For a discarded lover heartlessly played with, as she herself confessed
he had been, Claude Bainrothe bore himself very proudly and calmly in
Evelyn Erle's presence, I thought. At first, there was a shade of
coolness, of pique even in my own manner toward him as the memory of
Evelyn's insinuations rose between us; but after the lapse of a few
weeks all thought of this kind was put away, and he was received with a
pleasure as undisguised, as it was innocent and undesigning on my part.
The repugnant idea of succeeding to Evelyn in his affections had stifled
the very germs of coquetry, and my manner to him was unmistakable; nor
was it without evident dissatisfaction that Mr. Basil Bainrothe surveyed
the ruin of his hopes.
A sudden and painful change took place about midsummer in Claude's
manner toward me (with Evelyn it was uniform). He became cold,
restrained, embarrassed in his intercourse with me, hitherto so frank
and brotherly. He made his visits shorter and at last at greater
intervals; yet I knew, through others, that he remained strictly at
home, eschewing all places of amusement, all society--"all occupation
even," as Mr. Basil Bainrothe himself complained.
"I can't think what has got into Claude lately," he said to my father
one day at our dinner-table. "The boy mopes. He is in love, I believe,
but with whom I can't conjecture," and he glanced askance at Evelyn and
me.--"Can you assist me, ladies?"
"Not with me, I assure you," said Evelyn, proudly. "That measure has
been trodden, and the dance is over."
"Nor with me," I faltered, for the careless words had struck to my
heart. "That fancy dance has yet to be solicited. We both plead
innocent, you see, Mr. Bainrothe," and I tried to laugh, but the
glittering, kaleidoscopic eye was fixed upon me, and my face was
crimson.
"Never _blush_, Miriam," whispered Evelyn, maliciously, "it makes you
look the color of a new mahogany bedstead. You are best pale, child.
Always remember that."
"It must be with Miss Stanbury, then," said Mr. Bainrothe, evasively.
"She is a very pretty girl, and I don't wonder at Claude's infatuation.
The old man is rich, too; it will answer very well, I think. What do you
say, Mr. Monfort."
"Well, really, I think Claude could scarcely do better," rejoined my
ever literal father. "She is an admirable young person, pious, and
discreetly brought up--and--yes, quite pretty, certainly. Let us drink
to his success in that quarter.--Ladies!--Mr. Bainrothe!--fill your
glasses.--Franklin, the sherry.--Morton, the port. Which will you have,
Bainrothe? or do you prefer Rhine wines?"
"A glass of Hockheimer, if you have it convenient, Franklin. Those heavy
wines are too heating for our summers, I think, Mr. Monfort. You
yourself would do well to follow my example."
"Thank you," said my father, loftily. "When you feed lions on
pound-cake you may expect to see Englishmen drink German acidulations
instead of the generous juice of the grape--fostered on southern soil,
above volcanoes even--to which they have been used since the time of the
last Henrys. Beer were a better alternative. Give me claret or madeira."
Mr. Bainrothe had his limits, and usually took care not to exceed them.
My father's easy good-nature was converted into frozen _hauteur_ at any
open effort to transcend the boundaries of his independence. He gloried
in "_Magna Charta_," and never knowingly sacrificed his baronial
privileges, yet he was wax in the hands of a skillful wheedler, and his
"adamantine will" was readily fused in the fires of flattery.
We drank the proposed toast, much to Mr. Bainrothe's discomfiture. He
had made the remark as a skillful feeler, and was mortified at my
father's ready acquiescence in his plans. Of course, Evelyn and I both
saw through the unskillful _ruse_, and pledged him with hearty malice;
but he had yet another shot in reserve, which told with fatal effect.
"Mr. Biddle has offered me a cashiership for Claude," he remarked,
carelessly, "in a thriving town in Georgia, and I shall accept for him
forthwith. Then, if Miss Stanbury chooses to accompany him into exile,
it will be all for the best; but, were he about to remain here, I would
not suffer him to think of matrimony for years to come. 'A young man
married is a young man marred,' as Shakespeare says somewhere, I
believe; and I agree with him. A youth of twenty-one ought to be free
for a season until he can shape his life."
