THE HARVEST OF TARES.
Percy returned to the Hotel, and before taking the train for New York,
he wrote Helena a letter. Its contents were as follows:
"MY QUEEN:
"All my life I have worshiped an ideal. Just when I had grown to
believe, that she did not exist save in my dreams, you flashed upon
my horizon. I loved you; but I have not dared dream that you would
love me, until to-day. I saw it in your face, dear, and I know that
you are a woman who, once loving, will love forever. You know the
story of my life. I am going abroad very soon. I shall remain away,
until this miserable experience of which I told you, this terrible
error, becomes a thing of the past. I shall strive to make myself
worthy of your respect, of your love. When I come back, I shall ask
you to be my wife, Helena. Until then, farewell. Read the verses I
enclose. I found them in the poet's corner of one of our daily
papers, and cut them out, because they seemed like a versified
history of my own life. First, the mirage dream--then the jungle of
the senses, then the cold world of fashion, until I lost faith in
the existence of the storied Land of Love.
"Then I met you, and you taught me that the true kingdom of love
lies in the precincts of a pure home. Farewell, my sweet saint, my
angel guide.
"PERCY DURAND."
The poem he enclosed we give below.
THE KINGDOM OF LOVE.
In the dawn of the day, when the sea and the earth
Reflected the sunrise above,
I set forth, with a heart full of courage and mirth,
To seek for the Kingdom of Love.
I asked of a Poet I met on the way,
Which cross-road would lead me aright.
And he said: "Follow me, and ere long you will see
Its glistening turrets of Light."
And soon in the distance a city shone fair;
"Look yonder," he said, "there it gleams!"
But alas! for the hopes that were doomed to despair,
It was only the Kingdom of Dreams.
Then the next man I asked was a gay cavalier,
And he said: "Follow me, follow me,"
And with laughter and song we went speeding along
By the shores of life's beautiful sea,
Till we came to a valley more tropical far,
Than the wonderful Vale of Cashmere.
And I saw from a bower a face like a flower,
Smile out on the gay cavalier.
And he said: "We have come to humanity's goal--
Here love and delight are intense."
But alas! and alas! for the hope of my soul--
It was only the Kingdom of Sense.
As I journeyed more slowly, I met on the road,
A coach with retainers behind,
And they said: "Follow us, for our lady's abode
Belongs in the realm you would find."
'Twas a grand dame of fashion, a newly-wed bride;
I followed, encouraged and bold.
But my hopes died away, like the last gleams of day,
For we came to the Kingdom of Gold.
At the door of a cottage I asked a fair maid.
"I have heard of that Realm," she replied,
"But my feet never roam from the Kingdom of Home,
So I know not the way," and she sighed.
I looked on the cottage, how restful it seemed!
And the maid was as fair as a dove.
Great light glorified my soul as I cried,
"Why, _home_ is the Kingdom of Love!"
The following day, when Percy ushered himself into Dolores' apartments
by his latch-key, he was surprised to find those bijou rooms in a state
of disorder. Boxes, trunks, and packing cases were scattered about,
while Dolores, attired in a loose white gown, was busily at work
arranging garments and bric-a-bric.
"What in the world are you doing?" he asked, in amazement. "Are you
going away?"
She lifted her wan, white face to his, with a look so pathetic, so full
of widowed sorrow, that his heart smote him. O, Sin! how bitter are thy
fruits.
"Yes, I am going away," she said. "Come and sit down here, and let me
tell you all about it." And she led him to his favorite chair and sank
upon the ottoman at his feet. "Ever since you went away the last time, I
have been thinking, thinking, thinking," she said, pressing her hands to
her head, "until I nearly grew wild. And the result of it all is, that I
am going away: going to California. I think it is better that we should
be parted, at least for a time."
She looked eagerly in his face; somehow she had fancied that when he
found she was really determined to go away from him, that his old love
for her, and his longing for her companionship would overmaster every
other consideration.
She had reasoned it all out, through the sleepless night.
"He will be surprised, startled and hurt," she thought. "He does not
believe I have strength to leave him. But I will go--and he shall
follow me and sue hard, before I return to him. Not until I am gone will
he fully realize what my love has been to him. If I were his wife, now,
I could not go, and he would know I could not. When he stops and thinks
what this step might mean--and _all_ it might mean, I know he will
regret having driven me to it. Even if he has tired of me himself,
man-like, he will dread the possibility of my going to another lover--as
many women in my situation would do. But go where I will I shall be true
to him--oh, so true! for I must love him, and him only till I die. It is
my fate."
So she had talked to herself while she made her plans. Now, when she had
told him that she was going away, she looked up in his face, expecting
to see surprise and chagrin. Instead, she saw only relief, intense
relief.
"Yes, Dolores, it is better that we should part, even as you say," he
answered. "There is a better and a truer life for each of us, than the
life we are living, even if it is a lonelier one. We have made a great
mistake, but we can rectify it in a measure, by parting now."
All hope died in her heart. Her face flushed, her breast heaved with
violent emotion.
"You are late in finding this out!" she said, bitterly; "but I believe
it is customary with men, to never discover mistakes of this kind, until
the woman's life is wrecked. It is so very natural for a man to moralize
standing on a crushed and ruined heart."
"Dolores, let us part without any bitter words, for heaven's sake!" he
cried. "Our mistake, our sin, whatever we may choose to call it, has
been mutual. I never lured you to destruction; I never deceived you; I
never meant to wrong you. You understood the world, you were no ignorant
girl: you were a woman, old enough to know the importance of the step I
proposed."
"Had I been a young girl I should never have yielded," she answered. "It
is the ripe fruit which falls when a south wind shakes the tree."
