Even at mid-day the grounds around "Solitude" were sombre and chill,
for across the sky the winds had woven a thin, vapory veil, whose
cloud-meshes seemed fine as lacework; and through this gilded netting
the sun looked hazy, the light wan and yellow, and rifled of its
customary noon glitter.
Following one of the serpentine walks, the governess was approaching
the house, when her attention was attracted by the gleaming surface of
a tomb, and she turned towards the pyramidal deodars that were swaying
slowly in the breeze,--
"Warming their heads in the sun,
Checkering the grass with their shade,"
and photographing fringy images on the shining marble.
A broad circle of violets, blue with bloom, surrounded a sexangular
temple, whose dome was terminated by a mural crown and surmounted by a
cross. The beautifully polished pillars were fluted, and wreathed
with carved ivy that wound up to the richly-sculptured cornices, where
poppies clustered and tossed their leaves along the architrave; and,
in the centre, visible through all the arches, rose an altar, bearing
two angels with fingers on their lips, who guarded an exquisite urn
that was inscribed "_cor cordium_."
Beneath the eastern arch, that directly fronted the sea, were two
steps leading into the mausoleum, and, as Miss Dexter stood within,
she saw that the floor was arranged with slabs for only two tombs
close to the altar, one side of which bore in golden tracery,--
"_Elsie Maclean, 68. Amicus Amicorum._"
Around the base of the urn were scattered some fresh geranium-leaves,
and very near it stood a tall, slender, Venetian glass vase filled
with odorous flowers, which had evidently been gathered and arranged
that day.
For whom had the remaining slab and opposite side of the altar been
reserved?
The heart of the governess seemed for a moment to forget its
functions, then a vague hope made it throb fiercely; and rapidly the
anxious woman directed her steps towards the house, that seemed as
silent as the grave behind her.
The hall door had swung partially open, and, dreading that she might
be refused admittance if she rang the bell, she availed herself of the
lucky accident (which in Elsie's lifetime never happened), and entered
unchallenged and unobserved.
From the parlor issued a rather monotonous and suppressed sound, as of
some one reading aloud, and, advancing a few steps, the governess
stood inside the threshold.
The curtains of the south window were looped back, the blinds thrown
open, and the sickly sunshine poured in, lighting the easel, before
which the mistress of the house had drawn an ottoman and seated
herself.
To-day, an air of unwonted negligence marked her appearance, usually
distinguished by extraordinary care and taste.
Her white merino _robe de chambre_ was partially ungirded, and the
blue tassels trailed on the carpet; her luxuriant hair instead of
being braided and classically coiled, was gathered in three or four
large heavy loops, and fastened rather loosely by the massive silver
comb that allowed one long tress to straggle across her shoulder,
while the folds in front slipped low on her temples and forehead.
Intently contemplating her work, she leaned her cheek on her hand, and
only the profile was visible from the door, as she repeated, in a
subdued tone,--
"I stanch with ice my burning breast,
With silence balm my whirling brain,
O Brandan! to this hour of rest,
That Joppan leper's ease was pain."
The easel held the largest of many pictures, upon which she had
lavished time and study, and her present work was a wide stretch of
mid-ocean, lighted by innumerable stars, and a round glittering polar
moon that swung mid-heaven like a globe of silver, and shed a ghostly
lustre on the raging, ragged waves, above which an Aurora Borealis
lifted its gleaming arch of mysterious white fires.
On the flowery shore of a tropic isle, under clustering boughs of lime
and citron, knelt the venerable figure of Saint Brandan,--and upon a
towering, jagged iceberg, whose crystal cliffs and diamond peaks
glittered with the ghastly radiance reflected from arctic moon and
boreal flames, lay Judas, pressing his hot palms and burning breast to
the frigid bosom of his sailing sapphire berg.
No hideous, scowling, red-haired arch-apostate was this painted
Iscariot,--but a handsome man, whose features were startlingly like
those in the ivory miniature.
