AND THAT WAS THE END OF IT.
The roses fell, one by one, in Miss Clarissa’s flower beds, and so
at last did the palest autumn-bloom; the leaves dropped from the
trees, and the winds from the sea began to blow across the sands,
in chilly gusts. But Lisbeth stayed bravely on. Rainy days dragged
by wearily enough, and cold ones made their appearance, but she did
not give up even when Mrs. Despard wondered, and Georgie implored in
weekly epistles. The winter routine of the Tregarthyn household was
not exciting, but it was a sort of safeguard. Better dullness than
something worse! Perhaps, in time, by spring, it might be different.
And yet she could not say that she found her state of mind improving.
And as to her body--well, Miss Clarissa might well sigh over her in
secret. If she had been pale and thin before, she had not gained flesh
and color. She persisted in her long walks in desperation, and came
home after them, looking haggard and hollow-eyed. She wandered about
the garden, in self-defense, and was no less tired. She followed Dr.
Puddifoot’s directions to the letter, and, to the Misses Tregarthyn’s
dismay, was not improved. In fact, as that great man, Dr. Puddifoot,
observed, “Something was radically wrong.”
It was an unequal, miserable-enough struggle, but it had its
termination; and, like all such terminations, it was an abrupt,
unexpected, almost fantastic one. Lisbeth had never thought of such an
end to her self-inflicted penance. No such possibility had presented
itself to her mind. It was not her way to romance, and she had confined
herself to realities.
Sitting at her bedroom window, one chill, uncomfortable December day,
she arrived at a fanciful caprice. It was as raw and miserable a day
as one would, or rather would not, wish to see. The wind blew over
the sea in gusts, the gulls flew languidly under the gray sky, a few
dead leaves swirled about in eddies in the road, and yet this caprice
took possession of Lisbeth, as she looked out, and appreciated the
perfection of desolateness. Since Georgie had left Pen’yllan, she had
never once been near the old trysting-place. Her walks had always been
in the opposite direction, and now it suddenly occurred to her, that
she would like to go and see how things would look in her present mood.
In five minutes from the time the fancy seized her, Miss Clarissa
caught a glimpse of something through the parlor window, which made her
utter an exclamation:
“Lisbeth!” she said. “Out again, and on such a day! Dear me! I do trust
she is well wrapped up.”
Lisbeth made her way against the damp, chill wind, with a touch of
positively savage pleasure in her own discomfort. The sands were
wet, and unpleasant to walk on; and she was not sorry. What did it
matter? She was in the frame of mind to experience a sort of malicious
enjoyment of outward miseries. The tryst looked melancholy enough when
she reached it. She made her way to the nook, behind the sheltering
rocks, and stood there, looking out to sea. She had not expected to
find the place wearing its summer aspect, but she was scarcely prepared
to face such desolateness. Everything was gray--gray tossing sea, gray
screaming gulls, gray lowering sky.
“It would have been better to have stayed at home,” she said.
Still she could not make up her mind to turn back at once, and lingered
a little, leaning against a rock, shivering, and feeling dreary; and
so it was that the man who was approaching first caught sight of her
figure.
Lisbeth did not see this man. She did not care to see either man or
woman, at present. The gulls suited her better than human beings, and
she believed herself to be utterly alone, until footsteps upon the
sand, quite near, made her turn with an impatient start.
The man--he was not a yard from her side--raised his hat and stood
still. The man was Hector Anstruthers.
For a moment neither uttered a word. Lisbeth thought her heart must
have stopped beating. She had turned cold as marble. When she could
control herself sufficiently to think at all, she thought of Georgie.
“What is the matter?” she exclaimed. “Is somebody ill? Georgie?”
“Georgie is quite well,” he answered.
Then he came close, and held out his hand, with a strange, melancholy
smile.
“I ask pardon for alarming you,” he said. “I ask pardon for coming
without an excuse; but I have no excuse. Won’t you shake hands with me,
Lisbeth?”
She got through the ceremony as quickly as possible, and then drew
back, folding her shawl about her. She was shivering with something,
besides cold. If she had only been safe at home. If nobody was in
danger, what on earth had he come for?
“I was a little startled,” she said. “Pen’yllan is not very attractive
to people, as a rule, in winter, and it seemed the most natural thing
that Georgie was ill, and had sent you to me.” Then, after a little
pause, and a sidelong glance at him, “You look as if you had been ill
yourself.”
