"_Lys._--How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale?
How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
_Her._--Belike, for want of rain, which I could well
Between them from the tempest of mine eyes."
--_Midsummer Night's Dream._
Up in her chamber sits Cecilia, speechless, spell-bound, fighting with a
misery too great for tears. Upon her knee lies an open letter from which
an enclosure has slipped and fallen to the ground. And on this last her
eyes, scorched and distended, are fixed hopelessly.
The letter itself is from Colonel Trant: it was posted yesterday, and
received by her late last night, though were you now to tell her a whole
year has elapsed since first she read its fatal contents, I do not think
she would evince much doubt or surprise. It was evidently hastily
penned, the characters being rough and uneven, and runs as follows:
"Austen Holm. Friday.
"MY DEAR GIRL,--The attempt to break bad news to any one has always
seemed to me so vain, and so unsatisfactory a proceeding, and one
so likely to render even heavier the blow it means to soften, that
here I refrain from it altogether. Yet I would entreat you when
reading what I now enclose not to quite believe in its truth until
further proofs be procured. I shall remain at my present address
for three days longer: if I do not by then hear from you, I shall
come to The Cottage. Whatever happens, I know you will remember it
is my only happiness to serve you, and that I am ever your faithful
friend,
"GEORGE TRANT."
When Cecilia had read so far, she raised the enclosure, though without
any very great misgivings, and, seeing it was from some unknown friend
of Trant's, at present in Russia, skimmed lightly through the earlier
portion of it, until at length a paragraph chained her attention and
killed at a stroke all life and joy and happy love within her.
"By the bye," ran this fatal page, "did you not know a man named
Arlington?--tall, rather stout, and dark; you used to think him dead. He
is not, however, as I fell against him yesterday by chance and learned
his name and all about him. He didn't seem half such a dissipated card
as you described him, so I hope traveling has improved his morals. I
asked him if he knew any one called Trant, and he said, 'Yes, several.'
I had only a minute or two to speak to him, and, as he never drew breath
himself during that time, I had not much scope for questioning. He
appears possessed of many advantages,--pretty wife at home, no end of
money, nice place, unlimited swagger. Bad form all through, but genial.
You will see him shortly in the old land, as he is starting for England
almost immediately."
And so on, and on, and on. But Cecilia, then or afterward, never read
another line.
Her first thought was certainly not of Cyril. It was abject, cowering
fear,--a horror of any return to the old loathed life,--a crushing dread
lest any chance should fling her again into her husband's power. Then
she drew her breath a little hard, and thought of Trant, and then of
Cyril; and _then_ she told herself, with a strange sense of relief, that
at least one can die.
But this last thought passed away as did the others, and she knew that
death seldom comes to those who seek it; and to command it,--who should
dare do that? Hope dies hard in some breasts! In Cecilia's the little
fond flame barely flickered, so quickly did it fade away and vanish
altogether before the fierce blast that had assailed it. Not for one
moment did she doubt the truth of the statement lying before her. She
was too happy, too certain; she should have remembered that some are
born to misfortune as the sparks fly upward. "She had lived, she had
loved," and here was the end of it all!
All night long she had not slept. She had indeed lain upon her bed, her
pillow had known the impress of her head, but through every minute of
the lonely, silent awesome hours of gloom, her great eyes had been wide
open, watching for the dawn.
At last it came. A glorious dawn; a very flush of happy youth; the
sweeter that it bespoke a warm and early spring. At first it showed pale
pink with expectation, then rosy with glad hope. From out the east faint
rays of gold rushed tremulously, and, entering the casement, cast around
Cecilia's head a tender halo.
When happiness lies within our grasp, when all that earth can give us
(alas! how little!) is within our keeping, how good is the coming of
another day,--a long, perfect day, in which to revel, and laugh, and
sing, as though care were a thing unknown! But when trouble falls upon
us, and this same terrible care is our only portion, with what horror,
what heart-sinking, do we turn our faces from the light and wish with
all the fervor of a vain wish that it were night!
The holy dawn brought but anguish to Cecilia. She did not turn with
impatience from its smiling beauty, but heavy tears gathered slowly, and
grew within her sorrowful gray eyes, until at length (large as was their
home) they burst their bounds and ran quickly down her cheeks, as though
glad to escape from what should never have been their resting-place.
