Curious eyes
were cast on Diana Pitkin, and many were the whispers and speculations as
to the part she might have had in the move; and certainly she looked
paler and graver than usual, and some thought they could detect traces of
tears on her cheeks. Some noticed in the tones of her voice that day, as
they rose in the soprano, a tremor and pathos never remarked before--the
unconscious utterance of a new sense of sorrow, awakened in a soul that
up to this time had never known a grief.
For the letter had fallen on the heads of the Pitkin household like a
thunderbolt. Biah came in to breakfast and gave it to Mrs. Pitkin, saying
that James had handed him that last night, on his way over to take the
midnight stage to Salem, where he was going to sail on the _Eastern Star_
to-day--no doubt he's off to sea by this time. A confused sound of
exclamations went up around the table, while Mrs. Pitkin, pale and calm,
read the letter and then passed it to her husband without a word. The
bright, fixed color in Diana's face had meanwhile been slowly ebbing
away, till, with cheeks and lips pale as ashes, she hastily rose and left
the table and went to her room. A strange, new, terrible pain--a
sensation like being choked or smothered--a rush of mixed emotions--a
fearful sense of some inexorable, unalterable crisis having come of her
girlish folly--overwhelmed her.
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