"SWEETHEART, GOOD-BY."
"Alas! how light a cause may move
Dissension between hearts that love!"
"You may go, Norah," said Grace Winans, looking up from the child on
her breast at the sleepy-eyed nurse. "If I need you again I can ring
the bell;" and, smiling, Norah bowed and withdrew.
It was almost twelve o'clock, and Grace had exchanged her ball-dress
for a white _neglige_, and sat in the nursery, holding her babe in her
arms, and smiling thoughtfully down at the tiny, winsome face. Mother
and child made a wondrously fair picture in the soft shade of the
wax-lights, that burned with subdued brightness in the dainty, airy,
white-hung room. The girlish mother leaned a little forward as she sat
in the low rocking-chair, her bright curls falling over the loosely
flowing white dress like a golden glory. Her pure, innocent eyes
looked down at the babe that nestled in her arms, and a low murmur of
tenderness escaped her lips.
"My Birdie! my baby!"
"Still sitting up, Grace?"
It was the voice of her husband entering to pay his nightly visit to
the little bright-eyed babe--sole heir of his proud name and wealth.
"I am not tired," she answered, in her fresh young voice, "and our
little darling is so sweet I cannot bear to lay him down. Only look at
him, Paul!"
Paul Winans bent down and clasped mother and child in one fond embrace.
"My two babes!" he whispered.
A sunny smile broke over the young wife's face. The pet name pleased
her, for she was still scarcely more than a child in her quick
appreciation of affection, and, like a child, she could scarcely have
understood an affection that did not express itself in tender epithets
and warm caresses. She nestled her bright head against his arm, sighing
softly in the fullness of her content.
Tender and trustful as a little child, always ready to sacrifice her
own wishes to those of others, only asking to love and be loved, our
pretty Grace made a charming wife and mother. Prosperity had not
spoiled her warm heart nor her clear judgment, and the greatest aim
of her loving life was to please her noble husband in all things--her
highest ambition to be to him always, as she was then, the guiding star
of his life.
"Some flowers of Eden we still inherit,
But the trail of the serpent is over them all."
Over this exquisite picture of domestic peace and love broke the
storm-cloud and the tempest. It was but a moment after Paul Winans
kissed his happy wife before the stillness of the midnight hour was
broken by a sound that rose from the street below, and was directly
beneath the window.
First, a mournful guitar prelude; then a man's voice singing in the
very accents of despair, and he finished the song of which Grace had
sung the first stanza for him four years before:
"Sweetheart, good-by! One last embrace!
O cruel fate! two souls to sever!
Yet in this heart's most sacred place
Thou, thou alone, shalt dwell forever!
"And still shall recollection trace
In fancy's mirror, ever near,
Each smile, each tear, that form, that face--
Though lost to sight, to mem'ry dear!"
Husband and wife listened in unbroken silence to the strain. The
senator's arm tightened about his wife and child, and she sat mute and
still, every line of her face as moveless as if carved from marble. But
as the lingering notes died away, her hand sought and touched the tiny
blue-and-silver tassel that depended from the bell-cord, and sent its
low tinkle through the house.
Norah, who always answered the nursery-bell, came in after the lapse of
a moment. To her Mrs. Winans said, in a voice that sounded stern and
cold for her silver-sweet tones:
"Norah, go to the front door and tell that madman that he had better
move on--that the family do not wish to be disturbed by such nonsense
at this hour of the night."
The woman withdrew obediently.
Paul Winans turned, and walked restlessly up and down the room.
"So he dares come and serenade my wife directly under my window!"
His dark eyes blazed, his cheeks flamed, and his hand involuntarily
clenched itself.
Grace looked up at him, still immovably calm and silent; but a slight
nervous movement of her arm showed that she heard and understood. She
looked up questioningly as Norah appeared in the door-way.
"He was gone, ma'am, before I got down to the door."
"Very well; you may go, then."
And, as before, Norah went out, with her small courtesy, and left the
pair alone.
"Grace!"
"Well, dear?"
Her voice had the same sweet cadence as usual, and her smile was as
gentle as ever when she looked up at the princely form before her. His
voice, his look, showed his insulted pride and outraged heart. Her only
trace of emotion showed in marble pallor and darkening eyes.
"I do not understand this!" his voice slow and intense. "I thought I
had found a pearl so pure and isolated that no other man's eyes had
ever looked on it to covet its beauty for himself. That was my highest
glory. Fame, fortune, pleasure were nothing to me in comparison with my
pride in my wife, and that pride was the greater because a passionately
jealous nature like mine is only satisfied in holding the first place
in the beloved heart. And this I thought I held in yours. To-night I
learn for the first time that long before I ever met you another man
looked on you to love you; perhaps you loved him."
