"Then let the funeral bells be tolled, a requiem be sung,
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young;
A dirge for her--the doubly dead, in that she died so young."
For the first few minutes after the train had moved off Guy was unable
to collect his thoughts. As the tall figure of Mohun passed from his
view, it seemed as if a sustaining prop had been suddenly cut away from
under him, and he felt more than ever helpless. The stubborn strength of
his character asserted itself before long, and he faced his great sorrow
as he would have done an enemy in bodily shape; but neither then, nor
for many days after, could he pursue any one train of reflection long
unbroken.
First he began to think how Constance would look when he saw her. Would
she be much changed? How beautiful she was the night they parted, with
the blue myosotis gleaming through her bright hair! Would her eyes be as
cold as he remembered them then (he had not seen their _last_ look), or
would they forgive him at once, and tell him so? Not if she knew all.
And then, in hideous contrast to her pure stately beauty, there rose
before him faces and figures which had shared his orgies during the past
months, gay with paint and jewels, and meretricious ornament. There was
a deeper horror in those mocking shapes than in the most loathsome
phantasms of corporeal corruption that feverish dreams ever called up
from the grave-yard. If his lips were unworthy, months ago, to touch
Constance's cheek or hand, what were they now? He ground his teeth in
the bitterness of self-condemnation. It would be easier to bear, if she
met him coldly and proudly, than if she yielded at once, as her letter
seemed to promise. Her letter! What became of the first one? If that had
reached him, how much had been saved! Perhaps Constance's
life--certainly much of his own dishonor. The idea did cross him that
Flora might have been concerned in intercepting it, but it seemed
improbable, and he drove it away. With all his revived devotion to
Constance, he did not like to think hardly of her rival; in a lesser
degree he had wronged her too.
You will rarely find the sternest or wisest of men disposed to be harsh
toward errors that spring from a devotion to themselves. It is only
just, as well as natural, that it should be so. If the second cause of
the crime did not find an excuse for the defendant, I don't know where
he or she would look for an advocate. St. Kevin need not have troubled
himself: there were plenty of people ready to push poor Kathleen down. I
think it is a pity they canonized him.
Through all Guy's reflections there ran this under-current--"how easily
all might have been avoided if the slightest things had turned out
differently." Just so, after a heavy loss at play, a man _will_ keep
thinking how he might have won a large stake if he had played one card
otherwise, or backed the In instead of the Out. I have heard good judges
say that this pertinacious after-thought is the hardest part to bear of
all the annoyance. Of course he worries himself about it, just as if
"great results from small beginnings" were not the tritest of all
truisms. I don't wish to be historical, or I would reflect how often the
Continent has been convulsed by a dish that disagreed with some one, or
by a ship that did not start to its time. The Jacobites were very wise
in toasting "the little gentleman in black velvet" that raised the fatal
mole-hill. Does not the old romance say that an adder starting from a
bush brought on the terrible battle in which all the chivalry of England
were strewn like leaves around Arthur on Barren Down?
Guy could still hardly realize to himself the certainty of Constance's
approaching death. He tried to fix his thoughts on this till a heavy,
listless torpor, like drowsiness, began to steal over him. He roused
himself impatiently, and began to think how slow they were going.
Nevertheless, the green _coteaux_ that swell between Rouen and the sea
were flying past rapidly, and they arrived at Havre, as Mohun had said,
just in time to catch the Southampton packet.
There was threatening of foul weather to windward. The clouds, in masses
of indigo just edged with copper, were banking up fast, and the "white
horses," more and more frequent, were beginning to toss their manes
against the dark sky-line.
To the few travelers whom the stern necessities of business drove forth,
lingering and shivering, from their comfortable inns on to the deck,
already wet and unsteady, Livingstone was an object of great interest
and many theories. His impatience to be gone was so marked that the
conscientious official looked more than once suspiciously at his
passport.
Mr. Phineas Hackett, of Boston, U.S., Marchand (so self-described in
the Livre des Voyageurs at Chamounix), made up his mind that he saw
before him the hero of some gigantic forgery, or a fraudulent bankrupt
on a large scale; but, just as he had fixed on the astute question which
was to drive the first wedge into the mystery, Guy turned in his quick
walk and met him full. I doubt if he even saw the smooth-shaven, eager
face at his elbow; but he was thinking again of the lost letter, and the
savage glare in his eyes made the heart of the "earnest inquirer" quiver
under his black satin waistcoat. "D----d hard knot, that," he muttered,
disconsolately, and retreated with great loss, to writhe during the rest
of the passage in an orgasm of unsatisfied curiosity.
The weather looked worse every moment as the wild north wind came
roaring from seaward with a challenge to the vessels that lay tossing
within the jetty to come forth and meet him. The waste-pipe of the
_Sea-gull_ screamed out shrilly in answer; and the brave old ship,
shaking the foam from her bows after every plunge, as her namesake might
do from its breast-feathers, steamed out right in the teeth of the gale.