I felt myself tremble from head to foot. I had never contemplated the
possibility of his absence, and the conviction of my deep interest in
him flashed across me for the first time with lightning force and
vividness. Evelyn did not reproach me for blushing this time; I was pale
enough to satisfy even her spleen. Indeed, some better feeling than she
had before manifested seemed to inspire her now, for she filled another
glass of wine and motioned me to drink it. I had merely sipped from mine
when papa proposed his toast, and Franklin had borne it away with the
others in making ready for the dessert.
"Don't let that man read you," she said, in a low, eager voice, not lost
on me. I drank the wine, and met his glance steadily this time, and gave
him look for look. My secret had nerved me well.
That evening Claude Bainrothe came.
"When do you enter the sacred bands of matrimony with Miss Stanbury, Mr.
Bainrothe?" asked Evelyn, in her usual, cool, provoking way, sipping a
glass of iced lemonade as she spoke, which Claude had brought her from
the refreshment-slab and humbly offered.
"And when do you assume your office in Georgia?" I asked in the next
breath, encouraged by her example, and perhaps, alas! eager to know the
truth, scarcely lifting my eyes to his as I spoke.
He glanced from one to the other with a bewildered air, quite foreign
from his usual self-possession.
"I protest, ladies, I do not understand your allusions," he replied at
last, with such an air of truth that, taking pity on him, we explained
the matter laughingly.
"My poor father is falling into that sear and yellow leaf, his dotage,"
he said, "that is evident; what could possess him to maunder so? I
really believe he is in love with Miss Stanbury himself, and is
wire-working merely to gain my consent. As to going to Georgia, I would
as soon bury myself up to my neck in the sea-sand and bear the vertical
sun for twenty sequent noons, as to dream of such a step. The old
gentleman is a lunatic, and should be cared for without delay. I will
get Dr. Parrish to see after him to-morrow."
"But I _did_ hear you say you were going to Copenhagen with our
minister," said George Gaston, who had swung himself softly up to our
party on his crutches, unobserved by any one, while Claude was speaking,
and now stood glaring upon him.
"Ah, that is a different matter. I _may_ go there, George. I am told it
is a very gay court; besides, I am curious about Denmark, naturally.
Every one is who loves Shakespeare and the 'royal Dane,' you know."
Again that fatal pallor of mine swept from my heart to brow, and this
time the large, dark gray eye of the boy was fixed on me with agony
unspeakable. He dropped it suddenly, wheeled on his supporting-sticks,
and turned away, ghastly pale himself, to seek the shelter of the
portico, where I joined him a few minutes later.
"Are you ill, George?" I asked. "I felt anxious about you when I saw you
leave the parlor so suddenly. Have you had one of your spells?"
"A very severe spell, Miriam; but not of the usual kind." I understood
him now. There was a dry anguish in the very tone of his voice that
smote heavily on my ear, yet I felt impatient with him, provoked beyond
endurance.
"George, you should be more of a man," I said, with asperity, "than to
yield in this way to every impulse that besets you. Your whims are hard
to bear with lately, and scarcely worth understanding, I am convinced."
"Would I were more or less of a man!" he answered, meekly. "I should
suffer less, probably."
"Tell me what _does ail_ you, George Gaston," I added, with a sudden
revulsion of feeling, caused by his patient, deprecating manner. "You
know you always have my warmest sympathy, and affection--sisterly
interest."
"Ah, Miriam, it is that! You love that man; yes, you love him a
thousand-fold more than you have ever loved me. I suspected it before--I
know it now; and I would rather see you floating a corpse on the river,
with your dead face turned up to heaven, than married to that man, I
hate him so!"
The last words were ground between his set teeth, and he trembled with
passion.
"George," I said, "you are still a child in years, in strength, in
stature! I, but a few months older, am already a woman in age,
experience, feeling, character. It is always thus with persons of our
sexes who contract childish friendships--one outgrows the other. Then
there are bitterness, reproach, suffering, resentment, on one part or
the other. But is this just? Remember Byron and Miss Chaworth--how was
it with them? He grasped too much, and lost every thing; he embittered
his whole nature, his whole life, for the want of common-sense to guide
him; but, with almost as much genius--more, in some things, than he
possessed--you HAVE this governing principle. I know my dearest George
will do me justice. I shall be an old, faded woman when you are of an
age to marry--unlovely in your eyes, George,"--I hesitated. "I have
always hoped you would be our Mabel's husband. You know you have
promised me." I smiled tearfully this time.