It was a wild, dreary, mournful picture, suggestive of melancholy
mediaeval myths, and most abnormal phantasms; and would more
appropriately have draped the walls of some flagellating ascetic's
cell, than the luxuriously furnished room that now contained it.
Bending forward to deepen the dark circles which suffering and
remorse had worn beneath the brilliant eyes of the apostle, the lonely
artist added another verse to her quotation,--
"Once every year, when carols wake
On earth the Christmas night's repose,
Arising from the sinner's lake
I journey to these healing snows."
The motion loosened a delicate white lily pinned at her throat, and it
fell upon the palette, sullying its purity with the dark paint to
which its petals clung. She removed it, looked at its defaced
loveliness, and tossed it aside, saying moodily,--
"Typical of our souls, originally dowered with a stainless and
well-nigh perfect holiness, but drooping dust-ward continually, and
once tainted by the fall,--hugging the corruption that ruined it."
As the governess looked and listened, a half-perplexed, half-frightened
expression passed over her countenance, and at length she advanced to
the arch, and said, tremblingly,--
"Can I have a few moments' conversation with Mrs. Gerome, on important
business?"
"My God! am I verily mad at last? Because I called up Judas, must I
also evoke the partner of his crime?"
With a thrilling, almost blood-curdling cry Mrs. Gerome had leaped to
her feet at the sound of Miss Dexter's voice, and, dropping palette
and brush, confronted her with a look of horror and hate. The quick
and violent movement shook out her comb, and down came the folds of
hair, falling like a silver cataract to her knees.
Bewildered by memories which the face and form recalled, the governess
looked at the shining white locks, and her lips blanched, as she
stammered,--
"Are you Mrs. Gerome?"
Her scarlet hood had fallen back, disclosing her wealth of golden
hair; and gazing at her thin but still lovely features, rouged by a
hectic glow that lent strange beauty to the wide, brown eyes, Mrs.
Gerome answered, huskily,--
"I am the mistress of this house. Who is the woman who has the
audacity to intrude upon my seclusion, and vividly remind me of one
whose hated lineaments have cursed my memory for years? Woman, if I
believed _she_ had the effrontery to thrust herself into my presence,
I should fear that at this instant I am afflicted with the abhorred
sight of Edith Dexter, than whom a legion of devils would be more
welcome!"
The name fell hissingly from her stern mouth, and when she shook back
the hair that drooped over her brow, the gray globe-like eyes
glittered as polished blue steel under some fitful light.
A low, half-stifled cry escaped the governess, and springing forward
she fell on her knees and grasped the white hands that had clutched
each other.
"Evelyn! It must be Evelyn! despite this gray hair and wan,
changed face! and I could never mistake these beautiful, beautiful
hands--unlike any others in the world! Evelyn, my lost darling! oh,
I thank God I have found you before I die!"
She covered the cold fingers with kisses, and pressed her face to a
band of the floating hair; but with a gesture of loathing Mrs. Gerome
broke away, and retreated a few steps.
"How dare you come into my presence? Goaded by a desire to witness the
ruin you helped to accomplish? Your audacity at least astounds me; but
fate decrees you the enjoyment of its reward. Lo! here I am! Behold
the gray shadow of what was once a happy, confiding girl! Behold in
the desolate, lonely woman, who hides her disgrace under the name of
Agla Gerome, that bride of an hour, that Evelyn whose heart you
stabbed! Does the wreck entirely satisfy you? What more could even
fiendish malevolence desire?"
"Evelyn, you wrong me. For mercy's sake do not upbraid and taunt me so
unjustly!"
In vain she held out her hands imploringly, while tears rolled over
her crimsoned cheeks, and sobs impeded her utterance. Mrs. Gerome
laughed bitterly.
"What! I wrong you? Have _you_ gone mad, instead of your victim? Miss
Dexter, you and I can scarcely afford to deal in mock tragedy, and
though you make a pretty picture kneeling there, I have no mind to
paint you yonder, where I put your colleague, Judas. Is it not a good
likeness of your lover, as he looked that memorable day when the broad
banana-leaves overshadowed his handsome head?"
