"Fare thee well! and if forever,
Still forever, fare _thee well_,
Even though unforgiving, never
'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.
Yet, O, yet thyself deceive not;
Love may sink by slow decay,
But by sudden wrench, believe not,
Hearts can thus be torn away.
Still thine own its life retaineth,
Still must mine, though bleeding, beat,
And the undying thought which paineth,
Is, that we no more may meet."
Sudden death had entered the home of Louise Edson and made her a widow.
Her husband died of cholera, in a distant city, whence he had gone for
the purchase of goods, and was brought home a corpse. Louise reeled to
earth beneath the sudden and unexpected blow. Her soul was lacerated by
constant memory of the wrong she had done him, and it seemed to her
aroused and trembling conscience that avenging Heaven had taken to
itself the man she had so deeply injured, and left her to grope darkly
on in her own wickedness and sin. True she had been cruelly disappointed,
and through long years compelled to struggle on in all the bitter
loneliness of feelings unreplied to, bound by indissoluble chains to one
who had no tastes or sympathies in common with her. Death had freed her
now, but, ah! too late. The taint of sin was on her soul. She had forgot
her vows at the altar, debased herself and wronged her husband by
listening to words of passion from another. O, far less bitter would
have been her grief, as she stood weeping over his lifeless form, could
she have laid her hand on the cold, damp brow and said, "I have loved
thee ever, and through life's cares and perplexities stood closely at
thy side to cheer and smooth thy pathway." But this she could not say.
She only felt that the soul had gone to God, to learn her falsity and
sin, and looked from the skies upon her with grief and avenging anger.
Bitterly she thought of the man who had led her from the path of
rectitude, and resolved to see him no more. As a self-inflicted penance,
she immured herself within the walls of her own mansion, and determined
to pass the remainder of her life in solitude. Many of her numerous
friends sought admittance to express sympathy and condolence in her
affliction, but she refused to see them and resisted all their
overtures. Only one person gained entrance to her seclusion. That was
Mrs. Stanhope, whose kind heart was deeply pained by the apparently
incurable sorrow that had settled on the mind of her young friend, and
strove, by every effort in her power, to lighten her woes and lead her
to more hopeful views of the future.
"It grieves me," said she, "to see you, in the bloom of youth and
health, immure yourself in a living tomb, and refuse the consolations
you would receive from intercourse with your species."
"I want no more of the world," answered the sufferer; "it has no
pleasure or enjoyment for me."
"But, my dear, you should not allow your feelings to overpower your
better judgment," remonstrated Mrs. Stanhope.
"Ah, my feelings!" said Louise, bitterly, with tears rolling over her
pale cheeks; "they have been my destruction. Had I always controlled
them, I had not been the miserable creature I am to-day."
Mrs. Stanhope hardly understood this passionate outburst, but she still
strove to soothe and comfort her afflicted friend.
"Your brow is hot and feverish," said she, rising to depart. "I caution
you to calm yourself and take some rest, or severe sickness will
prostrate you ere long."
"And why should I fear sickness or death," asked Louise, in a hopeless
tone, "when the only calm for me is the calm of the grave, the only rest
its dreamless slumbers?"
Mrs. Stanhope gazed on the suffering face with tearful pity, and turned
away. On opening the hall door, she encountered Col. Malcome, pacing to
and fro on the icy piazza. He started suddenly on beholding her, and
asked if she came from Mrs. Edson. Mrs. Stanhope answered affirmatively.
"And how have you left her?" inquired he, with an expression of strong
anxiety and emotion on his features.
"She seems deeply afflicted," returned Mrs. Stanhope.
"Does she still persist in refusing to see her friends?" asked he.
"She is thus disposed, I regret to say," was Mrs. Stanhope's reply.
"Would you do me the favor to return, and entreat her to grant me a few
moments in her presence?" inquired he, in an earnest tone.
"I will perform your request with pleasure," she said; "but I fear I
shall bring you naught but a gloomy refusal." Thus saying, she reëntered
the apartment of Louise.
"I am come with a petition, Mrs. Edson," she remarked, approaching her
side, and laying a hand softly on the bowed head. "Will you grant it
your favor?"
"I must hear it first," said Louise.
"Col. Malcome is walking on the piazza; he wishes to see you."
"Go and tell him, in another and a darker world I'll see him; never
again in this," answered Louise, starting to her feet, her whole frame
trembling with excitement and anger.
Mrs. Stanhope was astonished and alarmed at her appearance, and stood
gazing on her in wondering silence. At length she said, "I cannot take a
message like that to him; he would think it the wild raving of a
lunatic."
"Tell him, then, to go away, and never approach these doors again," said
Louise, suddenly bursting into tears. Mrs. Stanhope lingered in surprise
at her friend's emotion, and strove to soothe it.
"Go," said Louise; "I command you to go, and send him away. I shall die
if I hear another of his footfalls on the piazza."
Alarmed by the dreadful energy of her manner, Mrs. Stanhope hurried
away. The colonel came eagerly to her side, as she stepped forth.
"Does she refuse me?" he asked.