Swiftly, silently, ran the little pearly drops, ashamed of having dimmed
the lustre of those lovely eyes that only yester morning were so glad
with smiles.
Sitting now in her bedroom, forlorn and desolate, with the cruel words
that have traveled all the way across a continent to slay her peace
throbbing through her brain, she hears Cyril's well-known step upon the
gravel outside, and, springing to her feet as though stabbed, shrinks
backward until the wall yields her a support. A second later, ashamed of
her own weakness, she straightens herself, smooths back her ruffled hair
from her forehead, and, with a heavy sigh and colorless face, walks
down-stairs to him who from henceforth must be no more counted as a
lover. Slowly, with lingering steps that betray a broken heart, she
draws nigh to him.
Seeing her, he comes quickly forward to greet her, still glad with the
joy that has been his during all his walk through the budding woods, a
smile upon his lips. But the smile soon dies. The new blankness, the
terrible change, he sees in the beloved face sobers him immediately. It
is vivid enough even at a first glance to fill him with apprehension:
hastening to her as though eager to succor her from any harm that may be
threatening, he would have taken her in his arms, but she, with a
little quick shudder, putting up her hands, prevents him.
"No," she says, in a low changed tone; "not again!"
"Something terrible has happened," Cyril says, with conviction, "or you
would not so repulse me. Darling, what is it?"
"I don't know how to tell you," replies she, her tone cold with the
curious calmness of despair.
"It cannot be so very bad," nervously; "nothing can signify greatly,
unless it separates you from me."
A mournful bitter laugh breaks from Cecilia, a laugh that ends swiftly,
tunelessly, as it began.
"How nearly you have touched upon the truth!" she says, miserably; and
then, in a clear, hard voice, "My husband is alive."
A dead silence. No sound to disturb the utter stillness, save the
sighing of the early spring wind, the faint twitter of the birds among
the budding branches as already they seek to tune their slender throats
to the warblings of love, and the lowing of the brown-eyed oxen in the
fields far, far below them.
Then Cyril says, with slow emphasis:
"I don't believe it. It's a lie! It is impossible!"
"It is true. I feel it so. Something told me my happiness was too great
to last, and now it has come to an end. Alas! alas! how short a time it
has continued with me! Oh, Cyril!"--smiting her hands together
passionately,--"what shall I do? what shall I do? If he finds me he will
kill me, as he often threatened. How shall I escape?"
"It is untrue," repeats Cyril, doggedly, hardly noting her terror and
despair. His determined disbelief restores her to calmness.
"Do you think I would believe except on certain grounds?" she says.
"Colonel Trant wrote me the evil tidings."
"Trant is interested; he might be glad to delay our marriage," he says,
with a want of generosity unworthy of him.
"No, no, _no_. You wrong him. And how should he seek to delay a marriage
that was yet far distant?"
"Not so very distant. I have yet to tell you"--with a strange smile--"my
chief reason for being here to-day: to ask you to receive my mother
to-morrow, who is coming to welcome you as a daughter. How well Fate
planned this tragedy! to have our crowning misfortune fall straight into
the lap of our newly-born content! Cecilia,"--vehemently,--"there must
still be a grain of hope somewhere. Do not let us quite despair. I
cannot so tamely accept the death to all life's joys that must follow on
belief."
"You shall see for yourself," replies she, handing to him the letter
that all this time has lain crumbled beneath her nerveless fingers.
When he has read it, he drops it with a groan, and covers his face with
his hands. To him, too, the evidence seems clear and convincing.
"I told you to avoid me. I warned you," she says, presently, with a wan
smile. "I am born to ill-luck; I bring it even to all those who come
near me--especially, it seems, to the few who are unhappy enough to love
me. Go, Cyril, while there is yet time."
"There is not time," desperately: "it is already too late." He moves
away from her, and in deep agitation paces up and down the secluded
garden-path; while she, standing alone with drooping head and dry
miserable eyes, scarcely cares to watch his movements, so dead within
her have all youth and energy grown.
"Cecilia," he says, suddenly, stopping before her, and speaking in a low
tone, that, though perfectly clear, still betrays inward hesitation,
while his eyes carefully avoid hers, "listen to me. What is he to you,
this man that they say is still alive, that you should give up your
whole life for him? He deserted you, scorned you, left you for another
woman. For two long years you have believed him dead. Why should you now
think him living? Let him be dead still and buried in your memory; there
are other lands,"--slowly, and still with averted eyes,--"other homes:
why should we not make one for ourselves? Cecilia,"--coming up to her,
white but earnest, and holding out his arms to her,--"come with me, and
let us find our happiness in each other!"