She rapped the canvas with her clenched hand, and continued, in
accents of indescribable scorn,--
"Do you kneel as penitent or petitioner? You come to crave my pardon,
or my husband?"
The governess had bowed her face almost to the carpet, like some
fragile flower borne down by a sudden flood; but now she rose, and,
throwing her head back proudly, answered with firm yet gentle
dignity,--
"Of Mrs. Gerome I crave nothing. Of Evelyn Carlyle I demand justice;
simply bare justice."
"Justice! You are rash, Miss Dexter, to challenge fate; for, were
justice meted out, the burden would prove more intolerable to you than
that King Stork whom Zeus sent down as a Nemesis to quiet clamorous
frogs. Justice, let me tell you, long ago fled from this hostile and
inhospitable earth and took refuge beyond the stars, where, please
God, you and I shall one day confront her and get our long-defrauded
dues. Justice? Nay, nay! the thing I recognize as justice would crush
you utterly, and you should flee to the _Ultima Thule_ to avoid it. I
divine your mission. You come as envoy-extraordinary from my honorable
and chivalric husband, to demand release from the bonds that doom me
to wear his name and you to live without that spotless aegis? Since my
fortune no longer percolates through the sieve of his pocket, and
legal quibbles can not now avail to wring thousands from my purse, he
desires a divorce, in order to remove to your fair wrists the fetters
which have proved more galling to mine than those of iron."
"Evelyn, insult must not be heaped upon injury. As God hears me, I
tell you solemnly that you have seen your husband since I have. Upon
Maurice Carlyle's face I have never looked since that fatal hour when
I last saw yours, ghastly and rigid, against the background of
guava-boughs. From that day until this, I have neither seen, nor
spoken, nor written to him."
"Then why are you here, to torment me with the sight of your face,
which would darken the precincts of heaven, if I met it inside of the
gates of pearl?"
"I have come to exonerate myself from the aspersions that in your
frenzy you have cast upon me. Evelyn, I am here to prove that my
wrongs are greater than yours,--and if either should crave pardon, it
would best become you to sue for it at my hands. But for you, I should
have been a happy wife,--blessed with a devoted husband and fond
mother; and now in my loneliness I stand for vindication before her
who robbed me of every earthly hope, and blotted all light, all
verdure, all beauty from my life. You had known Maurice Carlyle six
weeks, when you gave him your hand. I had grown up at his side,--had
loved, trusted, prayed, and labored for him,--had been his promised
wife for seven dreary years of toil and separation, and was counting
the hours until the moment when he would lead me to the altar. Ah,
Evelyn,--"
A violent spell of coughing interrupted the governess, and when it
ended she did not complete the sentence.
Impatiently Mrs. Gerome motioned to her to continue, and, turning her
head which had been averted, the hostess saw that her guest was
endeavoring to stanch a stream of blood that trickled across her lips.
Involuntarily the former started forward and drew an easy-chair close
to the slender figure which leaned for support against the corner of
the piano.
"Are you ill? Pray sit down."
"It is only a hemorrhage from my lungs, which I have long had reason
to expect."
Wearily she sank into the chair, and hastily pouring a glass of water
from a gilt-starred crystal _carafe_, standing on the centre-table,
Mrs. Gerome silently offered it. As the governess drained and returned
the goblet, a drop of blood that stained the rim fell on the hand of
the mistress of the house.
Miss Dexter attempted to remove it with the end of her plaid shawl,
but her companion drew back, and taking a dainty, perfumed
handkerchief from her pocket, shook out its folds and said,
hastily,--
"It is of no consequence. I see your handkerchief is already
saturated; will you accept mine?"
Without waiting for a reply, she laid it on the lap of the visitor,
and left the room.
Soon after, a servant brought in a basin of water and towels, which
she placed on the table, and then, without question or comment,
withdrew.
