THE STRUGGLE OF LOVE AND AMBITION.
Her passion-tortured soul,
Like a ship dashed by fierce encountering tides,
And of her pilot spoiled, drives round and round,
The sport of wind and wave.
The next morning she appeared at the breakfast table with a face so pale
and stern as almost to awe the good Miss Joe from making an inquiry as
to her health. And when at last the old lady asked her if she were not
well, she replied curtly:
“An ill night’s rest!” and the questioning ceased.
When she had retired to the drawing room Dr. Hutton followed her
thither. He found her standing on the rug and resting her forehead
against the mantelpiece. Her long ringlets, hanging low, concealed her
face from his view, until she turned around and said, in a very low
voice:
“Dr. Hutton, you are not going away this morning, are you?”
“No, Miss Seabright!—no, Garnet. I did not rouse a war in your soul to
leave you until peace should be restored.”
“I do not know why you should say there is a war,” said Garnet, in a
deep voice.
“I can see it. That fiery blood that has left your brow and cheeks and
very lips of a gray paleness has mustered somewhere. Besides, I know
you, Garnet. You were always very transparent to me. I know that in your
soul the powers of good and evil are drawn out in battle array against
each other.”
With an adjuring gesture she left her position, and, crossing the room,
threw herself into a chair. He watched her some few minutes where she
sat, with her pale brow resting on one hand and the other hanging
listlessly down, and then he slowly crossed the room, and, dropping upon
one knee by her side, raised her hand to his bosom, and said, in a voice
deep with passion:
“Miss Seabright!—Nettie, my dear sister!—my wife, if you will bless me
so!—I wish—I do wish I had a kingdom to offer you to replace this Mount
Calm. As it is, I have only myself, and an affection, an affection,
Nettie, that—oh, I cannot tell you in a few words, a few seconds, that
love which it will take all the years we live together to express, to
live out!”
“Oh, Hugh!” she said, in broken accents, “if you knew where this rack
screws and strains my heart-strings most. To think that one whom I
always loved and honored with a passionate enthusiasm as the very first
in human excellence—but no more of that! Not my lips shall breathe one
word of blame, though all earth and heaven cry shame on his memory!”
said Garnet, as her dark eyes smoldered and flashed and sank again, as
she breathed, in heart-broken tones: “No more of that! Oh, God, that I
could say to my thoughts, as to my tongue, ‘No more of that’!”
And, scarcely heeding her lover, she arose, threw back her falling hair,
pressed both hands upon her bosom, and passed out of the room.
It was late in the evening before he saw her again. He went into the
library after the lamps were lighted and found her sitting at one of the
reading tables, with her head bowed down upon her folded hands. He went
and sat by her, saying:
“Garnet, dearest, do not keep your thoughts and troubles all to
yourself; let me share them. Come, come,” he continued, caressing her,
“this is unkind! I have had a very solitary day.”
“A solitary day! I wish you joy of it! Mine has been ‘peopled with the
furies.’ Oh, Hugh, even in my wild infancy I was such an ambitious
child! Though, Heaven knows, there was nothing around me to foster
ambition, unless it were the want of everything, and the study of fairy
tales! Oh, Hugh! if the little wild water-witch of the isle was
ambitious——”
“‘The woman, gifted with beauty, talent, wealth, and largest liberty, is
a hundred times more so,’ you would say,” said Hugh. “But, Garnet, do
you know there is an ambition more noble than all others—that of moral
greatness! Garnet, you have the opportunity granted to few—the
opportunity of moral heroism!”
“Oh, Hugh, before I saw you I had great schemes! great schemes!”
“I know it, dear Garnet; but they did not demand the great moral force
required of you to-day.”
“But since you came, Hugh——” Here her voice broke down and she dropped
her head upon the table for a few minutes. Then, lifting it up again,
she held her veil of ringlets back, and said: “But since you came, Hugh,
all schemes have given place to one. I had been living in such a golden
dream, dear Hugh! Oh, listen! You know when we were two poor children,
obliged to pick our frugal meal of maninosies from the beach, and I,
inspired by the ‘Arabian Nights’ Entertainments,’ would be talking my
wild, childish talk about sudden riches and fairy grandmothers, you said
you had a fairy in your head who could convert the sand and clay into
gold-dust and precious gems.”
“Yes, I remember. It was when I dreamed of being an agriculturist.”
“And you promised you would make a fortune for me; confer rank, and
wealth, and honor upon me?” she asked, smiling very sadly.