He certainly did. He was thin, and haggard, and care-worn. His eyes
were dangerously bright, and he had a restless air. He was not so
sublime a dandy, either, as he had been; there was even a kind of
negligence about him.
“Aunt Clarissa must have been very much alarmed when she saw you,”
Lisbeth proceeded, trying to get up a creditable smile.
“I have not seen Miss Clarissa,” he answered. “I came here first.”
This was so ominous, that Lisbeth succumbed. She knew, when he said
this, that he did not intend to keep up appearances. But she made one
more poor effort.
“Then, perhaps, we had better go home,” she remarked.
“No,” he returned, quickly. “I have something to say.”
She felt herself losing strength. But what did it matter, let him say
what he would? Perhaps it was something about Georgie. She had a dreary
feeling that she was ready for anything.
“Go on!” she said.
“Oh!” he cried, in bitter, impatient resignation of her stoicism. “Arm
yourself against me; I know you will do that. Sneer at my folly; I am
prepared for that, too. But I shall speak. It is Fate. I am a fool, but
I must speak.”
“Was it to say this that you came here?” interposed Lisbeth.
“I came because I could not stay away. You are my Fate, I tell you,”
almost angrily. “You will not let me rest. When I kissed your hands,
that last night, I gave myself up to my madness. I had tried to
persuade myself that I had no love for you; but that cured me, and
showed me how I had deceived myself. I have never ceased to love you,
from the first; and you----”
His words died upon his lips. She looked as he had never seen her look
before. She leaned against the rock, as if she needed support. Suddenly
her eyes and lashes were wet, and she began to tremble slightly. He
checked himself, full of swift remorse. What a rough brute he was!
“Don’t!” he said. “I did not mean to frighten you.”
She lifted her eyes, piteously; her lips parted, as if she was going to
speak; but she did not speak. She was even weaker than she had thought.
She had never been so helpless and shaken before. She shrank from him,
and drooping her face upon the rock, burst into hysterical tears.
He did not pause to ask himself what it meant. He did not understand
women’s nerves. He only comprehended that she had given way, that
everything was changed, that she was unstrung and weeping. In a moment
he had her in his arms, exclaiming, passionately:
“Lisbeth! Lisbeth!” And then the little straw hat, with its blue
ribbon, slipping away from the small, pale face, that lay upon his
breast, he bent and covered it, this small, pale, tear-wet face, with
reckless kisses.
For the moment he did not care what came next, nor what doom he brought
upon himself, he was so mad with long pent-up love and misery. He found
the little hand under the shawl, too, and fell to kissing that, also,
and would not let it go.
“Don’t be cruel to me, Lisbeth!” he pleaded, when she tried to draw it
away; and she was forced to let it remain. “Don’t be cruel to me,” he
said, and still held this hand, when she released herself at last, and
stood up, miserable and shame-faced, yet far less miserable than she
had been.
“It--it is you who are cruel!” she faltered. “What am I to say to you!
You have left me nothing to say.”
She hung back, half afraid of his vehemence. He had begun with bitter
ravings, and in five minutes had ended by crushing her in his arms. It
was her punishment that she should be so humbled and brought down.
“Say nothing,” he cried. “Let me say all. I love you. It is Fate.”
She could not help seeing the fantastic side of this, and she smiled, a
little, daring smile, though she hung her head.
“Are you--proposing to me?” she ventured, hoping to retrieve herself.
He could not stand that, but she would not let him burst out again, and
leave her no chance to assert her privilege to struggle at retaining
the upper hand.
“You told me that you came in spite of yourself, because you could not
stay away. Was it true?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She could not help feeling a glow of triumph, and it shone in her eyes.
“I am glad of that,” she said. “I am glad. It saves me so much.”
“And I may stay?” he exclaimed, in his old, impetuous fashion.
“Lisbeth----”
Though he held her hand fast, she managed to stoop down, under pretense
of rescuing the blue-ribboned hat from the sand.
“You need not go,” she answered.
And that was the end of it.
The three Misses Tregarthyn looked at each in blank dismay, when these
two walked into the parlor, an hour after. But Hector grasped his
nettle with a matter-of-fact boldness, for which Lisbeth intensely
admired him in secret.
“I went out on the beach to find Miss Crespigny, and I found her,” he
announced. “Here she is, Miss Clarissa, Miss Millicent, Miss Hetty! She
has promised to marry me. Oblige us with your blessing.”