Some time elapsed before Mrs. Gerome re-entered the parlor, bearing a
glass of wine in her hand. Miss Dexter had bathed her face, and,
looking up, she saw that the gray hair had been carefully coiled and
fastened, and the flowing merino belted at the waist; but the brow
wore its heavy cloud, and the arch of the lip had not unbent.
"I hope you are better. Permit me to insist upon your taking this
wine."
She proffered it, but the governess shook her head, and tears ran down
her cheeks, as she said,--
"Thank you,--but I do not require it; indeed I could not swallow it."
The hostess bowed, and, placing the glass within her reach, walked to
the window which looked out on the marble mausoleum, and stood leaning
against the cedarn facing.
Five, ten minutes passed, and the silence was only broken by the
ticking of the bronze clock on the mantelpiece.
"Evelyn."
The voice was so sweet, so thrilling, so mournfully pleading, that it
might have wooed even stone to pity; but Mrs. Gerome merely glanced
over her shoulder, and said, frigidly,--
"Can I in any way contribute to Miss Dexter's comfort? The servants
tell me there is no conveyance waiting for you; but, since you seem
too feeble to walk away, my carriage is at your service whenever you
wish to return. Shall I order it?"
"No, I will not trouble you. I can walk; and, after a little while, I
will go away forever. Evelyn, do you think me utterly unprincipled?"
A moment passed before she was answered.
"While you are in my house, courtesy forbids the expression of my
opinion of your character."
"Oh, Evelyn, my darling! God knows I have not merited this harshness,
this cruelty from your dear hands. Eight tedious, miserable years I
have searched and prayed for you,--have clung to the hope of finding
you, of telling you all,--of hearing your precious lips utter those
words for which my ears have so long ached, 'Edith, I hold you
guiltless of my wretchedness.' But at last, when my search is
successful, to be browbeaten, derided, denounced, insulted,--oh, this
is bitter indeed! This is too hard to be borne!"
Her anguish was uncontrollable, and she sobbed aloud.
Across Mrs. Gerome's white lips crept a quiver, and over her frozen
features rose an unwonted flush; but she did not move a muscle, or
suffer her eyes to wander from the cross and crown on Elsie's tomb.
"Evelyn, I believe, I hope (and may God forgive me if I sin in
hoping), that I have not many years, or perhaps even months to live;
and it would comfort me in my dying hour to feel that I had laid
before you some facts, of which I know you must be ignorant. You have
harshly and unjustly prejudged me,--have steeled yourself against me;
still I wish to tell you some things that weigh heavily upon my
aching, desolate heart. Will you allow me to do so now? Will you hear
me?"
There was evidently a struggle in the mind of the motionless woman
beside the window, but it was brief, and left no trace in the cold,
ringing voice.
"I will hear you."
Slowly and impressively the governess began the narrative, of which
she had given Dr. Grey a hasty _resume_, and when she mentioned the
midnight labors in which she had engaged, the copying of legal
documents, the sale of her drawings, the hoarding of her salary in
order to aid her mother and her betrothed, and to remove the obstacles
to her marriage, Mrs. Gerome sat down, and, crossing her arms on the
window-sill, hid her face upon them.
Unflinchingly Miss Dexter detailed all that occurred after her
arrival in New York; and finally, approaching the window, she insisted
that her listener should peruse the last letter received from her
lover, and containing the promise that within ten days he would come
to claim his bride. But the lovely hand waved it aside, and the proud
voice exclaimed impatiently,--
"I need no additional proof of his perfidy, which, beyond controversy,
was long ago established. Go on! go on!"
Upon all that followed the ceremony,--the departure of the wife,--and
her own despairing grief, the governess dwelt with touching eloquence
and pathos; and, at last, as she spoke of her fruitless journey to
England,--her sad search through the insane asylums,--Mrs. Gerome
lifted her queenly head, and bent a piercing glance upon the speaker.
Ah! what a hungry, eager expression looked out shyly from her whilom
hopeless eyes, when, with an imperious gesture, she silenced her
visitor, and asked,--
"You spent your hard earnings, not in _trousseau_, or preparations for
housekeeping; but hunting for me in lunatic asylums? Suppose you had
found me in a mad-house?"
