On the second day succeeding that on which Dora had been sent for,
Beatrice Earle was to be laid in her grave. The servants of the
household, who had dearly loved their beautiful young mistress, had
taken their last look at her face. Lady Helena had shed her last tears
over it. Lord Airlie had asked to be alone for a time with his dead
love. They had humored him, and for three long hours he had knelt by
her, bidding her a sorrowful farewell, taking his last look at the face
that would never again smile on earth for him.
They respected the bitterness of his uncontrollable sorrow; no idle
words of sympathy were offered to him; men passed him by with an
averted face--women with tearful eyes.
Lord Earle was alone with his dead child. In a little while nothing
would remain of his beautiful, brilliant daughter but a memory and a
name. He did not weep; his sorrow lay too deep for tears. In his
heart he was asking pardon for the sins and follies of his youth; his
face was buried in his hands, his head bowed over the silent form of
his loved child; and when the door opened gently, he never raised his
eyes--he was only conscious that some one entered the room, and walked
swiftly up the gloomy, darkened chamber to the bedside. Then a
passionate wailing that chilled his very blood filled the rooms.
"My Beatrice, my darling! Why could I not have died for you?"
Some one bent over the quiet figure, clasping it in tender arms,
calling with a thousand loving words upon the dear one who lay
there--some one whose voice fell like a strain of long-forgotten music
upon his ears. Who but a mother could weep as she did? Who but a
mother forget everything else in the abandonment of her sorrow, and
remember only the dead?
Before he looked up, he knew it was Dora--the mother bereft of her
child--the mother clasping in her loving arms the child she had nursed,
watched, and loved for so many years. She gazed at him, and he never
forgot the woeful, weeping face.
"Ronald," she cried, "I trusted my darling to you; what has happened to
her?"
The first words for many long years--the first since he had turned
round upon her in his contempt, hoping he might be forgiven for having
made her his wife.
She seemed to forget him then, and laid her head down upon the quiet
heart; but Ronald went round to her. He raised her in his arms, he
laid the weeping face on his breast, he kissed away the blinding tears,
and she cried to him:
"Forgive me, Ronald--forgive me! You can not refuse in the hour of
death."
How the words smote him. They were his own recoiling upon him. How
often he had refused his mother's pleading--hardened his own heart,
saying to himself and to her that he could not pardon her yet--he would
forgive her in the hour of death, when either he or she stood on the
threshold of eternity!
Heaven had not willed it so. The pardon he had refused was wrung from
him now; and, looking at his child, he felt that she was sacrificed to
his blind, willful pride.
"You will forgive me, Ronald," pleaded the gentle voice, "for the love
of my dead child? Do not send me from you again. I have been very
unhappy all these long years; let me stay with you now. Dear, I was
beside myself with jealousy when I acted as I did."
"I forgive you," he said, gently, "can you pardon me as easily, Dora?
I have spoiled your life--I have done you cruel wrong; can you forget
all, and love me as you did years ago?"
All pride, restraint, and anger were dead. He whispered loving words
to his weeping wife, such as she had not heard for years; and he could
have fancied, as he did so, that a happy smile lingered on the fair
face of the dead.
No, it was but the light of a wax taper flickering over it; the
strange, solemn beauty of that serene brow and those quiet lips were
unstirred.
Half an hour afterward Lady Helena, trembling from the result of her
experiment, entered the room. She saw Ronald's arms clasped round
Dora, while they knelt side by side.
"Mother," said Lord Earle, "my wife has pardoned me. She is my own
again--my comfort in sorrow."
Lady Earle touched Dora's face with her lips, and told what her errand
was. They must leave the room now--the beautiful face of Beatrice
Earle was to be hidden forever from the sight of men.
* * * * *
That evening was long remembered at Earlescourt; for Lady Dora
thenceforward took her rightful position. She fell at once into the
spirit of the place, attending to every one and thinking of every one's
comfort.
Lillian was fighting hard for her young life. She seemed in some vague
way to understand that her mother was near. Lady Dora's hand soothed
and calmed her, her gentle motherly ways brought comfort and rest; but
many long days passed before Lillian knew those around her, or woke
from her troubled, feverish dream. When she did so, her sister had been
laid to rest in her long, last home.
* * * * *
People said afterward that no fairer day had ever been than that on
which Beatrice Earle was buried. The sun shone bright and warm, the
birds were singing, the autumn flowers were in bloom, as the long
procession wound its way through the trees in the park; the leaves fell
from the trees, while the long grass rustled under the tread of many
feet.
Lord Earle and Hubert Airlie were together. Kindly hearts knew not
which to pity the more--the father whose heart seemed broken by his
sorrow, or the young lover so suddenly bereft of all he loved best.
From far and near friends and strangers gathered to that mournful
ceremony; from one to another the story flew how beautiful she was, and
how dearly the young lord had loved her, how she had wandered out of
the house in her sleep and fallen into the lake.
They laid her to rest in the green church-yard at the foot of the
hill--the burial place of the Earles.
