TWO YEARS AFTERWARD.
Sir Ronald went home again. He found little or no change in that quiet
neighborhood. One of the visits he paid was to Mount Severn, where he
met with a welcome that would have gladdened any man’s heart. Clarice
did not attempt to conceal her delight; her eyes beamed, her face
brightened, her hands stole tremblingly into his.
“How long you have been away!” she said. “This is the dreariest summer
I can remember.”
Yet it was only two months since he had gone up to London to try
whether gayety would cure him.
They made him so welcome it was like coming home. Mrs. Severn pitied
him because he looked ill. She placed him in the sunniest corner of
the room; she made him stay for a _récherché_ little dinner. Clarice
talked to him and sang to him. She poured out the treasures of her
intellect like water at his feet. Another man would have yielded almost
helplessly to the charm, but his haggard face never changed, no smile
came to his stern, gray lips.
He had vowed to himself before he entered the house that nothing could
induce him to mention Lady Hermione’s name, yet he longed to hear it
from other lips. Clarice told him of the Gordons and the Thringstons,
but the name he longed to hear was not mentioned. He perceived that
Clarice purposely avoided it, and wondered why. Was Lady Hermione ill?
Had anything happened to her?
At last he could endure the suspense no longer, and he said, “You say
nothing of the Lorristons. Are they well?”
Her beautiful face flushed, and her eyes rested on him for one-half
minute with an expression he could not understand.
“I am sorry you have asked me,” she replied in a low voice. “I can only
tell you what will pain you.”
“Tell me,” he said.
“I cannot answer for the truth of such a rumor. I do not see as much
of her as I used to do, but I am told there is every prospect of a
marriage between her and--and Kenelm Eyrle.”
Despite his self-control, Sir Ronald’s face grew deadly pale. He was
perfectly silent for some minutes, not daring to trust himself to
speak. Then he laughed, little guessing how hollow and bitter was the
sound of that laugh. Never would he lay bare this wound of his heart.
Men should never laugh at his madness, or women smile at the weakness
of his love. None should ever know this fair woman’s hand had struck
him.
“Did you think that would distress me?” he said. “Why, Miss Severn, you
told me almost as much two years ago.”
“I did not like to pain you,” she said, gently.
“Pain!” he said, mockingly. “Do we live in the old days of constancy
and truth, when a man loved but one woman and loved her loyally until
he died? How many loves have the children of this generation in a
lifetime? A man suffers pain nowadays when he loses a limb or loses his
fortune--not when he is unhappy in his love.”
She looked at him and something like a sob rose to her lips; his voice
was so full of anguish, there was such unutterable woe in his dark eyes.
“You must forgive me,” she said, still more gently. “I knew you were
unhappy about Lady Hermione in the time past, and I would rather suffer
all the pain there is in the world than that you should have the least
to bear.”
“Would you?” he asked. “Why are you so kind to me, Clarice?”
The only answer Clarice Severn gave was a long, deep-drawn sigh. If he
could not read why in her face, then should his question never meet
with a reply.
“Did you not tell me two years ago that there was something of the kind
between them?” he repeated.
“Yes; but I was not sure. Lady Hermione is so much admired, you know,
so beautiful, and has so many lovers.”
“True; and it is impossible to tell which she prefers. Who would be one
of a crowd? I would have the whole of a woman’s heart, or none.”
“You deserve it,” she said, and again Sir Ronald looked at her,
wondering why she was so kind.
It did not occur to him just then, though afterward he thought of it.
“Shall I never grow sane?” he asked himself, as he rode slowly home.
“Is my madness to grow deeper as I grow older? I have been away from
all the places and scenes connected in my memory with her. I have tried
every resource that lay open--study, pleasure, and yet now that I pause
to think, I find I love her better than ever. Oh, my God! can I do
nothing to save myself from this lingering, hungering fever of love?”
He hated himself for what he considered his cowardice. He longed to be
free from the chains that bound him, yet he could not free himself.
Two years had passed since he received the fatal letter that had been
a death warrant to him, and he loved her as deeply and as dearly as on
that day, when, full of hope, he had asked her to be his wife.
He seldom met Mr. Eyrle. He never went near the Towers where he had
once spent so much of his time. When the two met, who had been such
dear friends, there was coldness and distance between them that nothing
could penetrate. Sir Ronald disliked and distrusted Kenelm, because
he believed Kenelm had willfully tried to take Hermione’s love from
him. Kenelm Eyrle almost hated Sir Ronald because he honestly thought
Sir Ronald had supplanted him, and robbed him of all chance of winning
Clarice. A few words of explanation and the old love between them would
have returned; it may be that the tragedy of this story had never then
happened.
But dislike and suspicion grew between them--the distance increased,
the coldness deepened, until at last Kenelm was told no day passed
without Sir Ronald going over to Mount Severn--after hearing which, the
next time he met the master of Aldenmere, Mr. Eyrle gave him one stern
look and passed by without speaking.
“The man has robbed me,” said Kenelm to himself, “a thousand times more
meanly than if he had stolen my purse. He has taken from me the hope
that made my manhood bright. I will never forgive him.”
While Sir Ronald turned involuntarily to look after the man who had
been the dearest friend of his youth.
“It is Hermione who has told him to avoid me,” he said to himself.
“Perhaps she is afraid I shall quarrel with him and seek the vengeance
I know to be my due. Let her not fear; he is safe from me.”
Yet his heart was heavy and sad within him, for Sir Ronald, despite his
pride--the family failing--was of an affectionate, loving, warm-hearted
disposition, and could ill brook coldness between himself and those he
loved.
People had begun to talk about him, to say how changed he was, how
miserable he was, to wonder what could have come over the opening
manhood that had at one time promised to be both brilliant and good.
These rumors came to him when he was in a frame of mind most fitted to
bear them. He was no saint, this unhappy hero of mine. He was quite
human, full of faults, full of good qualities that might have made his
name famous, but they were wrongly used, and made it what the name of
no other Alden ever was.
At this time of which I write his mind was a chaos; angry love, wounded
pride, broken hopes, all raged together, and made him unlike himself.
It was deeply wounding to his pride that people should speak of him. He
had hitherto deemed himself above the reach of gossip, and it was not
pleasant now to know that he was a continued subject of conversation.