of the Lake House again?Worse than all,how could she meet the scornful eyes of the man who had driven from the place the suitor that she was supposed to favor as he might have scourged away a dog.
She could not now explain that Sibley was and ever had been less than nothing to her--that she had both detested and despised him.
She had permitted herself to touch pitch,and it had of necessity left its stain.To go about now and proclaim her real sentiments toward the man who apparently had been her favorite,would seem to others,she thought,the quintessence of meanness.She felt that she had been caught in the meshes of an evil web,and that it was useless to struggle.
Despairing,hopeless,her cheeks burning with shame as with a fever,she sat hour after hour refusing to see any one.She would not go down to supper.She left the food untasted that was sent to her room.She sat staring at vacancy until her face became a dim pale outline in the deepening twilight,and finally was lost in the shadow of night.But the darkness that gathered around the poor girl's heart was deeper and almost akin to the rayless gloom that positive crime creates,so nearly did she feel that she was associated with one from whom her woman's soul,perverted as it was,shrank with inexpressible loathing.
"Ida is in one of her worst tantrums,"whispered Mrs.Mayhew to Stanton;"I never knew her to act so badly as she has of late.Iwouldn't have thought that such a man as you have found Sibley to be could gain so great a hold upon her feelings.But law!she'll be all over it in a day or two.Nothing lasts with Ida,and least of all,a beau.""Well,"said Stanton,bitterly,"she is disgracing herself and all related to her by her inexcusable folly in this instance.Those who pretended to be Sibley's friends at dinner,are now trying to win a little respectability by turning against him,and the story of his behavior is circulating through the house.All will soon know that he shot at Van Berg,and that he made insulting remarks about Miss Burton.It will appear to every one as if Ida were sulking in her room on Sibley's account;and people are usually thought to be no better than their friends.""Oh,dear!"half sobbed Mrs.Mayhew,"won't you go up to her room and show her the consequences of her folly?""No,"said Stanton,irritably;"not to-night.I know her too well.She will take no advice from me or any one else at present.
To-morrow I will have one more plain talk with her;and if she won't listen to reason I wash my hands of her.Where is Uncle?""Don't ask me.Was there ever a more unfortunate woman?With such a husband and daughter,how can I keep up appearances?"Stanton walked away with a gesture of disgust and impatience.
"Curse it all!"he muttered;"and their shadows fall on me too.
What chance have I with the snow-white maiden I'd give my life for when followed by such associations?"
