THE VOICE OF PASSION.
Vyner soon recovered from the double shock he had sustained, and was
now quite happy again with his two girls, and his excellent friend
Heath, as his constant companions; while Julius and Rose were seldom
two days absent from them.
For the sake of Blanche they now returned to Wytton Hall, and there
her health was slowly but steadily restored.
Captain Heath was her companion in almost every walk and drive;
reading to her the books she wished; daily becoming a greater
favourite with little Rose Blanche, who would leave even her nurse to
come to him; and daily feeling serener, as his love grew not deeper,
but less unquiet: less, as he imagined, like a lover's love, and more
like that of an elder brother.
Blanche was happier with him than with any one else; not that she
loved him, not even that she divined his love; since Cecil's death,
his manner had been even less demonstrative than it had ever been
before, and it would have been impossible for the keenest observer to
have imagined there was anything like love in his attentions.
What quiet blissful months those were which they then passed: Vyner
once more absorbed in his Horace; Blanche daily growing stronger, and
less melancholy; Heath living as one in a dream; Violet hearing, with
a woman's pride in him she loves, of Marmaduke's immense success in
parliament, where he was already looked up to as the future Chatham
or Burke.
Every time Violet saw Marmaduke's name in the papers, her heart
fluttered against the bars of its prison, and she groaned at the idea
of being separated from him. Indeed her letters to Rose were so full
of Marmaduke, that Rose planned with Julius a little scheme to bring
the two unexpectedly together, as soon as Violet returned to town.
"I am sure Violet loves him," said Rose; "I don't at all understand
what has occurred to separate them. Violet is silent on the point,
and is uneasy if I allude to it. But don't you agree with me,
Julius, that she must love him?"
"I think it very probable."
"Probable! Why not certain?"
"Because, you know, I am apt to be suspicious on that subject."
"I know you are," she said, laughing and shaking her locks at him,
"and a pretty judge you are of a woman's heart!"
Julius allowed himself to be persuaded that Violet really did love
Marmaduke, and accordingly some weeks afterwards, when the Vyners had
returned, Julius arranged a pic-nic in which Marmaduke was to join,
without Violet's knowledge. Fearful lest she should refuse to
accompany them if she saw him before starting, it was agreed that
Marmaduke should meet them at Richmond.
Imagine with what feverish impatience he awaited them, and with what
a sinking, anxious heart he appeared amongst them. Violet blushed,
and looked at Rose; the laughter in her eyes plainly betrayed her
share in the plot, in defiance of the affected gravity of her face.
He shook hands with such of the company as he knew personally, was
introduced to the others, and then quietly seated himself beside
Violet, in a manner so free from either embarrassment or gallantry,
that it put her quite at her ease. She had determined, from the
first, to frustrate Rose's kindly-intentioned scheme; and she felt
that she had strength enough to do so. But his manner at once
convinced her that, however he might have been brought there, it was
with no intention of taking any advantage of their meeting to open
forbidden subjects.
Marmaduke was in high spirits, and talked quite brilliantly. Violet
was silent; but from time to time, as he turned to address a remark
to her, he saw her look of admiration, and that inspired him.
I need not describe the pic-nic, for time presses, and pic-nics are
all very much alike. Enough if we know that the day was spent
merrily and noisily, and that dinner was noisier and merrier than
all: the champagne drank, amounting to something incredible.
Evening was drawing in. The last rays of a magnificent sunset were
fading in the western sky, and the cool breeze springing up warned
the company that it was time to prepare for their return.
The boisterous gaiety of the afternoon and dinner had ceased. Every
one knows the effect of an exhilarating feast, followed by a listless
exhausted hour or two; when the excitement produced by wine and
laughter has passed away, a lassitude succeeds, which in poetical
minds induces a tender melancholy, in prosaic minds a desire for
stimulus or sleep.
As the day went down, all the guests were exhausted, except Marmaduke
and Violet, who, while the others were gradually becoming duller and
duller, had insensibly wandered away, engrossed in the most
enchanting conversation.
"Did I not tell you?" whispered Rose, as she pointed out to Julius
the retreating figures of her sister and Marmaduke.
Away the lovers wandered, and although their hearts were full of
love, although their eyes were speaking it as eloquently as love can
speak, not a syllable crossed their lips which could be referred to
it. A vague yearning--a dim, melancholy, o'ermastering feeling held
its empire over their souls. The witching twilight, closing in so
strange a day, seemed irresistibly to guide their thoughts into that
one channel which they had hitherto so dexterously avoided. Her hand
was on his arm--he pressed it tenderly, yet gently--so gently!--to
his side. He gazed into her large lustrous eyes, and intoxicated by
their beauty and tenderness, he began to speak.