His voice died away in a throb of passionate pain. He leaned against
the rosewood, lace-draped crib, and looked down at her with their
child in her arms, hoping she would deny it. She did not. Dead silence
fell between them, and her soft eyes never wavered in their frank,
upward look at him. They met his calmly, expectantly, their starry,
inscrutable depths telling no secrets.
"Grace!"
"What is it, Paul?"
"Say something--you are so cold--anything to allay the fire that burns
in my veins. I think I am mad to-night."
"My dearest, what can I say more than I have already told you? Mr.
Conway proposed to me under a most mortifying mistake. I am not
answerable for a man's infatuation with a fair face. I do not know what
has induced him to make such a demonstration here to-night. Possibly
he is under the influence of wine, and hardly knows the folly he is
perpetrating; possibly we may never see or hear of him after this. Let
us dismiss him from our thoughts."
Spoken so sweetly, so calmly, so indifferently. Her seeming calmness
subdued and quelled momentarily his stormy feelings, as a strong,
well-balanced mind always curbs a fitful, unquiet one.
"Then you do not care for him, Grace?"
She was threading her slim fingers meditatively through the dark curls
that clustered on the brow of her child. She glanced up, her snow-white
cheek flushing a fitful scarlet, her voice and look full of proud
reproach.
"Paul, you are speaking to the mother of your child."
That quiet dignity recalled him to a sense of what was due to his wife.
His brow cleared, his voice softened, as he answered:
"I beg your pardon, Gracie, dearest. I ought to have known your pure
heart better than to insult it by a doubt. Your heart, I know, is mine
now, or you would never have been my wife. I know your pure honor and
truth too well to think otherwise. But oh, my love, my sweet wife, if I
knew--if I knew that your warm, true heart had ever throbbed with one
sigh of love for another, I should, even though it had happened before
I ever saw you, never again know one happy moment. You may think it
is jealous madness--it may be--but it is inherent in my nature, and I
cannot help it. I repeat that I could never, never be happy again."
No answer. Grace Winans' white arms wreathed themselves around her
baby, pressing it closer, as if to still the sharp pang that struck
home to her very heart. A faint shiver thrilled her, and rising, she
laid the little sleeper in its downy nest, smiling a little sadly as
she looked, but smiling still, for this tiny rosebud was the sweetest
and most wonderful thing that had ever come into her lonely life.
Deeply as she had loved the first object of her young affections,
purely and truly as she loved her gifted husband, the strongest,
deepest, most intense passion of her life was her maternal love. Some
one has written half jestingly that "the depths of a woman's love can
never be sounded till a baby is dropped into her heart," but it is
true of the majority of women. It was especially true of Grace Winans.
That little, rosy, lace-robed slumberer, small as it was, enshrining
a human soul, was the idol of the young mother's life. Perhaps she
was excusable. It was the only thing that had ever loved her purely
and unselfishly. She could scarcely recollect her parents, she could
not recall any one who had ever lavished on her such love as this
child gave her, so devoted, so unreasoning, so absorbing; and deeply,
unselfishly as she loved her husband, she loved his child better,
though no word nor sign ever betrayed the fact to his jealous eyes. She
reached up to him now, and drew him to her side, holding his arm about
her waist with both dimpled white hands.
"My darling," she whispered, "don't be so unreasonable. You have no
_cause_ to be jealous, none at all. My whole heart is yours--yours and
the baby's. You must have faith in me, Paul--have faith in me, and
trust me as you do your own heart."
Drawing his moody face down to hers she kissed him with child-like
simplicity. At the persuasive touch of those tender lips his brow
cleared, his listless clasp tightened around her, and both arms held
her strained closely to his breast, his lips raining kisses on her
brow, her cheeks, her lips, even her fair golden hair.
"Now you are like yourself," the musical voice whispered gladly.
"You will not be jealous and unhappy again. I am yours alone, dear
one--heart, and soul, and body--your own loving, happy little wife."
The sunshine on her face was tenderly reflected on his. She was so
sweet and winsome, so womanly, yet withal so child-like and oh, _so_
beautiful! His strange, unusual mood was not proof against the witchery
of her loveliness, her flowing hair, the subtle perfume breathing from
her garments, the tenderness of her words and looks.
"I don't think another man in the world has such a precious wife!" he
said.
