For a few moments all believed that Bertram Chesleigh was dead. Elinor
Glenalvan, filled with astonishment and deadly rage, devoutly hoped
that he was.
Her love had turned to hate, and as by a sudden flash she understood
fully the passion of remorse and despair that had brought him to
Glenalvan Hall.
The vindictive wish came over her that he had died before he had spoken
the brave words that had cleared the stain from the memory of the girl
she had hated with such jealous fire and passion. She had yet to learn
that every shadow had been cleared from Golden's name.
While she stood like a statue, and angrily regarded the striking scene,
the others busied themselves with the restoration of the unconscious
man.
Dinah brought cold water from a little spring, and bathed his face and
hands. Gertrude held her smelling-salts to his nose.
In a short time he revived and looked about him with an agony of sorrow
in his pale, drawn face. His first conscious thought was of his loved
and deeply-wronged wife.
"She is dead," he groaned. "I shall never hear her sweet lips pronounce
my pardon. Oh, God, did she leave me no message? Did she not curse me
in dying for the woe I had wrought?"
They all stood aloof from him except Gertrude. She told him what he
asked in a grave and gentle voice.
"She made no mention of you, Mr. Chesleigh. She was patient and brave
to the last. She kept her vow of silence to the bitter end, and died
with the story of her innocence untold."
"I, coward that I was, bound her to secrecy," he said, "but I did not
dream then of what would happen after. I wish to God that she had
spoken and vindicated her honor."
And again an expression of the deepest sorrow convulsed the dark,
handsome face.
"She was too true and loyal to break her vow," answered Gertrude,
tearfully. "I believe that the shame and sorrow of it all killed her.
She was a martyr to her love."
He groaned and dropped his head upon his folded arms. There was
silence, and every eye but Elinor's rested tearfully upon the low mound
beneath which slumbered the poor girl who had died with the brand of
the erring upon her, but who in this hour was proven guiltless and
pure, as Gertrude had said, a patient martyr to affection.
"Oh, that I might have seen her even once," groaned Bertram Chesleigh,
turning instinctively for comfort to the sweet, sympathetic face of
Gertrude. "Oh, tell me, did she suffer in dying? Was she conscious?"
She shook her head.
"No, she passed from a quiet slumber into death. The change was so
gradual we scarcely knew when she was gone."
"Gone!"
The word thrilled him with a keen and bitter pain. The sweet,
child-wife he had loved so dearly was lost from his life forever. She
was gone from a world that had used her harshly and coldly, to take her
fitting place among the angels.
The soft wind sighing through the trees and the grass seemed to murmur
her requiem: "_Requiescat in pace_."
He rose and stood among them, his heavy eyes turning to the sad, old
face of the grandfather whom he had bereaved of his darling. He held
out his hand to him humbly.
"_She_ is gone from us, and I cannot sue for her pardon," he said,
wistfully. "But will you not forgive me, sir, for the sorrow my
weakness and pride brought upon her and you?"
But old Hugh Glenalvan's kindly blue eyes flashed upon him with a gleam
of their youthful fire, and his voice quivered with anger and despair
as he replied:
"I will never forgive you unless _she_ should rise from the grave and
forgive you too!"
"Ye must forgive as ye would be forgiven," said the gentle, admonitory
voice of the man of God.
But the indignant old man shook off his suppliant hand.
"She was his wife, and he discarded and deserted her. There is no
forgiveness for such a sin," he said, with fiery scorn, as he turned
away.
They went away and left Bertram alone with the wronged and quiet dead.
Gertrude, in her gentle, womanly pity would fain have persuaded him to
go home with them, but he refused to listen.
"Leave me to my lonely vigil here," he said, sorrowfully. "If her
gentle spirit is yet hovering about she may accept my bitter grief and
repentance as some atonement."
When they had all gone and left him he bowed his head with a bitter cry.
"Oh, Golden, my lost, little darling, only six feet of earth between
us, and yet I shall never see you, speak to you, nor hear you again!"
A low, respectful cough interrupted the mournful tenor of his thoughts.
He glanced up and saw the old grave-digger leaning on his spade and
regarding him wistfully.
"What are you waiting for, my man?" he inquired, feeling impatient at
this seeming intrusion on his grief.
"If you please, sir, I have not yet finished throwing up the earth and
shaping the mound," said the man, with some embarrassment.