* * * * *
The death bell had ceased ringing; the long white blinds of the Hall
windows were drawn up; the sunshine played once more in the rooms; the
carriages of sorrowing friends were gone; the funeral was over. Of the
beautiful, brilliant Beatrice Earle there remained but a memory.
They told afterward how Gaspar Laurence watched the funeral procession,
and how he had lingered last of all in the little church-yard. He
never forgot Beatrice; he never looked into the face of another woman
with love on his own.
It was all over, and on the evening of that same day a quiet, deep
sleep came to Lillian Earle. It saved her life; the wearied brain
found rest. When she awoke, the lurid light of fever died out of her
eyes, and they looked in gratified amazement upon Lady Dora who sat by
her side.
"Mamma," she whispered, "am I at home at Knutsford?"
Dora soothed her, almost dreading the time when memory should awaken in
full force. It seemed partly to return then, for Lillian gave vent to
a wearied sigh, and closed her eyes.
Then Dora saw a little of wild alarm cross her face. She sprang up
crying:
"Mamma, is it true? Is Beatrice dead?"
"It is true, my darling," whispered her mother, gently. "Dead, but not
lost to us--only gone before."
The young girl recovered very slowly. The skillful doctor in
attendance upon her sad that, as soon as it was possible to remove her,
she should be carried direct from her room to a traveling carriage,
taken from home, and not allowed to return to the Hall until she was
stronger and better.
They waited until that day came, and meanwhile Lady Dora Earle learned
to esteem Lord Airlie very dearly. He seemed to find more comfort with
her than with any one else. They spoke but of one subject--the loved,
lost Beatrice.
Her secret was never known. Lord Earle and Lionel Dacre kept it
faithfully. No allusion to it ever crossed their lips. To Lord
Airlie, while he lived, the memory of the girl he had loved so well was
pure and untarnished as the falling snow. Not even to her mother was
the story told. Dora believed, as did every one else, that Beatrice
had fallen accidentally into the lake.
When Lillian grew stronger--better able to bear the mention of her
sister's name--Lord Earle went to her room one day, and, gently enough,
tried to win her to speak to him of what she knew.
She told him all--of her sister's sorrow, remorse, and tears; her
longing to be free from the wretched snare in which she was caught; how
she pleaded with her to interfere. She told him of her short interview
with the unhappy man, and its sad consequences for her.
Then the subject dropped forever. Lord Earle said nothing to her of
Lionel, thinking it would be better for the young lover to plead his
own cause.
One morning, when she was able to rise and sit up for a time, Lionel
asked permission to see her. Lady Dora, who knew nothing of what had
passed between them, unhesitatingly consented.
She was alarmed when, as he entered the room, she saw her daughter's
gentle face grow deathly pale.
"I have done wrong," she said. "Lillian is not strong enough to see
visitors yet."
"Dear Lady Dora," explained Lionel, taking her hand, "I love Lillian;
and she loved me before I was so unhappy as to offend her. I have come
to beg her pardon. Will you trust her with me for a few minutes?"
Lady Dora assented, and went away, leaving them together.
"Lillian," said Lionel, "I do not know in what words to beg your
forgiveness. I am ashamed and humbled. I know your sister's story,
and all that you did to save her. When one was to be sacrificed, you
were the victim. Can you ever forgive me?"
"I forgive you freely," she gently answered. "I have been in the
Valley of the Shadow of Death, and all human resentment and unkindness
seem as nothing to me."
"And may I be to you as I was before?" he asked.
"That is another question," she said. "I can not answer it now. You
did not trust me, Lionel."
Those were the only words of reproach she ever uttered to him. He did
not annoy her with protestation; he trusted that time would do for him
what he saw just then he could not do for himself.
He sat down upon the couch by her side, and began to speak to her of
the tour she was about to make; of the places she should visit
carefully avoiding all reference to the troubled past.
Three days afterward Lillian started on her journey to the south of
France insisted upon by the doctor. Lord Earle and his wife took
charge of their child; Lord Airlie, declaring he could not yet endure
Lynnton, went with them. Lady Helena and Lionel Dacre remained at
home, in charge of the Hall and the estate.
One thing the latter had resolved upon--that, before the travelers
returned, the lake should be filled up, and green trees planted over
the spot where its waters now glistened in the sun.
No matter how great the expense and trouble, he was resolved that it
should be done.
"Earlescourt would be wretched," he said, "if that fatal lake remained."
The day after the family left Earlescourt, he had workmen engaged. No
one was sorry at his determination. Lady Helena highly approved of it.
The water was drained off, the deep basin filled with earth, and tall
saplings planted where once the water had glistened in the sun. The
boat house was pulled down, and all vestige of the lake was done away
with.
Lionel Dacre came home one evening from the works in very low spirits.
Imbedded in the bottom of the lake they had found a little slipper--the
fellow to it was locked away in Dora's drawer. He saved it to give it
to her when she returned.