“Yes—yes, Nettie!” he answered solemnly. “Yes, and I hold myself bound
to redeem that boyish pledge. Doubly bound now, Nettie, for I must repay
you for all you lose.”
“Oh, stop! Hear me out. Well—heigho! I thought if Hugh could give Garnet
a fortune he might also take one from her—take one with her. Oh, Hugh! I
knew I could not confer upon you rank or honor; you must make them for
both of us; but I dreamed that I could give you wealth to aid in doing
it. Hugh, listen! I heard you say that you would like to travel, and
spend some time in London, Paris, and at some of the German cities, for
the sake of perfecting your medical knowledge. I then heard you regret
that necessity which urged your immediate settlement in some Western
neighborhood, to commence practice. Well, Hugh, I dreamed that necessity
would be obviated. I dreamed, Hugh, that we would make a bridal tour to
Europe, and sojourn in all these capitals, while you pursued your
studies at your ease. Now my dream is over—over!”
“God bless you for saying that, Garnet! God bless you for saying that!
The dream is over!—the dream is over!—the battle is over, and your moral
sense has nobly conquered; you will yield up this property?”
“Over!—the battle? The doubt over! No! no! no! no! I did not say that,
either!” exclaimed Miss Seabright, her whole aspect changing. Suddenly
rising, with flashing eyes and burning cheeks, and pacing the room with
rapid steps: “Over! No! man! man! Is it a flower, a ring, an orange you
ask me for, that I should give it up without a struggle—as a matter of
course? Give up this estate! Why, I should be insane, frantic, frenzied!
Nothing short of ranting mad! Why, Hugh, is there a man, woman, or child
now living on this earth who would voluntarily yield up an estate which
they might keep—an estate of two millions of dollars—for—what?—a point
of conscience! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Come, answer me!” she
exclaimed, throwing herself into a chair with a strange, unnatural air
of audacity. “Say! is there a man, woman, or child living who would do
this?”
“Yes. Any child would do it. There is one man I know who would do it.
There is one woman who will do it.”
“Me?”
“You!”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Why, Dr. Hutton, anyone, if they were
wealthy, might give up a thousand—ten thousand dollars, for conscience’
sake; but two millions! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Why, Dr. Hutton! I
am a human being, subject to like passions and foibles with other
people. I rather like wealth, handsome houses and furniture, and dress
and jewels, and servants and equipages, and traveling, sight-seeing, and
change of scene. And if there were nothing to be given up but these, how
great would be the sacrifice. But then, I have magnificent plans of
extensive philanthropy; glorious prospects of social distinction. And to
renounce these! How tremendous the renunciation!”
“Ah, Nettie! with your usual perfect openness you have revealed the very
death-throes of your expiring selfishness. For your selfishness—will
die! Conscience will conquer it. The cup of earthly prosperity is
brimful, and at your lips, but you will put it, untasted, away. I know
you will! I have perfect faith in you!”
“Hugh, you kill me! You madden me! Have you no pity? I believe you think
you will make me do it!” she exclaimed, starting up and pacing the floor
rapidly. “I do believe you fancy that you will make me give up this
estate by asserting confidently that I will do it.”
“I think your true nobility of soul will constrain you to it.”
Suddenly she stopped, threw both hands to her breast, and turned so
ghastly pale that Dr. Hutton sprang to her side, exclaiming:
“Garnet, you are ill! Is it possible that this struggle produces such an
effect upon you?”
She dropped her hands from her bosom, her color returned, and, smiling
strangely, she said:
“Why, Hugh, do you fancy that I am such a spoiled child as to grow ill
because I want to have my own way in all things? No! But as I hurried up
and down the room in such a heat I was arrested suddenly by a quick,
sharp pang; a deathly pang, that caught away my breath. It seemed to me
as if another movement would have been fatal; it seemed as if in the
very flow of my high tide of life and audacity the skeleton fingers of
death had closed around my heart and squeezed it. It is gone now. Nay,
now, nonsense, Hugh! Do not look at me with such a death-warrant in your
eyes. If you look at your patients that way you will frighten them to
death!” she said, laughing.
“Garnet, sit down. There—give me your wrist. Did you ever experience
this symptom before?”
“Symptom! Bless you, Dr. Hutton, it is not a symptom. Dr. Hutton, if you
are out of practice and wish to get your hand in again, I refer you to
all the hypochondriacal old men and women on the plantation, who will
delight your professional heart with ‘symptoms’ for any length of time.”
