IN EXILE.
Such a beautiful young girl as Rosalind Whitney could not escape notice
and attention at the seaside resort where she was staying with her kind
nurse, Mrs. Goodwill.
Though she was quiet and reserved, the people soon ferreted out her
romantic history, for it had gotten into all the newspapers.
Every one knew directly that the young heiress had been lifted suddenly
from poverty and obscurity to wealth and position. They declared that
she must have deserved it, she was so lovely and so gracious, without
any of the insufferable airs of the upstart.
In the black gowns that she chose to wear for her benefactress, and
with that shade of pathos on her exquisite face, she was very charming,
and she soon had friends and admirers by the dozens; but she did not
encourage any.
Her life at The Crags had made her shy and timid; she did not feel as
if she had any real friends among all those who sought her now.
She liked best to make friends with the beautiful, restless sea, to
sit on the sands and listen to its mystical roar, to sport among the
rolling billows, or sail over its bosom, drinking in deep drafts of
exhilarating air that brightened her sorrowful eyes and planted fresh
roses on her pale cheeks.
It was so new and strange and delightful to the mountain-bred girl that
it drew her thoughts away from the past to present scenes and joys.
She tried to put Laurie and Lelia out of her mind, not to envy the
happiness that must be theirs when they had become friendly again.
“And, oh, dear Heaven, make her repent her sins; make her a better
woman, so that she shall be worthy the noble husband she has won,”
prayed Rosalind every night before she laid her dark head down upon its
pillow to rest.
Her life was very lonely, poor Rosalind; it had always been so empty of
love that her one little glimpse of it in Laurie Willoughby’s eyes had
seemed like paradise.
Oh, those brief, bright hours of hope and joy while she had worn his
beautiful ring! How they returned to her over and over, with their zest
and sweetness! How she wondered even now what wonderful good fortune he
had wished for her when he placed it on her hand!
Even now that he was married to Lelia, she would have liked to know,
but she was too timid to ask him. She would never, never know, unless
of his own free will he volunteered the information.
Very likely he had forgotten all about it by now. Lelia, with her love
and her beauty, would make him forget everything in the world.
Ah, well, perhaps she, too, might forget after a while, she told
herself, trying to still that dull, aching pain in her heart.
Perhaps by and by some other young man almost as noble and handsome as
Laurie Willoughby--not quite, that could not possibly be--might come
into her life and teach her a new lesson of love, filling her starved
heart with the fulness of content and happiness.
Meanwhile, she would make the best of the new opportunities Miss
Willoughby had generously thrown into her life. She would read and
study, she would try to make some true friends for herself, she would
travel and see the beautiful world over, which she had always yearned.
She did not see that she need to be entirely unhappy, even though the
one man she would have chosen for her lover was lost to her forever.
Yet day by day she would trace his name beside her own on the wet sands
with the tip of her parasol, and sigh as she murmured:
“Laurie and Rosalind! How well they look together!”
Then the white surf rolling in would blot the names away, and she would
sigh to herself:
“If only that dear name could be blotted out as easily from my heart!”
She had been at the seashore a week, but she had never heard a word
from The Crags. She had written back a little note to the general, who
had really seemed the kindest of all, telling him of her safe arrival,
but he had taken no notice, it seemed.
“Why should they care for me? Is it not more natural they should hate
one who came between them and the fortune they expected? Oh, if I could
have guessed what was in that dear old lady’s mind, I should have
begged her not to disappoint them, but to give me just a little legacy
of a few thousands to remember her by, my dear benefactress!” she
thought over and over.
And then one morning, down upon the beach, just as she had absently
traced those two names again upon the glittering sands, there suddenly
loomed up before her the tall, thin, stately form of the general.
His keen eyes caught the names before the coming wave swept over them.
He pretended not to notice, but he said to himself:
“Aha! so that is how the land lies?”
He could not help thinking what a match this would have been for
Laurie, after all, if only they had not forced him into that ill-fated
marriage with his cousin.
She turned to him, blushing like a rose, and as he clasped her hand
with fervor, her heart warmed with the thought that here, at least, was
one friend, for his manner was kindness itself.
He sat down beside her on a low camp-chair, and talked to her kindly
and gently, breaking the news to her gradually, as seemed best.
He had got her letter, but had been too much perturbed to answer it,
for they had been having more trouble at The Crags.
Poor Lelia had quite broken down under their trials, and was ill of
nervous prostration--so ill that her mother had taken her, several days
ago, to a sanatorium in Philadelphia, and would remain with her until
she recovered.
Her eyes looked a mute question that he answered by saying:
“Laurie has decided to go abroad--in fact, has already gone, and his
stay will be of indefinite duration. I have just come from seeing him
off in New York, and he has appointed me your guardian in his place.
The truth is, his marriage was a sad mistake, and he will never live
with Lelia; he has found out things that make it impossible for him to
love or respect her again. But his family pride will not permit him to
betray her faults and seek release, so his life is wrecked forever, and
he has gone into a bitter, voluntary exile!”