"She does," said Mrs. Stanhope.
"And does she give no encouragement that I may gain admittance at some
future time?"
"None."
"Then carry this to her," said he, placing a small, folded letter in
Mrs. Stanhope's hand, and turning dejectedly away.
Again she entered the mansion. Louise sat with head bowed between her
hands, and did not raise her eyes. Mrs. Stanhope laid the missive on the
table beside her, and silently left the apartment.
Twilight deepened into evening, and still the suffering woman sat there,
in mute, unutterable agony. A servant entering with lights at length
aroused her to consciousness, and her eye fell on the folded letter
lying on the stand. Hastily tearing away the envelope, she dropped on
her knees, and ran over its contents with devouring eagerness, while her
features worked with strong, conflicting emotions, and tears rolled
continually from her beautiful eyes and blistered the written page. "Why
do you drive me from you?" it began. "If, in an unguarded moment, under
the intoxicating influences which your bewitching presence, the quiet
seclusion of the spot, and romantic hush and stillness of the hour threw
around me, all combining to lap my soul in delicious forgetfulness of
everything beyond the momentary bliss of having you at my side, I
suffered words to escape my lips, which should have remained concealed
in my own bosom, you might at least let the deep, overpowering love
which forced their utterance, plead as some extenuation for my
presumption and error. But it seems you have cast me from you
forever--unpitied--unforgiven. O, Louise! I did not think you so
implacable. The sin is mine, and I would come on bended knee to implore
pardon for the suffering and sorrow my rashness has brought to your
innocent heart; but you fly from my approach, and banish me from your
presence. No mercy for one, who, though he may have erred, is surely
atoning for his errors by anguish as deep, as poignant as your own.
Night after night I walk the piazza beneath your windows. I know you
hear my step and feel that I am near. But you will not open the casement
and let me for a moment behold your features and crave your forgiveness.
O, Louise, am I to die without a pitying word or look from you?
"I sit by my Edith's bed-side through long, weary midnight hours, and
she wakes from her fitful slumbers and asks for you. 'Why does she never
come to see me now? There's no arm raises me so lightly, no hand bathes
my brow so gently, as hers. Will you not bring her, father?'
"O, what agony these words inflict! I have to feel my own rashness and
folly have deprived my sick child of a tender nurse. Louise, do you not
remember one dear, bright morning, long ago, when I was sitting at the
piano in that pleasant parlor I'm forbidden to enter now, and you stood
beside me in all your bewildering grace and beauty, that I sought from
you a promise which was given? Still, still would I conjure you, as
Steerforth said to David, _think of me at my best_. You will need to do
it soon; for your contempt and scorn are hurrying me on to deeds of
crime and wickedness. O, will you drive me to the wretch's doom, or win
me to a life of happiness and virtue? It is yours to decide."
Such were the contents of the letter which remained clenched in the
grasp of the agitated woman through the long hours of that woe-fraught
night. When the first gray tints of dawn were visible, she started and
hid it away in her bosom. Grasping a pen she traced a few lines with
trembling hand, and placed them in an envelope directed to Mrs.
Stanhope. Then unclosing her wardrobe, she selected a few articles of
clothing, made them into a small bundle, and wrapping a heavy shawl
round her slender form, and concealing her features in a large black
bonnet with a long, thick veil, she opened softly the hall door, and
stole forth into the cold, biting air, walking hurriedly over the frosty
paths till she had gained the lonesome country road beyond the village.
As Mrs. Stanhope was sitting down to breakfast, a knock called her to
the door, where she beheld Mrs. Edson's servant, who presented her with
a letter, and said her mistress had gone away very suddenly, and she
would like to know if she had left any word as to when she would return.
Mrs. Stanhope broke the seal, and read with surprise and astonishment
depicted on her features. The girl stood waiting to learn its contents.
"I think," said Mrs. Stanhope, suddenly recollecting herself, "that your
mistress will be absent some time. She informs me she has gone on a
visit to the aunt with whom she resided previous to her marriage."
"Where does her aunt live?" asked the girl.
"I do not know," returned Mrs. Stanhope, "but I think at a considerable
distance from this place."
The girl retired, and Mrs. Stanhope reëntered the breakfast room.
"Who was in the porch?" inquired Miss Pinkerton, as her sister assumed
her place by the coffee urn.
"Mrs. Edson's servant," returned she, arranging the cups with an absent
air.
"What did she want?" asked Miss Martha, opening her muffin and dropping
a piece of golden butter on its smoking surface.
"She brought me a note from her mistress," said Mrs. Stanhope, "who has
departed suddenly on a visit to her aunt, and wishes me to superintend
the care of her mansion for a time."
"I guess she is coming out of her dumps," said Martha. "I always said
there was no danger of her dying of grief for the loss of a husband.
She'll come home one of these days a gay widow, and set her cap for Col.
Malcome. I always thought she had a liking for him."
Mrs. Stanhope made no reply to this unfeeling speech. After breakfast
the colonel chanced in to take the long-forgotten package away, when he
learned of Louise's sudden departure, and went home in a state of
increased anguish and despair.