“Garnet, you have been too much agitated to-day, for one of your
excitable temperament. Go to rest.”
“I will. I feel, for the first time in my life, a little exhausted,” she
replied, rising and extending her hand.
He drew her unresisting to his bosom, pressed a kiss upon her brow, and
led her to the door.
He did not see her again until the next day at dinner, when she appeared
in full dress, and looking grandly beautiful, joyous, and decided. He
congratulated her. She smiled exultingly, and said:
“I feel well, very well, because I have come to a decision.”
When dinner was over she challenged him for a walk on the terrace around
the roof of the house. When they had reached this elevated site she
advanced to the front of the balustrade, and, stretching one hand out
toward the magnificent prospect, she said:
“Look, Hugh! Saw you ever a fairer scene?”
“It is indeed a sublime and beautiful prospect.”
“And has it no more interest than that? Listen, Hugh! All these waving
forests and rolling hills and plains; all these fields and barns and
granaries; all these orchards, vineyards, and gardens; these terraces,
with their statues, fountains, and conservatories; this mansion house,
with its stately chambers, halls, and saloons—is ours—is our beautiful,
our superb home, if you will take it—when you take me,” she said,
turning to him.
“Nettie, when Satan wished to tempt Christ he took Him up into a very
high mountain, and showed Him the kingdoms of the earth and the glory
thereof, and said: ‘All these will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down
and worship me.’”
“Upon my soul, I thank you for the parallel you have chosen to run
between me and Satan!” exclaimed Miss Seabright, with a burning cheek.
“You misconstrue me, dearest Garnet. You do not tempt me. I am not
tempted. It is the Christ in you—the angel in you—the good in you that
is tempted by Ambition.”
“Hugh! Hugh! It is not for myself now so much as for you that I am
ambitious. With the power this fortune would give, when joined to your
talents, you could become so distinguished.”
“Again, Garnet: When Satan tempted Christ it was not through any puerile
idea, but through the grandest passion of the human soul—the passion by
which the great archangel fell—Ambition. But, I tell you, Garnet, that
if ambition be the most glorious of human passions, remorse is the most
terrible. And, too often one follows the other as surely as night
follows day.”
She did not reply, and both remained silent for a few minutes, when,
taking her hand, he said impressively:
“Do not think me ungrateful, dearest Garnet. Very deeply do I feel the
blessing of your sweet love; very highly do I estimate the honor of your
ambition for me. But listen, dearest. In erecting your edifice of
earthly happiness, it would be well to lay the basement sure. You might
possess and inhabit a princely palace, luxuriously furnished, yet you
would not glory in its splendor, or even enjoy a moment’s repose under
its roof, if you knew its foundation to be insecure; that at any instant
in the midst of enjoyment it might suddenly fall and crush you under its
magnificent ruins. Garnet, such an insecure dwelling-place, such a
transient phantasmagoria, is any plan of earthly happiness not based
upon the principles of justice. Such, Garnet, is your edifice of
enjoyment; for you will feel that death, which hangs over us all at all
times, may at any moment summon you from its possession to place you at
the bar of Eternal Justice, to answer for the sin of your soul. And your
ill-gotten splendors here will be your condemnation hereafter. Oh,
believe me, dear Garnet, to say nothing of the sublime beauty of faith
displayed in the sacrifice of earthly interests to heavenly prospects—of
temporal pleasures to eternal joys—there is great good sense in seeking
‘first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness’; for, look you; I may
gain wealth and renown, but if my fortune is ill-gotten I cannot fully
enjoy it, for knowing that at any time my soul may be snatched from its
possessions to the bar of God, and, stained with falsehood and injustice
as it is, be hurled thence to perdition. But, on the other hand, if my
fortune is founded upon righteousness, and built up with the blessing of
God, then I may be as rich and as great as I please, and yet enjoy this
world with a surer joy for knowing that it leads to a better and an
eternal one. Life, dear Garnet, is a journey to the Judgment Seat. In
all your plans, therefore, of life’s journey, look to its end. If you
set out upon a road that you knew was leading you to misery—no matter
how fine the carriage in which you traveled, how soft the cushions on
which you sat, how beautiful the country through which you passed—you
could not enjoy it; for every mile that should draw you nearer to its
close would increase your uneasiness, for you would know its end to be
misery. Such a journey, dear Garnet, will be your life if you set out
upon it with ill-gotten riches. Now, look on the other side of the
question. If you should start upon a journey that you know will bring
you finally to a haven of rest and honor—no matter how common your
vehicle, how rough your road, how ordinary the landscape, how full of
unpleasant accidents—you will endure it, and at every stage with more
cheerfulness, for knowing that it brings you nearer to its end, and that
its end is repose and happiness. And, if your journey should be
pleasant, its very pleasures will be enhanced by the knowledge that its
goal is rest, honor, and joy. Such a journey will our lives be, dearest
love. You will resign this estate. We will marry, and, feeling the smile
and blessing of God upon us, we will go forth strongly and hopefully and
labor for our living. We shall have some early struggles, but God will
be with us. He will bless our sacrifice, and we shall finally prosper.