The trio fell upon their beloved Lisbeth, and embraced, as they had
done on the previous occasion; but this time she bore it better.
That night Lisbeth sat up until one o’clock, writing a long letter to
Georgie Esmond, and trying, in a strangely softened and penitent mood,
to be open and straightforward for once.
“I am going to marry Hector Anstruthers, and try to be better,” she
wrote. “You know what I mean, when I say ‘better.’ I mean that I want
to make Lisbeth Anstruthers a far different creature from Lisbeth
Crespigny. Do you think I ever can be a ‘good’ woman, Georgie--like
you and your mother? If I ever am one, it will be you two whom I must
thank.” And as she wrote this, she shed not unhappy tears over it.
“Perhaps,” she said, “Love will make me as tender as other women.”
And this Love did.
DR. EGGLESTON’S NEW STORY.
“One of the ablest of recent American novels, and indeed of all recent
works of fiction.”--LONDON SPECTATOR.
ROXY.
BY
EDWARD EGGLESTON,
Author of “The Hoosier Schoolmaster,” “Circuit Rider,” Etc.
One volume, 12mo, cloth, with Twelve full-page Illustrations from
original designs by Mr. Walter Shirlaw.
Price, $1.50.
CRITICAL NOTICES.
“‘Roxy’ may be accepted as the latest example of a purely American
novel, and to say the least, one of the very best.”--_New York
Tribune._
“In this novel Mr. Eggleston’s powers appear at their best and
amplest, and he has accomplished the by no means easy task of
excelling himself.”--_Boston Journal._
“There can be no doubt whatever that ‘Roxy’ is the best product of
Dr. Eggleston’s activity in the field of fiction.”--_New York Eve.
Post._
“As a pure, but vigorous American romance, Mr. Eggleston’s new
work is better even than his ‘Hoosier Schoolmaster’ and ‘Circuit
Rider.’”--_Phila. Eve. Bulletin._
“It strengthens the author’s position as a writer who has brought
new life and a decided manliness into our native fiction.”--_Boston
Courier._
“‘Roxy,’ a story whose purport and power are much deeper than the
author has before reached.”--_Springfield Republican._
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American authors.”--_N. Y. Commercial Advertiser._
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hand of a master in literature and fiction.”--_Episcopal Register._
“As a faithful picture of American life, it ranks far above any
novel published in the United States during the past twenty
years.”--_Brooklyn Times._
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pleasure, but permanent good.”--_Louisville Post._
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higher merit than his other works in epic purpose as well as a
dramatic form.”--_The Methodist._
“Buy the book and read it, as it is well worth the time spent to do
it.”--_Washington Chronicle._
‰ _The above book for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, post or
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CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS,
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JUST PUBLISHED
_THE MOST POPULAR BOOK OF THE SEASON._
RUDDER GRANGE,
By FRANK R. STOCKTON.
_One Volume, Square 12mo, Cloth, $1.25._
=THE RUDDER GRANGE PAPERS=--which have been so keenly enjoyed by
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heroine are already laughingly quoted in hundreds of households--are
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The adventures of Mr. Stockton’s young couple in solving the problem of
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Euphemia’s naivete and intense seriousness, and her absolutely
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All of the little household are hardly less excellent than this
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medium of dime-novels, being almost as worthy of an enduring celebrity
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A NEW BOOK
By the Author of “That Lass o’ Lowrie’s.”
SURLY TIM
AND OTHER STORIES.
BY MRS. FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT,
_Author of “That Lass o’ Lowrie’s.”_
One volume, small 12mo. Cloth extra, $1.25.
The volume includes eight of Mrs. Burnett’s shorter stories which have
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published in SCRIBNER’S.
The present collection, including _Esmeralda_, _Lodusky_, _Le Monsieur
de la Petite Dame_, etc., shows that the author can be successful in
other scenes than those, the treatment of which has gained her so much
critical praise and such wide popularity.
CRITICAL NOTICES.
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sympathies of all readers.”--_The Commonwealth, Boston._
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Mrs. Burnett has made for herself a reputation which places her in
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⁂ _The above book for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, post or
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years_.”--PHIL. PRESS.
THAT LASS O’ LOWRIE’S
BY FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT.
PRESS NOTICES
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_Price, Paper Covers, 90 cents; or $1.50 Extra Cloth_
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* * * * * *
Transcriber’s note:
Obvious printer errors corrected silently.
Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.