And though she knew that every man's private opinion regarding his own
wife was the same, she took heart at his words of praise, and laughed
archly. They two were that novel sight "under the sun," a pair of
married lovers. Why need he have gone back to the forbidden subject?
Ah! why have we always "done that which we ought not to have done?"
Because he wanted to make himself miserable, I suppose. There is no
other reason I can assign for his persistence; and, as for that, there
is no reason whatever in a jealous man. "He is simply jealous for he is
jealous," and where Shakespeare could not find a reason for a thing,
how can I?
"Gracie, may I ask you one question?"
"You may--certainly."
"And will you answer it truthfully?
"If I answer it at all," she gravely made answer, "it must needs be
truthfully, for I could not reply to you otherwise. But why ask a
question at all? I do not care to question you of your past; why should
you question me of mine? Let past and future alone, Paul. The present
only is ours--let us enjoy it."
And heedless of the warning shadow that fell across her pathetic face,
he persevered:
"Only tell me this, my precious wife. This Bruce Conway, who went
away to Europe to learn that he loved you, and came back to tell you
so. Gracie, in that past time when you knew him--before you ever knew
me--did you--tell me truly, mind--did you ever love him?"
The question she had dreaded and shrunk from all the time! She knew it
would come, and now that it had, what could she say?
How easy it would have been to confess the truth to a less passionate
and jealous mind. It was no sin, not even a fault in her, and she was
not afraid to tell him save with the moral cowardice that makes one
dread the necessary utterance of words that must inflict pain. What
harm was there in that dreamy passion that had cast its glamour over a
few months of her girlhood? It was unkind in him to probe her heart so
deeply. She dared not own the truth to him if its telling were to make
him unhappy! And along with this feeling there was another--the natural
shrinking of a proud woman from laying bare the hidden secrets of her
soul, pure though they be, to mortal sight. A woman does not want to
tell her husband, the man who loves her, and believes her irresistible
to all, that another man has been proof against her charms, that the
first pure waters of love's perennial fountain had gushed at the touch
of another, who let the tide flow on unheeding and uncaring, and a man
has no business to ask it. But where does the line of man's "little
brief authority" cross its boundaries? We have never found out yet.
It is left, perhaps, for some of the fair and curious ones of our sex
who are "strong-minded" in their "day and generation" to solve that
interesting problem.
So, Gracie, debarred by confession by so many and grave considerations,
in desperation, parried the question.
"Paul, do you know that I am sleepy and tired, while you are keeping me
up with such idle nonsense? If we must begin at this late day to worry
over our past loves and dreams, suppose you begin first by telling me
how many separate ladies you loved before you ever met me! Come, begin
with the first on the list."
"It begins and ends with--yourself," he said, gravely and firmly.
"Like the story of Mrs. Osgood's Evelyn," she rejoined, smiling, and
beginning to hum lightly:
"It began with--'My Evelyn fairest!'
It ended with--'Evelyn best!'
And epithets fondest and dearest,
Were lavished between on the rest."
Then breaking off, she says more seriously and softly:
"Then try to think that is the same with me. Don't worry over such idle
speculations. I am tired and half sick, dear."
"Gracie, you drive me to desperation. I asked you a simple
question--why do you try to evade it?"
"Because it is unfair to me. I haven't asked you any such ridiculous
questions. I won't submit to be catechised so, positively, I won't!
Don't be angry, dear. I am sure the slightest reflection on your part
will convince you that I am right. I have partly forgotten the past;
have ignored it anyhow, not caring to look back any further in my
life than the two years in which I have known and loved you. All the
happiness I ever really knew has been showered on me by your lavish
hand. Be content in knowing that and spare me, Paul."
"I thank you, Grace, for your sweet tribute to me, but I asked you a
question and I am--waiting for your answer."
"I thought I had answered you plainly enough, Paul. Why will you
persist in making us both unhappy?"
"Gracie, will you answer or not?"
"Oh, darling! you have worried me into a nervous chill. I am cold as
ice," and to prove the truth of her words she pressed two icy little
hands upon his cheek, and for the first time in his life he pushed his
fairy away from him.
"You must not trifle with me, Grace."
"You still insist on it, Paul?"
"I still insist on it."
"At the risk of your own unhappiness?"
"Yes."
She looked at him sadly as she leaned across the crib near him, but not
touching him.
"Paul," she ventured, suddenly, "even supposing that I had loved
another before I ever met you, what difference can that make to you? I
love you truly now."