He bounded off the bench, interrupting me with a low cry. "Do not mock
me, Miriam Monfort," he exclaimed, "if you can do no better. My God! a
baby of five years old suggested as a wife by you, my idol! Oh, yes,
wildly-beloved Miriam, the noblest, truest, as I have ever thought
you--the most beautiful, too, surely, of all God's created beings!" and
he caught my hand wildly.
"George, you are dreaming," I said; "your vivid fancy misleads you
utterly. I am not beautiful--you cannot think so; no one has ever
thought me so; you must not say such an absurd thing of me. It only
humiliates me. But I do believe I still deserve your esteem. Let us
separate now, and to-morrow come to me in a better mood."
"If I _must_ give you up," he murmured, in a low, grieved voice, "let it
be to a husband who loves and appreciates you--is worthy of you. I
cannot tell you all I know--_have heard;_ but of this I am certain:
Claude Bainrothe loves you not! It is Evelyn he worships, and you are
blind not to see it; Evelyn who has goaded him almost to madness already
for her own purposes. I heard--but no, I cannot tell you this; I ought
not--honor forbids;" and he laid his hand on his boyish breast, in a
tragic, lofty manner, all his own, that almost made me smile.
"I know, I know all this, dear George," I said. "Claude Bainrothe
addressed Evelyn before he knew me, and she refused him. Nor have I
craved the honor, this is all that can be said as yet, of being her
successor." I faltered here. "Let this satisfy you for the present. He
has not spoken to me."
"But you love him--love him, Miriam!" he groaned. "Oh, I saw it plainly
to-night, and, what is far more terrible and hard to bear, he saw it
too! He was watching you from the corner of his furtive, downcast eye
when he was speaking of going to Copenhagen, and a smile trembled
around his mouth when you turned so pale--white as a poplar-leaf,
Miriam, when the wind blows it over! If I were a woman I would cut out
my heart rather than open it thus to the gaze of any man, far less one
like that, shallow, selfish, superficial. O Miriam! not worthy of you at
all--not fit to tie your shoe-latchet!"
"George, you overrate me, you always did, and--and--you undervalue Mr.
Bainrothe, believe me; nay, I am sure you do. Let us part now, George.
My father is calling me, you hear. Go home, my own dear boy, and rest
and pray. Oh, be convinced that I love you better than all the world,
except those I _ought_ to love more.--Yes, yes, papa! I am
coming.--Good-night, dear George."
And I kissed his clammy brow, hastening in the next moment to my
father's side, who, missing me, could not rest in this new phase of his
until I was forthcoming. Certainly, whatever tenderness I had missed in
former years was amply lavished on me now. Evelyn, Mabel--all former
idols sank out of sight in my presence, and the very touch of my hand,
the sound of my voice, seemed to inspire him with happiness and a new
sense of security. Sometime I flattered myself that I had earned this
affection, since it had not seemed my birthright, nor come to me
earlier; but no, it was the grace of God, I must believe, touching his
heart at last, as the rod of Moses brought forth waters from the rock.
Yet the simile is at fault here: my father's heart was never a stone,
but tender and true and constant ever, even if locked away.
It may seem strange, but from the very evidences of his carelessness, as
they seemed to others, I gathered, after a time, the blissful conviction
that Claude Bainrothe was not indifferent to me. His reserve, his
moroseness almost, the despairing way in which he spoke sometimes of his
future life, his want of purpose, of interest in what was passing around
him, his entire self-possession with Evelyn, so different from his
embarrassment with me; his manner of pursuing me with his eyes, and
holding me fast, and the long sidelong glances he often dropped at my
feet like offerings, as I detected his vigilance--all persuaded me that
what I most wished to believe was true, and that I had awakened interest
if not passion in his heart, for--at last, I loved him!
The time came when his own lips confirmed my suspicions, my hopes--when
faintly, and in broken accents, he related to me the story of his love;
mine, as he declared, since the evening of our first meeting; and asked
my troth in turn. I was so inexperienced in matters of this sort, I
scarcely knew how to behave, I suppose; besides, I never thought of
giving any other reply than the one he craved, for I too had inclined to
him from the first. I recognized this now, and did not deny it when he
urged me for the truth, holding my hands in his, and looking into my
eyes in a deep and tender and devoted way peculiar to himself, that
thrilled to my very life--an adoring expression that I have seen in no
other gaze than his own, and which cast a glamour about him, I well
believe, irresistible wherever it was exercised.