"Then I should have become an inmate of the same gloomy walls; and,
while you lived, should have shared with faithful Elsie the care and
charge of you. God is my witness, I had resolved to dedicate my
remaining years to the task of cheering and guarding yours. Oh,
Evelyn! not until we stand in the great Court of Heaven can you
realize how sincerely, how tenderly, and unwaveringly, I love you. My
darling, how can you distrust my faithful heart?"
She sank on her knees, and, throwing her arms around the tall, slender
form, looked with mournful, beseeching tenderness at the haughty
features above her.
For a moment the proud, pale face glowed,--the great shadowy eyes
kindled and shone like wintry planets in some crystalline sky; but
doubt, murderous, cynical doubt, grappled with hope, and strangled
it.
"Edith, I wish I could believe you. I am struggling desperately to lay
hold of the fluttering garments of faith, but I cannot! Suspicion has
walked hand in hand with me so long that I cannot shake off her
numbing touch, and I distrust all human things, save the dusty heart
that moulders yonder in my old Elsie's grave."
She pointed to the white columns of the temple, and then the uplifted
fingers fell heavily on Edith's shoulder.
"Go on. I wish to learn whose treachery betrayed the secret of my
retreat."
Pressing her feverish lips to the hand she admired so enthusiastically,
Miss Dexter resumed her recital of what had occurred since her journey
to London, and finally ended it with an account of her removal to
'Grassmere,' and of the discovery of the miniatures that guided her to
'Solitude.'
A long pause followed, and a heavy sigh, only partially smothered,
indexed the contest that raged under Mrs. Gerome's calm exterior.
"Edith, would you have inferred from Dr. Grey's manner that he was not
only acquainted with my history, but yours, at least, so far as it
intersected mine? Did he furnish no hint, no clew, that aided you in
your search?"
"None whatever. On the contrary, he appeared so preoccupied, so
abstracted, that I reproached him with indifference to my troubles. It
is not possible that he knew all, while I briefly summed up a portion
of the past."
"At that moment he was thoroughly cognizant of everything that I could
tell him. But, at least, one honorable, trustworthy man yet graces the
race; one pure, incorruptible, and consistent Christian remains to
shed lustre upon a church that can nowhere boast his peer. I confided
all to Dr. Grey, and he has kept the trust. Ah, Edith, if you had only
reposed the same confidence in me, during those halcyon days of our
early friendship,--days that seem to me now as far off, as dim and
unreal, as those starry nights when I lay in my little crib, dreaming
of that mother whose face I never saw, whose smile is one of the
surprises and blessings reserved for eternity,--how different my lot
and yours might have been! Why did you not trust me with your happy
hopes, your lover's name and difficulties? How differently I would
have invested that fortune, which proved our common ruin, and doomed
three lives to uselessness and woe. To-day you might have proudly worn
the name that I utterly detest; and I, the outcast, the wanderer, the
tireless, friendless waif, drifting despairingly down the tide of
time,--even I, the unloved, might have been, not a solitary cumberer,
not a household upas,--but why taunt the hideous Actual with a blessed
and beautiful Impossible? Ah, truly, truly,--
"'What might have been, I know, is not:
What must be, must be borne;
But ah! what hath been will not be forgot,
Never, oh! never, in the years to follow!'"
She closed her eyes and seemed pondering the past, and mutely the
governess prayed that hallowed memories of their former affection
might soften her apparently petrified heart.
Edith saw a great change overspread the countenance, but could not
accurately interpret its import; and her own heart began to beat the
long-roll.
The heavy black eyelashes lying on Mrs. Gerome's marble cheeks
glistened, trembled, and tears stole slowly across her face. She
raised her hand, but dropped it in her lap, and frowned slightly and
sighed. Then she lifted it once more, and looking through the shining
mist that magnified her splendid eyes, she laid her fingers on the
golden head of the kneeling woman.