And while weeks are slipping into months, and months gliding into years,
we shall really enjoy the very making of a fortune, taste prosperity
piecemeal, and get the good of every morsel. Every little comfort that
we may be able to add to our daily domestic life will be relished the
more that we have felt the want of it, and blessed the more that it has
come to us from God. And for our future years I hope highly, but may not
prophesy. They are in the hands of God,” he said, raising his hat with
profound reverence. Then, his tone changing to one of deep tenderness,
he stretched forth his arms, and said: “Come, Nettie! Come, my darling
wife. You will give up all this ill-starred wealth, and trust in God to
restore you a hundredfold.”
Pale and drooping with excess of feeling she sank upon his bosom,
murmuring:
“Oh, God bless you, Hugh! Large and full heart, God bless you! Where
could I find my life but in you? But, oh, dear Hugh, do not be a martyr
at this rational age of the world! Take my fortune with me.”
“Never, Nettie! Never, so strengthen me Heaven! When I take you I will
take no sin with you.”
She started, burst from his embrace, and broke forth with passionate
vehemence:
“Silence! I will not hear you. I will never give up my privileges. I
will not be a fanatic to please you. Oh! look at me, Hugh; and do not
think I speak from vanity, but from a war of conflicting passions, that
rends my soul in twain. Do I look like one to be condemned to poverty,
and privation, and domestic toil, and drudgery? I will speak out, though
in your eyes I convict myself of vanity and presumption. You never
called me beautiful in words, but you have said so with your eyes a
thousand times. Oh, Hugh, I valued my beauty as I did my wealth, for
your sake. But should I be beautiful in poverty? You know that I know
what poverty is! Look at my hair, Hugh. Yesterday you took the whole
mass up in your hand and looked at it as at a treasure, so proudly; then
you singled out a ringlet and examined it as a strange beauty, so
curiously. Now look at the ringlets again. Do you think it requires no
care to keep them so soft and glossy, and in such full curl? Why, a
rose-bush will not bloom in full glory unless it is cared for and
tended; neither will my beauty. Hugh, I do not know why I may not
venture to speak before you what I dare to think before God. I know that
my soul’s habitation is beautiful; and it seems to me fit that it should
be so, and that its beauty should be enhanced by rich drapery, and
preserved from all uses. How could that be done in bitter poverty?”
“Garnet,” he answered solemnly, “the soul is greater than its temple.
Would you preserve the temple sacred from all uses, yet degrade the
greater deity within it? Would you preserve the delicacy of your beauty,
and clothe your form in gorgeous apparel by an action that would stain
your soul with foul dishonesty?”
“Don’t talk to me any more. You will drive me frantic. Dishonesty! That
is the low vice of ignorant and debased natures, for which they are
sometimes sent to the State’s prison.”
“And yet which is more excusable ‘in ignorant and debased natures’ than
in intelligent and exalted ones,” said he sternly.
“Dishonesty! What have I to do with that? This estate is legally mine.
To keep it is not even injustice. Why do you talk to me so?” she
exclaimed, tearing at her bosom, as she wildly walked up and down the
terrace, as if to pluck away the burning pain there. “Why do you
torture—exasperate—madden me so?”
“It is not I, Garnet. No mere words that I could speak could disturb
your bosom’s peace. It is the awful conscience there that refuses to be
silent,” said Hugh solemnly.