It was in September that we became engaged, with the joyful coincidence
of Mr. Bainrothe, the somewhat reluctant consent of my father, the
half-derisive approbation of Evelyn, the entire disapproval, expressed
in eloquent silence, of the whole Stanbury family. For a time, this
grave coldness on their part alienated me greatly from them all, George
Gaston especially; and had it not been for Mabel, and the bond she
proved between us, we might have been divided for life thereafter.
My father's declining health alone threw a bleakness over that rosy time
of joy, and held in check the exuberance of my happy spirit, brimming
like sparkling wine above the vase that contained it. Sometimes, when I
met Evelyn's cold and gloomy eye, I felt myself rebuked for the
indulgence of my perfect happiness. "She knows that my father is more
ill than he seems!" I would conjecture--"Dr. Pemberton has told her what
he conceals from me. I am making festal garlands in readiness for my
father's grave, perhaps." Then with tears and entreaties I would
question her: "I _cannot_ be mistaken," I would say; "something is wrong
with you. Is it about my father? If not of him, what is it, Evelyn, that
makes your face like a stone mask of late--once all life and joy?"
"Miriam, I am not quite well," she would reply evasively, or say, "I am
meditating a step that will cost me dear. My uncle, the Earl of Pomfret,
the head of our house since my grandfather's death, you know, writes me
to visit him. It is this fatal necessity--for such for some reasons I
feel it--that oppresses me so heavily."
"Why a necessity, dear Evelyn, why go at all? You certainly can never
feel to any relative as you do to _my_ father and _yours_."
"Your father does not find me as important to his happiness as he once
did, Miriam. You have absorbed his whole affection of late; even Mabel,
once his darling and plaything, is put aside."
"He surrendered her to me again, Evelyn, when I returned; this is all,
believe me. He loves, he esteems you as much as ever; he consults you in
all his arrangements. He has made you the mistress of his house; your
judgment, your advice, are paramount with, him as to all matters of
outlay; and, Evelyn, suffer me to speak to you on one subject of great
delicacy--sister! I must. Whenever you marry from this house, understand
well that you shall not go empty-handed."
"Fortune is not _his_ to bestow," she responded, "and large charities
have absorbed, I know, much of his yearly income, princely as that is.
Besides, he reinvests all that remains from that source for Mabel, as I
know. I feel assured he will provide for me, but it must be in a very
small way, and I must go to England and make my establishment there."
"Would you marry for money, Evelyn?" I asked gravely. "O sister, can you
conceive of no higher happiness than this?"
"I can," she said with emotion, while her lips blanched to the hue of
ashes. "I have dreamed such a dream in days past, but now the dark
reality alone remains and sweeps all before it. I shall embrace my first
eligible offer regardless of feeling, and I prefer to cast my destiny
with my own people, however estranged they may be. Certainly, this
letter is not very affectionate, nor even a courteous one from so near a
relative," and she placed in my hand the cold and supercilious note of
the Earl of Pomfret, containing a permission to visit his castle, rather
than invitation.
"Yet you will go, Evelyn?"
"Miriam, I _must_ go. I should go mad were I to stay here, or die in the
struggle."
"Sister, what can this be? Evelyn, hear me: I swear to you, on the day
of my majority, to endow you richly in your own right. It is
independence you want--you shall have it. My father will consent to
this I know, and consider it no more than your due."
"You are kind," she said; "generous, very. You are not like your
mother's people in that respect, such as they are in these degenerate
days, at least. She herself was unlike them, I have heard, for her hand
was princely. But, Miriam, I could not receive such obligations from
you--ought not. Besides--your husband!"
"Ah, Evelyn, there is nothing he would refuse me--nothing."
A gloomy mockery transfused itself into her eyes, her lips were fixed in
a suppressed and sneering smile. Incredulity was written on her aspect.
Her face at that moment was very repulsive to contemplate.
"You do not believe in men," I said, coldly. "I have always remarked it;
yet there are _some_ worthy of confidence, believe me."
"Very few, Miriam, and Claude Bainrothe is not unlike the majority of
his fellows. Men count it no wrong to deceive women."