"You and I have innocently wronged and ruined each other; you with
your beauty, I with my accursed gold. Time was when at your bidding I
would have laid my throbbing heart at your feet, provided I could
thereby save you one pang; for I loved you as women very rarely love
one another. But now, lonely and hopeless, I have lost the power, the
capacity to love anything, and I have no heart left in my bosom. I
acquit you of much for which I formerly held you responsible, and I
honor the purity of purpose that forbade your receiving the visits or
letters of him who must one day answer for our worthless lives. I
fully forgive you the suffering that made me prematurely old; but my
affection is as dead as all my girlish hopes, and buried under the
crushing years that have dragged themselves over my poor, proud,
pain-bleached head. You are more fortunate, more enviable than I, for
you have the comforting anticipation of a speedy release, the precious
assurance that your torture will ere long be ended; while I must front
the prospect of perhaps fourscore and ten years: for, despite my ivory
skin and fever-blanched locks, I am maddeningly healthy. Friend of my
childhood, friend of my happy, sunny, sinless days, I cordially
congratulate you on your approaching deliverance. God knows I would
pay you my fortune, if I could innocently and successfully inject into
my veins and lungs the poison that will soon rob you of care and
regret. If I was harsh to-day, forgive and forget it, for nothing
rankles in the grave; and now, Edith, go away quickly, before I repent
and recant the words I here utter. God comfort you, Edith Dexter, and
remember that I hold you guiltless of my wrecked destiny."
"Oh, Evelyn! add one thing more. Say, 'Edith, I love you.'"
A strangely mournful smile parted Mrs. Gerome's perfect lips over her
dazzling teeth, as she pushed the kneeling figure from her, and said
coldly,--
"Rise, and leave me. I love no living thing, brute or human, for even
my faithful dog lies buried a few yards hence. Maurice treated my
warm, loving nature, as Tofana did her unsuspecting victims, and for
that slow poison there is no antidote. The sole interest I have in
life centres in my art, and when death mercifully remembers me, some
pictures I have patiently wrought out will be given to the public; and
the next generation will, perhaps,--
'Hear the world applaud the hollow ghost,
Which blamed the living woman,'
and, smiling grimly in my coffin, I shall echo,--
'Hither to come, and to sleep,
Under the wings of renown.'"
Both rose, and the two so long divided faced each other sorrowfully.
"Dear Evelyn, do not hug despair so stubbornly to your bosom. You
might brighten your solitary existence if you would, and be
comparatively happy in this lovely seaside home."
"You think 'Solitude' a very desirable and beautiful retreat? Do you
remember the gay raiment and glittering jewels that covered the
radiant bride of Giacopone di Todi? One day an accident at a public
festival mangled her mortally, and when her gorgeous garments were
torn off, lo!
'A robe of sackcloth next the smooth, white skin.'"
A sudden pallor crept over the delicate face of the governess, and,
folding her hands, she exclaimed with passionate vehemence,--
"I cannot, I must not shrink from the chief object of my visit here. I
came not only to exonerate myself, but to plead for poor Maurice."
Mrs. Gerome started back, and the pitiless gleam came instantly into
her softened eyes.
"Do not mention his name again. I thought you had neither seen nor
heard from him."
"I must plead his wretched cause, since he is denied the privilege
of appealing to your mercy. Evelyn, my friends write me that he is
almost in a state of destitution. Only last night I received this
letter, which I leave for your perusal, and which assures me he is in
want, and, moreover, is dangerously ill. Who has the right, the
privilege,--whose is the duty, imperative and stern, to hasten to his
bedside, to alleviate his suffering, to provide for his needs?
Yours, Evelyn Carlyle, and yours alone. Where are the marriage-vows
that you snatched from my lips eight years ago, and eagerly took
upon your own? Did you not solemnly swear in the presence of heaven
and earth to serve him and keep him in sickness, and, forsaking all
others, to hold him from that day forward, for better, for worse,
until death did part ye? Oh, Evelyn! do not scowl, and turn away.