Cecilia, after one swift glance at him, moves back hastily.
"How dare you use such words to me?" she says, in a horror-stricken
voice; "how dare you tempt me? you, _you_ who said you loved me!" Then
the little burst of passion dies; her head droops still lower upon her
breast; her hands coming together fall loosely before her in an
attitude descriptive of the deepest despondency. "I believed in you,"
she says, "I trusted you. I did not think _you_ would have been the one
to inflict the bitterest pang of all." She breathes these last words in
accents of the saddest reproach.
"Nor will I!" cries he, with keen contrition, kneeling down before her,
and hiding his face in a fold of her gown. "Never again, my darling, my
life! I forgot,--I forgot you are as high above all other women as the
sun is above the earth. Cecilia, forgive me."
"Nay, there is nothing to forgive," she says. "But,
Cyril,"--unsteadily,--"you will go abroad at once, for a little while,
until I have time to decide where in the future I shall hide my head."
"Must I?"
"You must."
"And you,--where will you go?"
"It matters very little. You will have had time to forget me before ever
I trust myself to see you again."
"Then I shall never see you again," replies he, mournfully, "if you wait
for that. 'My true love hath my heart, and I have hers.' How can I
forget you while it beats warm within my breast?"
"Be it so," she answers, with a sigh: "it is a foolish fancy, yet it
gladdens me. I would not be altogether displaced from your mind."
So she lays her hand upon his head as he still kneels before her, and
gently smooths and caresses it with her light loving fingers. He
trembles a little, and a heavy dry sob breaks from him. This parting is
as the bitterness of death. To them it _is_ death, because it is
forever.
He brings the dear hand down to his lips, and kisses it softly,
tenderly.
"Dearest," she murmurs, brokenly, "be comforted."
"What comfort can I find, when I am losing you?"
"You can think of me."
"That would only increase my sorrow."
"Is it so with you? For me I am thankful, very thankful, for the great
joy that has been mine for months, the knowledge that you loved me. Even
now, when desolation has come upon us, the one bright spot in all my
misery is the thought that at least I may remember you, and call to mind
your words, your face, your voice, without sin."
"If ever you need me," he says, when a few minutes have elapsed, "you
have only to write, 'Cyril, I want you,' and though the whole world
should lie between us, I shall surely come. O my best beloved! how shall
I live without you?"
"Don't,--do not speak like that," entreats she, faintly. "It is too hard
already: do not make it worse." Then, recovering herself by a supreme
effort, she says, "Let us part now, here, while we have courage. I think
the few arrangements we can make have been made, and George Trant will
write, if--if there is anything to write about."
They are standing with their hands locked together reading each other's
faces for the last time.
"To-morrow you will leave Chetwoode?" she says, regarding him fixedly.
"To-morrow! I could almost wish there was no to-morrow for either you or
me," replies he.
"Cyril," she says, with sudden fear, "you will take care of yourself,
you will not go into any danger? Darling,"--with a sob,--"you will
always remember that some day, when this is quite forgotten, I shall
want to see again the face of my dearest friend."
"I shall come back to you," he says quietly. He is so quiet that she
tells herself now is a fitting time to break away from him; she forces
herself to take the first step that shall part them remorselessly.
"Good-bye," she says, in faltering tones.
"Good-bye," returns he, mechanically. With the slow reluctant tears that
spring from a broken heart running down her pale cheeks, she presses her
lips fervently to his hands, and moves slowly away. When she has gone a
few steps, frightened at the terrible silence that seems to have
enwrapped him, benumbing his very senses, she turns to regard him once
more.
He has never stirred; he scarcely seems to breathe, so motionless is his
attitude; as though some spell were on him, he stands silently gazing
after her, his eyes full of dumb agony. There is something so utterly
lonely in the whole scene that Cecilia bursts into tears. Her sobs rouse
him.
"Cecilia!" he cries, in a voice of mingled passion and despair that
thrills through her. Once more he holds out to her his arms. She runs to
him, and flings herself for the time into his embrace. He strains her
passionately to his heart. Her sobs break upon the silent air. Once
again their white lips form the word "farewell." There is a last
embrace, a last lingering kiss.
All is over.