"O Evelyn, you are too severe, I think. Why seek to shake my confidence
in the man I love? He did not happen to suit your fancy, and you
rejected him. I took what you cast aside, humbly, thankfully, dear
Evelyn. Why resent this, and scorn me for my humility? Let not your
pride for me make you unjust toward him. You, of all women, can best
afford to be generous to Claude Bainrothe."
But still the cold shadow veiled her face, and still she looked
inauspiciously on our betrothal, which, owing to our youth, it was
understood, should continue a year. In the interval I was to travel with
my father to the different large cities of the Union which I had never
seen, and abide awhile in Washington.
His health, Dr. Pemberton thought, required this change, but a darker
one was in store for him.
On Christmas-day, of that year, he was smitten with paralysis, and his
decline was sure and rapid from that hour. Let me pass over the agony of
that period of six weeks, lengthened into years by the dread tension of
anxiety, most relentless of the furies. But for the confidence I felt in
Claude's affection, and the vista of hope it opened for me, I think I
should have succumbed under the unequal struggle.
During this period, his attentions to me and to my helpless father were
most kind and assiduous. Mr. Bainrothe and Evelyn, too, between whom
some unexplained alienation had existed for some time, met in apparent
harmony above his bed of death.
In addition to the services of our own dear and valued physician, we had
others of eminence coming and going daily, with the knowledge in their
own breasts that all was vain.
Still I never ceased entirely to hope until the very last. "He is not
old, he is still vigorous," I would say to myself. "There may be--there
_must_ be--reaction. I have so often heard him boast of his English
constitution, I cannot, oh, I cannot think that the end is yet!"
I wondered then at the inattention of the Stanburys, in whose
disinterested friendship I had reposed so much confidence, even though a
shadow of late had been thrown over our intercourse by my engagement
with Claude Bainrothe, a shadow of which I thought I saw the substance
in the bitter jealousy and rancorous, unreasonable love and hatred of
the morbid George Gaston.
Later I found by the merest accident, through one note of his that had
been left in a drawer of a desk long disused, that Mr. Gerald Stanbury
and Evelyn had maintained a rather fierce correspondence on the subject
of her refusal to accept his services at my father's pillow; founded, as
she alleged, on the recent unexplained but deep-rooted aversion Mr.
Monfort seemed to have imbibed for his neighbor and friend, and which
his physicians said must be regarded.
Allusion was made, not unmixed with bitterness, in Mr. Stanbury's note,
to this assertion of hers, which he pronounced, if true, to rest on the
misrepresentations of villains who had interposed between the too
confiding Mr. Monfort and himself for no good purpose. No names were
given, but it was easy to see to whom his reference was made, and I had
every reason to suppose that Evelyn had communicated these opinions to
those most interested in knowing them long before this record
accidentally fell into my hands.
On the day of the funeral, however, Mr. and Mrs. Stanbury were present,
with Laura and George. All seemed deeply affected, and one by one came
to me in my shadowed chamber with a few words of tender sympathy or
kindly condolence, for I could not bear to go down into that crowded
parlor and see _him_ dead amid all that tide of life, who had so lately
stood there powerful and beloved--Monfort the master!
It was a superb day, they told me, such as we often have at that season
in our changeful clime, and the distant peal of military music, the
chiming of bells, the firing of cannon, the roar of the awakened
multitude, reached my ear even in that secluded street, that quiet room.
The people were celebrating an anniversary that in all times has brought
joy and pride to millions of united hearts. It was the birthday of
Washington.
Laura Stanbury remained with me while all the rest went to the stately
funeral, Evelyn leading Mabel down-stairs, they told me, attired in her
little black dress, in sad contrast with her ivory skin, her yellow
hair, her childish years, and her unconsciousness of the grave loss she
had sustained; Mrs. Austin following these, her darlings, to go with
them in the principal mourning-coach, in which Mr. Bainrothe also found
himself ensconced, by some diplomacy of his own, no doubt, all clad in
sables, and with his polished aspect fixed in woe!
After the funeral, Dr. Pemberton came up for a few minutes to my
chamber. He found me reasonably calm and composed, and expressed his
gratification at my condition.
"Now, do be very careful of yourself, my dear Miriam, or you may have
one of your sleepy attacks, and they are exhausting to Nature, trying to
both body and soul. We must guard against any thing of this sort at this
time. You know how apt they are to supervene on excitement of any kind
with you." He said this in his own kind, encouraging manner.