"Well, you must not forget that we _agreed_ upon the course of action
which has resulted in our misery. Neither should blame the other. Let
us part friends, not enemies."
"Friends!" and all of wounded pride and scorned love, and hopeless
passion was in her voice as she repeated the word.
Ah! when will a man ever learn that he cannot offer a more cruel insult
to a woman he has once professed to love, than to call her his "friend."
Percy felt great drops of perspiration starting out on his brow. He drew
his handkerchief from his pocket, and with it a letter fluttered and
fell at Dolores' feet.
She picked it up, and she might have returned it without a glance at the
superscription had not Percy sprung forward with a guilty flush, crying
hurriedly,
"Excuse my awkwardness; give me the letter, please?"
Then she glanced down upon it. It was addressed in a delicate feminine
penmanship, and the date of the post-mark was not a week old.
A sudden suspicion fired her blood; her pansy eyes blazed black as
sloes as she turned them on Percy's tell-tale face.
"So!" she said, slowly and mockingly; "there is a cause for all this
excess of morality, _mon ami_, is there?"
"Give me the letter, please?" was his only response.
She took a step back, and looked at him with defiant eyes.
"I demand to know the contents of this letter before I return it!" she
said. "If it in no way relates to our proposed separation, you will not
fear to show it to me. If it does, I have a right to know."
He looked at her coldly, and his words, as they fell, pierced her like
poisoned arrows.
"You have no right to demand any thing of the kind," he said, quietly.
"Our relations are simply with each other. We have always understood
that, I believe. You are not that most despised object in your own eyes,
Dolores--_a wife_. Therefore you have _no_ right to question me
concerning my correspondence. The letter, please."
She threw it at his feet. "Take it!" she cried, "but remember, Percy
Durand, as God hears me, no other woman shall be your wife while I
live."
He turned toward the door without a word. But as he went, he took her
latch-key from his pocket and dropped it carelessly on the open leaf of
her ebony desk.
That one act, said more effectually than the bitterest words could have
said, that all was at an end between them. He was no longer her comrade,
her friend, her lover, who came and went at will; he was a stranger,
who, if he ever came again, would come in the capacity of a guest.
She flung out her arms with a wild cry:
"Percy, Percy, come back! Do not leave me like this--I cannot bear it."
He turned back, moved by the passionate pain of her voice.
As he turned, his eye fell upon an old photograph, lying among a parcel
of letters, in the open tray of a partially packed trunk.
"Who is this, Dolores?" he asked, picking up the card, and standing as
if transfixed.
Dolores went forward and looked over his shoulder. She thought he was
relenting toward her, and if a reconciliation seemed possible, she
desired it at any cost.
Ah! pitying heaven! how at the mercy of the weakest man, the strongest
woman is, if she loves him.
"That?" she said, laying her hand gently on his arm, "that is an old
picture of a school-mate of mine,--oh, how long ago it seems! She was
the only intimate friend I ever had until I met Mrs. Butler. And yet I
have utterly lost all trace of her. Our correspondence died a natural
death, before I had been two years abroad."
"What was her name?" asked Percy, and his heart almost stood still to
listen to her reply.
"Her name was Lena--Helena Maxon. She lived in a pretty place called Elm
Hill. I suppose she is married and the mother of a family ere this. She
was just the kind of girl to marry young, and she was abnormally fond of
babies, I remember. She actually brought her doll to school with her,
when she was seventeen years old."
Dolores talked on volubly, glad to forget the torturing scene of a few
moments before. She fancied that he felt the same, and that he was
asking these questions simply to bridge over their quarrel.
Percy thought the room was whirling around him. He sat down in a
neighboring chair.
"I wonder you never spoke of her to me before!" he said. "She has an
interesting face. I did not know you had such a friend in America. Why
have you never looked her up?"
She gazed at him in questioning surprise, his voice, his manner were so
strange.
"I think I mentioned her to you when I told you the story of my Uncle's
death," she answered, pleasantly, eager to win him to good humor again.
"While abroad, our lives drifted so far apart, I seldom recalled the old
intimacy. Since my return--I have hardly felt situated to seek a renewal
of our acquaintance. It might have been embarrassing for both of us,
Percy, and you know I have not felt the need of any friend or companion
but you."
He laid down the picture and covered his eyes as if to shut out the
sight of it.
"My God!" he cried, suddenly, "it cannot be true--it is too terrible."
Dolores' jealous suspicions concerning the letter took definite shape
and form.
"Why are you talking so strangely?" she asked, facing him suddenly. "Do
you know Helena Maxon, Percy? Have you ever met her?"
"Yes," he answered, "I know her--I have met her. Oh, Dolores, I wish to
God I were dead."
"I wish we both were!" she cried passionately. "I wish God had sent
death to us there in that Andean valley, when something told me, that we
were never to be so happy again." Then, growing excited, she clenched
her slender hands and stood before him, speaking in a low suppressed
voice. "You shall never marry her, never!" she cried. "I can hinder it.
When we were in Santiago, you registered me as your wife, to avoid
gossip. To Lorette, you have called me Madame Percy--your wife. These
things, told in a court of justice, would prevent you from making
another woman your wife. I will follow you to the ends of the earth to
prevent it."
Percy put his hands to his head in a dazed way.
"Don't!" he protested wearily. "I am ill, suffering, Dolores. Let us end
this miserable scene. I have no idea of making any woman my wife. It
would be an insult to any good woman to ask her to take the remnant of
my miserable existence.
"I am going abroad at once--to-morrow; and I hope you will continue your
preparations for your journey. And now, good by--I am too ill to endure
another word to-day."
He loosened the hold she had taken on his arm in her excitement, and
almost staggered out of the room and down the stairs.