A bitter cry came from Bertram Chesleigh's lips.
"What! would you bury her still deeper from my sight?" he cried. "Oh,
rather throw off this heavy covering of earth and suffer me to look
upon my darling one again."
The man stared at him half fearfully.
"Oh, sir, your sorrow has almost crazed you," he said. "You had better
return to your friends and leave me here to finish my necessary work."
But a new thought, born of his grief and remorse, had come into the
mind of the mourner.
"My man, look at me," he said, earnestly; "I want you to open this
grave and let me see my wife again. You cannot refuse me when I pray
you to do it. Only think! They have buried my child and I have never
even seen its face. I must kiss the babe and its mother once, I cannot
go away until I have done so."
"Oh, sir, surely you are going mad," the man cried, alarmed. "I have
never heard of such a thing. I could not do it if I would. I could not
take the coffin out alone."
"Let me help you," said the distracted mourner.
"What you wish is quite impossible, sir," faltered the man, anxiously;
"let me beg you to go on to the hall, and leave me to finish my sad
duty."
"You must not refuse me, it will break my heart," Bertram Chesleigh
cried, "I will pay you well. See," he drew out a handful of shining
gold pieces. "I will give you a hundred dollars if you will show me the
faces of my wife and child."
The dull eyes of the grave-digger grew bright at that sight. He was
poor, and a hundred dollars were wealth to him.
"I am sorry for you, sir, I wish I could do what you wish. That money
would do my poor wife and children a deal of good. If you could wait
until night," he said, lowering his voice and glancing significantly
around him, "I might get help and do the job for you."
Some whispered words passed between them: then Bertram Chesleigh rose
and passed out of the green graveyard, casting one yearning look behind
him at the low grave that held his darling.
He bent his lagging footsteps toward old Glenalvan Hall, whose
ivy-wreathed towers glistened picturesquely in the evening sunshine.
Bertram went in through the wide entrance, and crossing the level lawn
walked along the border of the beautiful lake.
"It was here that we parted," he murmured to himself, in his sorrowful
retrospection. "How beautiful, how happy she was, how full of love
and trust. Oh, God, what dark spell came over me, and made me for
twenty-four terrible hours false to my love and my vows? That old man
was right. There is no forgiveness for such a terrible sin!"
Frederick Glenalvan saw him from the house, and came down to meet him.
"Chesleigh, I have heard all," he said, with pretended sympathy,
"Elinor told us. My dear friend, how sorry I am for you. I was about
to go and seek you. You must come up to the house and take some
refreshment. You look ready to drop."
"I feel fearfully ill," said Chesleigh, staggering unsteadily, and
putting his hand to his head. "I need something, but do not ask me
to accept the shelter of your roof, Fred. I have a quarrel with your
father. He has bitterly deceived me, and must answer to me for his sin.
"Father is not at home. He has been absent for several days," said
Fred, confusedly. "But if you will not come up to the hall sit down
here on this bench, and I will bring you some wine."
Bertram obeyed his request almost mechanically. His head ached, and he
felt dull, lifeless and inert.
The grief and excitement under which he had labored for several days
were beginning to tell heavily upon his overstrained nerves. With the
murmured name of Golden, his head drooped on his breast and he relapsed
into semi-unconsciousness.
He was aroused by a hand lifting his head, and starting into
consciousness, saw Frederick Glenalvan by his side, and Elinor standing
before him with a small tray on which were arranged a glass of wine and
several slices of cake. He did not notice how white and strange she
looked, nor how steely her voice sounded as she said:
"You are faint and ill. Drink this--it will revive you."
She put the wine to his lips, and he drank it thirstily. A fire seemed
to run through his veins, new life came into his limbs. He arose and
thanked her, but refused the cake.
"I am better, but I cannot eat; it would choke me," he said, and Elinor
did not press him. She turned away, and as she passed the lake she
furtively tossed the wine-glass in, and the cake after it.
"So father had deceived him, and must answer to him for his sin," she
said to herself, bitterly, as she walked along. "Well, well, we shall
see! Oh, how I hate him! Yet once I loved him, and hoped to be his
wife. I might have been if that little jade had never come between. Oh,
how I hate her even in her grave!"
She went back to the hall, walking like one in a dream, with lurid,
blazing eyes, and a face blanched to the pallor of a marble image,
muttering wickedly to herself.