[From _A Criminal Through Love_ (Louisville, Kentucky, 1882)]
Many years have been gathered to the illimitable past, and we find
ourselves, with undiminished interest, seeking to learn all we can in
regard to the positions and attainments of the characters who have
been with us for so long.
This is the gist of what we have learned about them.
Walter Floor's firm has grown and flourished; the dark cloud of sorrow
that so long overshadowed his sky, has rolled away, and he is
nevermore melancholy or oppressed. His home is the resting-place and
haven for everybody who chooses to enjoy shelter and repose. Constant
and Valentine are standing guests at the Floor mansion; the talented
painter has no longer any need to work for money. The mention of his
name opens every door to him, and Fortune and Fame await him with
their arms laden with golden sheaves and shining laurel wreaths. His
greatest work of art--his masterpiece--was taken from Mozart's Opera
of _Don Juan_. At a glance any one could tell that the artist painted
the portrait _con amore_, for Donna Anna was nothing more than a
portrait of Margarethe Heinold--whom we must ever after this moment
remember only as Margarethe Hendrik. More happiness than came with
this name to her could scarcely be enjoyed by mortal. Great sums were
offered again and again to Constant for this picture, but he refused
to sell it; it now graces the elegant _Salon_ of Julian Hendrik in his
magnificent villa, which stands on the banks of the Rhine.
Margarethe, after the night of her brilliant _debut_, never stepped
upon the boards. She was often urged to let the world hear her
splendid voice, which returned to her in all its volume and beauty
after she regained her health, but she refused to entertain the
proposition for an instant, declaring that public life, however
glorious, had no charms for her; that she lived only for her husband,
to whom she becomes ever more tenderly attached the better she became
acquainted with his noble heart, elevated mind, and peerless character
as a man and a gentleman.
Didier Mametin is still in Paris; at the death of old Vincent he
became his heir, and was at last able to open such a photographer's
_Atelier_ as other artists pronounced perfect in every detail. The
lighthearted Frenchman, never accustomed to an extravagant mode of
living, is just as merry in humor and abstemious in diet as of yore.
Henriette often declares that he acts as if he were afraid of
starving--he is such a hoarder for "rainy days." But Didier had a
varied experience, and the lessons he learned were not easily
forgotten. One happy fact remains: He and Henriette love each other
dearly, and would not exchange their places or give up their home to
be a king and queen and live in a palace.
Roderick Martens attends to the ship-building interests of Jyphoven,
in Amsterdam, and occupies the old Jyphoven mansion. Herr and Madame
Jyphoven continue to reside in Paris. Bella is enchanted with life in
the French city, and declares that to be mistress of the whole
world--if she would go but for a day--could be no inducement to her to
set her foot in the old Holland fishery, as she now describes it to
be. She is entirely reconciled to Francisca. The beauty and happiness
of the young wife would captivate the most callous heart.
And Von Kluyden? This man who devoted himself to intrigue and
rascality for so long, knew not, while he lived, how otherwise to
occupy his time. He was never satisfied. Nemesis held him fast in her
cruel clutches. When the time came for Hendrik to assert and prove his
rights, he did so most successfully; and that for which Isabella
bartered her honor, and beauty, and youth, passed like sand through
the fingers, and was hers no more. Von Kluyden was successful in
nothing that he undertook to accomplish; the ghost of the murdered
Horst followed him day and night;--he finally died in a madhouse!
Isabella had, a little while before his dementia, entrusted herself
and her million of money into the hands of a young man of the titled
nobility--who in his turn did not love the young widow even for her
marvelous beauty--but for the _thalers_ and _gulden_ that brought
plenty to his empty coffers and luxury to his impoverished home. In
this marriage Isabella did not find the happiness she expected to
find, and for which she had so long waited. The Prince squandered her
enormous fortune, as Princes are usually supposed to squander
fortunes, in about the half of a year's duration, and by that time,
having found out and enjoyed all that life held for him of pleasure or
excitement, he closed his career by putting a pistol-ball through his
head, early one morning, while the sun was shining, and the birds were
singing, and flowers were blooming on every side.
So it has come to pass that Isabella--although not yet twenty-five
years of age, has been twice a widow--(and a very charming one she
is!) not likely now ever to be aught else! The sale of her beauty, her
honor, her peace of mind, has brought to her, as a recompense for what
she has lost, a varied and rich experience, which will save her
forever hereafter from the chance of being deceived and betrayed
through the tenderest and noblest impulses of the human heart.
And so the curtain goes down forever between us and those with whom we
have whiled away some pleasant hours, and gathered, it may be, profit
or amusement from their acting on the stage of life.
_Voila tout._