"Then they are strictly nervous?" I inquired.
"I don't know; can't say, indeed.--Here, Mrs. Austin, give Miriam one of
these powders," and he drew them from his pocket-book, "every six hours
until I come again, and keep her as quiet as possible. Some light
nourishment she must take, but let there be no preaching and praying
about her this evening, and advise Mr. Bainrothe to go quietly home for
the present. She must not be excited, only soothed. Let Mabel come, of
course."
He came again on the next day and the next, and so on until he was
satisfied that all was going on very well, he said, but he would not
suffer my father's will to be opened for a week, knowing that my
presence would be necessary at the reading, and he permitted no
disturbance of any kind to approach me during that interval of
probation.
"Do you think you could get through with a few business details
to-morrow?" he asked me on the last day of his visit. "They all seem
very impatient, though I cannot see why."
"I think so, Dr. Pemberton."
"Well, then, notify Mr. Bainrothe to make ready for you in the library
at any hour you may fix upon. He was your father's attorney, it seems,
and had the will in his keeping. Of course it will be a very simple
matter to carry out its provisions, since all was fixed before, as every
one knows, but there may be some little agitation. Now, don't give way,
I charge you."
"How can I help it. Dr. Pemberton?"
"Oh, with a will like yours, one can do a great deal. I had an obstinate
patient once determined not to die, and she did not die, though death
was due. Resistance is natural to some temperaments. Yours is one of
them. Fight off those attacks, Miriam, in future."
"I will try," I said, half amused at his suggestion, "but, if all
physicians gave such prescriptions, medicine would be at a discount."
"Not at all. Medicine is a great aid in any case--I have never thought
it more. A doctor is only a pilot; he steers a ship sometimes past
dangerous places on which it would founder otherwise, but he never
pretends, unless he is a charlatan, to upheave shoals and rocks, or to
control tempests. He can only mind his rudder and shift his sails; the
rest is with Providence. Now, suppose the captain of this ship is calm
and firm, and coincides with the pilot's efforts, instead of
counteracting and embarrassing them. Don't you see the advantage to the
ship?"
"Oh, certainly, and I admire the ingenuity of your allegory. You must
have been studying Bunyan, lately."
"No, Miriam, I have little time for books, save those necessary to my
profession. I study a mightier volume daily than scholar ever wrote--the
wondrous mind and body of man, the one illustrated by the other, and
both so mutually dependent that short-sighted people have occasionally
confounded them, yet distinct after all as God and the universe."
"I am glad to hear you say this; doctors are so often accused of being
materialists."
"No men living have less excuse for being so. The phenomenon of death
alone ought to set that matter at rest in any reasoning mind. The
impalpable is gone, and the material perishes. It is so plain that he
that runs might read, one would think. That sudden change from volition
to inertia is, in itself, conviction to every right-seeing mind."
"Yet I wish we knew more," I mused, aloud. "We ought to know more, it
seems to me. God has not told us half enough for our satisfaction. It is
so cruel to leave us in the dark, lit only by partial flashes of
lightning. If we were certain of the future, we could bear separation
better from those we love. It would not seem so hopeless."
"If we were certain of the future, we would not bear it all," he
remarked, "but grow impatient and exacting like children who rise in the
night to examine the Christmas stocking, rather than wait until morning.
Most often we should join those we loved rather than bide our time if
we were certain. Moreover, what merit would there be in faith or
fortitude? No, Miriam, it is best as it is, believe me. Every thing is
for the best that God has done; we must not dare to question the ways
any more than the will of the Eternal."
"You ought to have been a preacher, Dr. Pemberton," I said, smiling
sadly, "instead of a physician."
"No, my dear little girl, I ought to have been just what I am, since it
was God's will. And now be calm and self-sustaining until I come again,
which will be before long, I think."
I tried as far as in me lay to regard the instructions of my kind friend
and physician (and happy are those who unite both in one person), but,
prepare as we may to receive the waves of the sea when we bathe in its
margin, and skillful as we may believe ourselves in buffeting or
avoiding them, there comes one now and then with a strength and
suddenness that sweeps us from our feet, overthrows us, and lays us
prostrate at the sandy bottom of the ocean, to emerge therefrom half
stifled with the bitter brine.
Such experience was destined to be mine before many hours.