She paused before him, trembling all over; clenching her chest with her
spread hands, as though to clutch the passion there; her eyes burning in
their intense lurid fire, in fearful contrast with the ghastly paleness
of her brow and cheeks, and gasped between her white lips:
“You are an incendiary, sent here to convulse my soul with war, until
Reason herself is hurled from her throne! Man! man! You know what civil
war in a nation is. Do you know—can you guess what the internal conflict
of a divided soul is? No, you do not. Your well-balanced mind, like a
well-governed State, is always quiet. But mine! Oh, you have raised an
insurrection in my soul that can never, never be suppressed! Oh, man!
man! it is a grievous wrong that you have done me. I was so highly happy
in my glorious hopes and prospects until you came. You have killed all
my joy. But do not think,” she exclaimed, with another violent outburst
of passion; “do not think that you have succeeded! Do not! Never suppose
that to please your fanaticism I will give up my estate—never! never!”
“No, Garnet. Not to please my fanaticism, as you call it, will you do
so, but in obedience to your awakened and aroused conscience will you do
so.”
“What! Never! What! resign all my great plans of usefulness, of
benevolence, of wide philanthropy? Renounce all my glorious prospects of
world honor—perhaps renown? Man! do you know what you ask of me? They
are worth my soul’s price. Give up my fortune! Do you know its amount?
Why, my income is almost a queen’s revenue. Do you know, as I do, with
what power it clothes me?”
“I know the vast amount and great power of your wealth, Garnet. And I
know the great good that you, with your wonderful beauty, talent, and
enterprise could do with it; the great distinction you could gain by it.
I know your pride, your ambition, your burning aspiration after worldly
glory, and I feel the stupendous force of the temptation that is upon
you.”
“I tell you, my power, my plans and prospects are worth almost my soul’s
price!” she exclaimed vehemently.
“‘Almost’ not quite. There is a surplus value and weight about the soul
that will weigh down the scale, and toss the fortune up.”
“Never, I tell you. Never!” she repeated passionately.
Dr. Hutton regarded her fixedly for some moments, then he asked coldly:
“And this, then, is your final decision, Miss Seabright?”
“Yes; please Heaven, it is.”
“But it will not please Heaven, Miss Seabright. I only waited for your
decision. I have it, and I shall leave here to-morrow. Had your
conclusion been otherwise—but no more of that. And now,” said he
sternly, “listen to me! You will go forth into the world. Your wondrous
beauty, genius, and your riches will draw around you the mighty in
intellect, wealth, and position. Yet, queen of that court as you will
be, you will take no joy on your throne; you will know you have usurped
the seat of another. Your graces of mind and of person will be the theme
of every tongue, yet you will know that they clothe a soul spotted with
dishonesty. Your extensive philanthropy will be the admiration of sages
and statesmen, yet their praises will reproach you with the thought that
your munificence is at the expense of another. Your benevolence will be
the sustaining hope and comfort of all the poor and wretched around you,
yet their very blessings will curse you with the thought that you have
relieved them with means falsely taken and falsely kept from a widow.
You will dwell in lordly mansions, yet their magnificence will oppress
you with the consciousness that they belong in justice to another. You
will be arrayed in costly garments, yet you will be scarcely able to
bear the glare of their splendor, for you will know they cover a woman
degraded from her pristine nobility by base ambition, and stained with
foul injustice. You will be adorned with priceless gems, yet the diamond
tiara on your brow will burn and sear your brain like a diadem of flame;
the diamond necklace on your bosom will scorch and eat into your heart
like a circlet of fire.”
“Hugh! Hugh! spare me! I tell you you will drive me mad!” she cried,
clasping her temples.
“At last you will cap the climax of your hopes by marrying some grand
magnate of the land, yet you will bear within your bosom all the while a
false, a widowed, and a lonely heart, for you will know that your
husband is not your true mate; for you will know—you do know, oh,
Garnet!—you feel by all the instincts of your nature that it was to
this—this bosom that God wedded you from the first!” he said, dropping
his voice to a gentle tone, and drawing her toward him.
She dropped her face upon his shoulder, and wept and sobbed as if her
heart would break. Such convulsions of sobs; such a deluge of tears!
Gasping all the while:
“Oh, I do! I know it, Hugh. Then, why will you cast me from you because
I happen to be burdened with a fortune? Is not that a strange, new
reason for leaving the girl that you love?”
“Garnet! darling Nettie!” said Hugh tenderly; “if you were suddenly
bereft of your enchanting beauty, my love would be strong enough to bear
the change; for the heart and soul that I loved most would live for me
unaltered. But smirch not the fairness of your soul, Garnet, for I will
not wed moral deformity.”
