AFTER NIGHT, MORNING.
From that time Sir Ronald Alden changed so completely that he was
hardly to be recognized as the same man. He ceased to struggle for
content; he said to himself that a curse was upon him, and he must
live under it while it pleased Heaven that he should live at all; but
the happiest moment that life held in store for him would be the one
that held death--the moment that would bring the woman he loved to
his side to look at him for the last time. He was young, and life ran
full, warm and rich in his veins, yet he would have gladly laid it
down to have brought her for only one moment to his side, so great and
passionate was his love for her.
Lady Clarice could not fail to notice the change. She comforted herself
by thinking that the Aldens were a strange race, not governed by the
same laws as other men, subject to moods and passions that required
indulgence. She never dreamed that he had met Lady Hermione, and that
his new sorrow was caused by the constant smart of knowing that life
might have been different for him.
“Ronald,” she said to him one day, “has life any interest for you?”
“No,” he replied; “I cannot, in truth, say that it has.”
Her face flushed warmly.
“Then, if I were you, I should be ashamed to say so. You are the first
Alden who has found life empty, I should imagine.”
“I did not say it was empty, Clarice; I merely say nothing in it
interests me.”
She knelt down by his side, and clasped her white hands round his arm.
“You must unsay that, Ronald. There is one interest left--you love me.
You cannot turn from me and say no. You could not be so cruel. Love
must win love, and, my husband, I love you.”
He made no reply, and she kissed his hands as they lay listless in her
warm clasp. If he had told her the truth, it would have been that her
love for him was one of his greatest burdens; but he had the grace to
keep silent.
“Will you give up Aldenmere for a time?” she asked. “Let us go abroad.”
“No; I am tired of the Continent,” he replied.
“And you do not care for the sea. London has no charm for you. Oh,
Ronald, what can I do for you to make your life brighter?”
He looked at her beautiful face, and hated himself with fierce loathing
for the word that rose to his lips. It was “Die!” She could do nothing
for him but that--die, and leave him free to marry his only love. Then
quick, keen remorse seized him, and he kissed her white brow.
“You are very patient with me, Clarice,” he said humbly, “and I do not
deserve your love.”
He wondered to himself at times if the old stories he had read of men
being given over to the power of a demon were true. Could it be that he
was so given over? Was this perverse demon of unhappy love sent to him
as a scourge? He brooded over such thoughts and ideas until the wonder
is he did not go mad.
He did not meet Lady Hermione again. She was careful; and he had
no wish to renew the terrible pain of parting. He dwelt upon one
thought--she would come to him when he lay dying, and not before.
So time passed, day after day finding him more gloomy, more wretched
and unhappy. Then came the tragedy that startled all England--the
murder of the beautiful and unfortunate Lady Clarice--the murder that
was in itself a mystery, and remained one.
After that Sir Ronald shut himself up in seclusion and retirement. Many
people thought he would leave the scene of the tragedy, and go from
Aldenmere, but he did not. He was the ghost of his former self, the
wreck of the proud, handsome man, who but a few short years since, had
been the bravest wooer in the countryside. People said he would never
survive his wife’s death; that the shock of it would be fatal to him.
Those who loved him best had no more cheerful prophesy than that he
would in all probability linger in his gloomy seclusion a few months
longer, then die.
Even Kenelm Eyrle, who had never pardoned him for his marriage, who
believed that he had deliberately won Clarice from him, relented now.
It was no common grief that brought so proud a man low; no common
sorrow that prostrated him.
Kenelm, from the depths of his noble and generous heart, forgave him.
“You did wrong me, Ronald,” he said to him one day; “but you have
suffered so cruelly I forget the wrong in remembering the suffering,”
and from that day they were again like brothers.
“There is one thing that grieves me,” said Sir Ronald, despondingly, to
his friend, “when I die the title will be extinct, and the estates will
pass to one who is a perfect stranger to me.”
“You will marry again,” said Kenelm. “You are young, and there is a
broad stretch of life before you. You loved Clarice--I do not doubt
it--but your heart is not buried with her, as mine is. You will marry,
and make the old house glad with bright faces.”
“Never,” he said, moodily. “My one short dream of happiness faded long
ago; it cannot revive.”
Mr. Eyrle wondered much.
“For my own part,” he said, musingly, “I live for but one object--to
find out who did that deed, and bring them to justice. When that is
done my life work is ended. Why, Ronald, I cannot understand your
reason for not re-marrying.”
The white, haggard face was raised to his--the thin, worn hands.
“Do I look much like a man whose thoughts run upon marriage?” he
asked, mournfully; and Kenelm was obliged to answer “No.”
But one spring morning (the grass had grown green on Clarice’s grave)
there came to him a messenger of comfort--a little note containing only
a few lines, but to that unhappy man they opened the gates of Paradise.
“Dear Sir Ronald,” so it ran, “I am sorry to hear of your
continued ill-health. I only returned home yesterday, or I
should have written to express my sympathy sooner. Try to rouse
yourself. They tell me you are very ill. From your sincere friend,
“HERMIONE LORRISTON.”
He bowed his head over the paper and wept aloud.
“The dove with the olive leaf!” he said. “Shall I refuse it? Heaven’s
gates open. Shall I close them and die in this outer darkness--this
utter despair? Or, rather, shall I take the comfort Heaven sends me,
and make her my own?”