"So much difference, my wife, that I think I could never again be
happy if I knew you had ever loved another than myself; but I cannot
bear this suspense. I ask you nothing about other men. I only ask you,
_did_ you ever love Bruce Conway?"
She could not utter a falsehood; she could not escape his keen,
persistent questioning; she must be frank with him and hope for the
best. That was the only way the poor little heart reasoned then; so
with down-dropped eyes, and a sound in her ears that recalled the
whisper of the ocean in her ears one parting night, she drew a little
farther away from him, and answered, in a hushed, low voice, much like
a chidden child's:
"_I did._"
A silence fell between them so hushed that she could hear her own heart
beat. He had put up his hand to his face, and she could not see his
features nor guess what effect her words had on him.
"Paul," she ventured, almost frightened at the sound of her own voice
in the stillness, "don't think of it any more. I was nothing but a
simple, dreaming child, and it is just as natural for a young girl to
fancy herself in love with the first handsome young man who flatters
her as it is for our baby there in his crib to cut his teeth and have
the measles when he grows older. It seems absurd to make yourself
miserable over so trifling a thing. I didn't like him so very much,
indeed I didn't. I soon learned how unworthy he was of any woman's
love. He is a fickle, wavering, unprincipled man, who never knows his
own mind, unworthy a second thought of yours, my noble husband."
Unflattering verdict! but a true one. She understood the man who had
trifled with her young heart almost better than he did himself. In that
time when he had wavered so fatally between his pride and his happiness
she had fathomed his very soul with her suddenly awakened perceptions,
and she understood him well. She could look back now and thank Heaven
for what had seemed then a calamity scarcely to be borne. What it had
cost her only Heaven knew, for in her way she was a proud woman, and
never "wore her heart on her sleeve;" but nobody stops to question how
hard a struggle has been so that victory crowns it at last. To the
world it matters little who of its toiling, striving atoms have been
patient pilgrims to
"That desert shrine
Which sorrow rears in the black realm--Despair!"
so that they return with palms of victory in their hands and the cross
of honor upon their breasts. And Gracie, too, had fought a battle in
her life and conquered; if it left ineffaceable scars they were hidden
in her heart and left no token upon her fair, inscrutable face.
He made no reply to her wistful defense.
She went up to him and touched his hand with hers, still intent on
making peace with this proud, impatient spirit. He only put her very
gently but firmly away from him, and in a moment after turned suddenly
and left the room. She heard him go down to his study, close his door,
and fall heavily into a chair.
Then her repressed impatience and anger broke out, as she paced back
and forth, like a spirit, in her flowing hair and long white robe.
"The idiot! the madman! to come back here after all this time, and
throw the shadow of that unhappy love all over my future life! Did he
think that I had no pride? that I would bear coldness, carelessness,
neglect, and be glad to meet him after four years had passed, and say
yes to the question that in all honor he should have asked before he
went? I think I could spurn him with my foot if he knelt before me
again as he did to-night!"
How she scorned him! How superb she was in her just anger and
resentment! Her changeful eyes darkened and flashed with pride, her lip
curled, her cheek glowed, her light step seemed to spurn the floor.
"Mamma, mamma!" The soft, frightened voice of her child, waking
suddenly from his rosy sleep, recalled her to herself. In an instant
she was by his side, bending over him, kissing his brow, his lips, his
hands, his hair, in a passion of grieving tenderness.
"My darling, my comfort, my pretty boy! I am so glad that you _are_
a boy! You will never know the pains, the penalties, the trials and
crosses of a woman's life. If you were a little girl, and I knew that
if you lived you must bear all that I have borne and must still endure,
I could bear to see you dead rather than live to say, as I have done:
'Mother, why didn't you let me die when I was a little child?'"
The little clock on the marble mantel chimed out the hour of three in
soft musical notes. She lifted the child in her arms, and, passing into
her sleeping apartment, laid him down on her own bed, for she never
slept without her treasure in her arms. Then, kneeling by his side, she
whispered a brief, agonized petition to Heaven before laying her tired
form down in the snowy nest of linen and lace.
When the soft summer dawn began to break faintly over the earth, Paul
Winans rose up from his tiresome vigils and stole up stairs with a
noiseless footstep that did not waken her from her exhausted sleep.
Her child nestled close to her heart, and her lips, even in her fitful
slumber, were pressed upon his brow just as she had fallen asleep. The
long curls of her golden hair flowed over both, and wrapped them in a
mantle of sunshine. Her face wore a look of remembered pain and grief
that went to his heart, as kissing both so softly that they did not
stir, he laid a note upon the pillow, and went down the stairs and out
into the street.