A regular "Channel night"--a night which Mr. Augustus Winder, Paris
traveler to H---- and Co., the mighty mercers of Regent Street, spoke of
in after days with a shudder of reminiscence mingling with the pride of
one who has endured and survived great peril; who has gone down to the
sea in ships, and seen the wonders of the deep. His associates--the
_élite_ of the silk-and-ribbon department--youths of polished manners
and fascinating address, than whom _non alii leviore saltu_ took the
counter in their stride--would gather round the narrator in respectful
admiration, just as the young sea-dogs of Nantucket might listen to a
veteran hunter of the sperm whale as he tells of a hurricane that caught
him in the strait between the Land of Fire and terrible Cape Horn.
Mr. Winder represented himself as having assisted all on board, from the
captain down to the cabin-boy, with his counsel and encouragement, and
as having been materially useful to the man at the wheel. The fact was,
that he cried a good deal during the night, and was incessant in his
appeals to the steward and Heaven for help. In his appeals to the latter
power he employed often a strangely modified form of the Apostles'
Creed; for his religious education had been neglected, and this was his
solitary and simple idea of an orison. However, no one was present to
detract from his triumph or to controvert his concluding words:
"An awful night, gents; but duty's duty, and the firm behaved handsome.
Mr. Sassnett, I'll trouble you for a light, sir." And so he ignited a
fuller-flavored Cuba, and drank, in a sweeter grog, "Our noble
selves"--_olim hæc meminisse juvabit_.
There was one striking contrast on board to the gallant Winder.
Livingstone did not go below, but walked the deck all night long,
straining his eyes eagerly forward through the thick darkness and the
driving rain.
Captain Weatherby regarded him approvingly, as, halting in his walk, Guy
stood near him, upright and steady as a mainmast of Memel pine. "That's
the sort I like to carry," the old sailor remarked confidentially to
his second in command as they shared an amicable grog under the shelter
of the companion.
The wind abated toward morning; and, as the dawn broke, they were under
the lee of the Wight, and moving steadily into the quiet Solent.
Guy made his way straight to Ventnor. Twenty-four hours after her
summons reached him, Constance knew that her lover had never received
her first letter, and that now he was within five hundred yards of her,
waiting to be called into her presence.
It was long before her answer came. It only contained a few hurried
words, saying that it was impossible for her to see him that day, and
begging him not to be angry, but to wait. The hand-writing was far more
faltering and uncertain than that which had struck him so painfully with
its weakness the day before. It spoke plainly of the effort which it had
cost the invalid to trace even those brief lines. He did not try to
delude himself any more, but all that day remained alone, face to face
with his despair.
He went out after nightfall, and stole up cautiously to the house where
Constance was staying.
It is not only ghosts that _walk_. Men, as powerless to retrieve the
past as if they were already disembodied spirits, _will_ haunt the
scenes and sepulchres of their lost happiness even before they die.
Though the world was all before them where to choose, I doubt not that
the exiles from Paradise lingered long just without the sweep of the
flaming sword.
Two rooms in the house were lighted, one with the faint glimmer peculiar
to the shaded lamp of a sick-room. Guy's pulse bounded wildly at first,
and then grew dull and still. In that room he knew Constance lay dying.
The other window was brightly lighted, but half shaded by a curtain.
While he gazed, this was torn suddenly aside, as if by an angry,
impatient hand, and a man leaned out, throwing back the hair from his
forehead, to catch the cold wind which was blowing sharply. Guy had
never seen the dark, passionate face before, but he know whose it was
very well, though there was little family likeness to guide him. Cyril
Brandon's features were small and finely cut, like his sister's; but
there the resemblance ended. His complexion, naturally sallow, had been
burnt three shades deeper by the Indian sun. His fierce black eyes, and
thin lips, that seemed always ready to curl or quiver, made the contrast
with Constance very striking.
Livingstone drew back into the farthest shadow of the garden trees. He
knew how much reason Cyril had for hating him above all living men, and
he did not wish to risk a meeting. Mohun's warning shot across his mind,
and he felt it was rightly founded.
Brandon looked out for some minutes without moving, then he dropped his
head suddenly on his arms with a heavy groan. The bright light was
behind him, and Guy could see his clasped fingers twisting and tearing
at each other, as if he wished to distract mental agony by the sense of
bodily pain. The gazer saw that another besides himself had given up all
hope; and, with a heavier heart than over, he stole away home--not to
sleep, but to think, and wait for the morning.
About noon next day the expected message came:
"DEAR GUY,--I have got leave to see you at last, but it
was very difficult to gain. It is only on these conditions: you are
not to stay with me a moment beyond three hours, and you must leave
Ventnor immediately afterward, and not return. I have promised all
for you. It seems very hard; but we must not think of that now.
Come directly. C.B."
Ten minutes later there was only a closed door between Livingstone, and
the interview he longed for and dreaded so much. His steel nerves stood
him in good stead then; it was not at the crisis that these were likely
to fail. When Constance heard his step, it was measured and firmly
planted as she always remembered it. So it would have been if he had
been walking to meet the fire of a platoon. Her aunt, Mrs. Vavasour, was
with her, but left the room, as Guy opened the door, and so they met
again as they had parted--alone.