However unworthy, he is your husband in the sight of God and man,
and your wedding oath calls you to him in this hour of his terrible
need. Can you sleep peacefully, knowing that he is tossing with
paroxysms of pain, and perhaps hungering and thirsting for that which
you could readily supply? If it were right,--if I dared, I would
hasten to him; but my conscience inexorably forbids the thought,
and consigns my heart to torture, for which there is no name. You
will tell me that you provided once, twice, for all reasonable
wants,--that he has recklessly squandered liberal allowances. But
will that satisfy your conscience, while you still possess ample
means to aid him? Will you permit the man whose name you bear to
live on other charity than your own,--and finally, to fill a
pauper's grave? Oh, Evelyn! was it for this that you took my darling,
my idol, from my clinging, loving arms? Will you see his body
writhing in the agony of disease, and his precious, immortal soul
in fearful jeopardy, while you stand afar off, surrounded by every
luxury that ingenuity can suggest, and gold purchase? Oh, Evelyn!
be merciful; do your duty. Like a brave, true, though injured woman,
go to Maurice, and strive to make him comfortable; to lighten, by
your pardon, his sad, heavily laden heart. By your past, your
memories of your betrothal, your hopes of heaven, and above all, by
your marriage vows, I implore you to discharge your sacred duties."
A bitter smile twisted the muscles about Mrs. Gerome's mouth, as she
gazed into the quivering, eloquent face of her companion, and listened
to the impetuous appeal that poured so pathetically over her burning
lips.
"Edith, you amaze me. Is it possible that after all your injuries you
can cling so fondly, so madly, to the man who slighted, and
humiliated, and blighted you?"
"Ah! you are his wife, and I am the ridiculed and pitied victim of his
flirtation, so says the world; but my affection outlives yours.
Evelyn, I have loved him from the time when I can first recollect; I
loved him with a deathless devotion that neither his unworthiness, nor
time, nor eternity can conquer; and to-day, I tell you that he is dear
to me,--dear to me as some precious corpse, over which a gravestone
has gathered moss for eight weary, dreary years. The angels in heaven
would not blush for the feeling in my heart towards Maurice Carlyle;
and the God who must soon judge me will not condemn the pure and
sacred love I cherish for the only man who could ever have been my
husband, but whom I have resolutely refused to see, even when the
world believed you dead. I cannot go to him, and comfort, and provide
for him now; but, in the name of God, and your oath, and if not for
your own sake, at least for his and for mine, I ask you once more,
Evelyn Carlyle, will you hasten to your erring but unhappy husband?"
Her scarlet cheeks and lips, her glowing brown eyes, and waving yellow
hair, formed a singular contrast to the colorless, cold face of her
listener; whose steely gaze was fixed on the distant sea, that lay
like a beryl mirror beneath the hazy sky.
When the sound of the sweet but strained voice had died away, Mrs.
Gerome turned her eyes towards the governess, and answered,--
"I will do my duty, no matter how revolting."
"Thank God! When will you go?"
"If at all, at once."
"Evelyn, when you come home, will you not let me see you, now and
then, and win my way back to my old place in your dear heart? Oh! my
pale, peerless darling, do not deny me this."
"Home? I have no home. My heart is grayer than my head,--and your old
niche is full of dust, and skeletons, and murdered hopes. Let me see
you no more in this world; and perhaps in the Everlasting Rest I shall
forget my hideous past, which your face recalls."
"Oh, my poor bruised darling! do not banish me," wailed the governess,
endeavoring to fold her arms about the queenly form, which silently
but effectually held her back.
"At least, dear Evelyn, let me kiss you once more, in token that you
cherish no bitterness against me."
"Good-by, Edith. I hold you innocent of my injuries. May God help you,
and call us both speedily to our dreamless sleep under moss and
marble."
She bent down, and with firm, icy lips, lightly touched the forehead
of the governess, and walked away, unheeding the burst of tears with
which the frigid caress was welcomed.
"And I think, in the lives of most women and men,
There's a moment when all would go smooth and even,
If only the dead could find out when
To come back, and be forgiven."