“This is weakness! This is miserable driveling!” exclaimed Miss
Seabright, starting from her resting-place upon his bosom, and dashing
the tears from her flashing eyes. “I am no mendicant for your love, sir!
No! nor will I purchase it at too high a price, either!” she added
bitterly, throwing off his deprecating hand, and hurrying from him into
the house.
Hugh looked after her in deep thought; then said to himself:
“The flow and ebb of ocean’s tide is nothing to the waving forth and
back of her mind in its present phase. How strong—how terrible is the
death-agony of her ambition! If the contest were simply between ambition
and love, ambition would triumph in a high, proud nature like hers; but
justice sides with love, and together they are invincible. I would the
battle were over, though.”
He did not see her again during the day. She did not appear even at the
supper-table.
I have no time to tell you how Garnet Seabright spent that night, how
the battle in her soul was fought and won. I have only time left for
results.
In the gray of the morning Hugh Hutton came downstairs, booted,
great-coated, and laden with his saddle-bags, preparatory to mounting
his horse to set forth on his journey. He found Garnet Seabright in the
great hall, apparently waiting for him. She stood at the foot of the
stairs and leaned for support against the balustrades. She was looking
very haggard, as from loss of rest and anxiety; yet, through all the
physical weariness there radiated the light of a calm joy. He lifted his
hat and bowed, intending to pass her, when she raised her hand, and by
an adjuring gesture, stayed him, murmuring very low:
“Dr. Hutton, was it really your intention to leave me this morning?”
“It was, Miss Seabright,” he replied, in a deep, constrained voice.
“‘It was,’ and is it?” she added, in a low tone, gently moving from her
position.
“It was, and is, Miss Seabright, unless you give me the only good reason
for staying.”
She advanced toward him, slowly, slowly, with averted face and deeply
blushing cheek, laid both her hands in both of his, and murmured almost
timidly:
“Stay, then, Dr. Hutton; I give up the estate.”
Hugh Hutton dropped his saddle-bags, drew her to his bosom and pressed
her there, but spoke no word as yet.
“Yes, take me, Dr. Hutton! I am not worth much, bereft of all my glory,
shorn,” she smiled faintly; “quite shorn of all my beams; but such as I
am, you may have me, Dr. Hutton,” she murmured, dropping her head on his
shoulder. Then, as he strained her to his bosom, the passion-fraught
heart of the man found expression for its fullness of emotion in one
“great heart-word”:
“My wife!”
“Yes, your wife,” she whispered, very softly, hiding her glowing face on
his bosom. “Your wife! no more nor less than simply that cheerful toiler
by your side. I thought to have conferred wealth on you! It was a proud,
presuming thought—it is past now.”
“My wife! my wife! you have! you do——” ejaculated Hugh Hutton, with his
full heart gushing in every tone, until it choked his utterance, and he
stopped.
Through all their painful struggle he had not broken down until now; and
now—but she was talking again, murmuring in her sweet, deep tones again,
and he bent to listen, to hear her whisper:
“Oh, Hugh! such a night as I have passed; such resistance of the demon,
before he would flee from me. But the war is over now—quite over! The
estate, the projects are all resigned, and not regretted—for, oh, Hugh!
where could I find such richness and fullness of life and joy as——” Her
low voice died away with her breath along his cheek and chestnut hair.
But it was Garnet’s nature or her present mood to pour forth the
fullness of her heart in words. She spoke again: “Oh, Hugh, I am so
glad, so comforted and strengthened, so proud of you, that you did not
yield one jot or tittle of the right, even for my love. Oh, Hugh! oh,
Hugh! my guide and guard! be always good, and great, and strong, that I
may have full life and joy in loving you. And when you have drawn your
Nettie up to your own high moral level, soar you higher still, that,
though rising herself, she may see you ever above her, and honor you as
now! as now!”
“Oh, God, have I deserved this!” exclaimed Hugh Hutton, raising his eyes
in grateful adoration an instant, and then bending them with unutterable
love on Garnet, as he ejaculated in earnest, fervent, broken language:
“Nettie! Nettie! not Heaven, not Heaven could give me a higher incentive
to high resolve than He has given me in your faith—in your faith!”
He pressed his lips to hers, and from that first burning kiss the tide
of eloquence found way. He snatched her up in his arms, hurried into the
parlor, set her in a chair, sank down by her side, and, folding his arms
adoringly around her form, poured forth, in words of fire, the
long-pent, great passion of his heart.