"It is getting late. We must return. We must separate. Oh!
Violet, before we separate, tell me that it is not for ever----"
"Marmaduke!" she stammered out, alarmed.
"Dearest, dearest Violet, we shall meet again--you will let me see
you--will you not?"
She was silent, struggling.
They walked on a few paces; then he again said,--
"You will not banish me entirely--you will from time to time----"
"No, Marmaduke," she said, solemnly; "no, it will not be right. You
need not look so pained--I--have I nothing to overcome when I forego
the delight of seeing you? But it must not be. You know that it
cannot be."
"I know nothing of the kind!" he impetuously exclaimed; "I only know
that you do not love me!"
She looked reproachfully at him; but his head was turned away.
"Cold, cold as marble," he muttered as they walked on.
She did not answer him. Lovers are always unreasonable and unjust.
He was furious at her "coldness;" she was hurt at his
misunderstanding her. She could have implored him to be more
generous; but he gave her no encouragement--he spoke no word--kept
his look averted. Thus neither tried to explain away the other's
misconception; neither smoothed the other's ruffled anger. In
silence they walked on, environed by their pride. The longer they
kept silent, the bitterer grew their feelings;--the more he
internally reprobated her for coldness, the more she was hurt at his
refusal to acknowledge the justness of her resolution, after all that
had passed between them by letter.
In this painful state of feeling, they joined their companions just
as the boats were got ready.
Rose looked inquiringly at Violet; but Violet averted her head.
Julius was troubled to perceive the evident anger of Marmaduke.
The boats pushed off. The evening was exquisite, and Rose murmured
to Julius the words of their favourite Leopardi:--
Dolce e chiara è la notte, e senza vento,
E queta sovra i tetti e in mezzo agli orti
Posa la luna, e di lontan rivela
Serena ogni montagna.
Wearied by the excitement of the day, they were almost all plunged in
reveries from which they made no effort to escape. The regular dip
of the oars in the water, and the falling drops shaken from them, had
a musical cadence, which fell deliciously on the ear. It was a
dreamy scene. The moon rose, and shed her gentle light upon them, as
they moved along, in almost unbroken silence, upon the silver stream.
The last twitter of the birds had ceased; the regular and soothing
sounds of the oars alone kept them in a sort of half consciousness of
being awake.
Marmaduke and Violet were suffering tortures. She occasionally stole
a glance at him, and with redoubled pain read upon his haughty face
the expression of anger and doubt which so much distressed her. The
large tears rolled over her face. She leaned over the boat side to
hide them, and as she saw the river hurrying on beneath her, she
thought of the unhappy Cecil, and of his untimely end. Over his
dishonoured corpse had this cold river flowed, as gently as now it
flowed beneath her... From Cecil her thoughts wandered to Wytton
Hall, and her early inclination for him--to her scene in the field
with the bull--to her first meeting with Marmaduke; and then she
thought no more of Cecil.
Thus they were rowed through the silent evening. On reaching town,
the party dispersed.
Marmaduke and Violet separated with cold politeness, and each went
home to spend a miserable night.
For some days did Marmaduke brood over her refusal, and as he
reflected on the strength of her character, and the slight
probability that she would ever yield--her very frankness told him
that--he took a sudden and very loverlike resolution that he would
quit England, and return to Brazil.
Preparations for his departure were not delayed an instant, and with
his usual impetuosity he had completed every arrangement before
another would have fairly commenced.
Leave-taking began. He wrote to Vyner announcing his intention, and
saying that he proposed doing himself the pleasure of bidding them
adieu. He had the faint hope, which was very faint, that Violet
might be present, and that he might see her for the last time.
Lovers attach a very particular importance to a last farewell, and
angry as Marmaduke was with Violet, the idea of quitting England for
ever, without once more seeing her, was extremely painful to him.
It was a dull, drizzly day, enough to depress the most elastic of
temperaments. Violet was in her father's study, looking out upon the
mist of rain and cloud, debating with herself whether she should be
present during Marmaduke's visit or not. After what had passed, she
tried to persuade herself that it was fortunate he was going to quit
England, fearing that her resolution would never hold out against his
renewed entreaties; but it was in vain she sophisticated with
herself, her heart told her that she was wretched, intensely wretched
at his departure.
Her father's voice roused her from this reverie, and she passed into
the drawing-room, where a few minutes afterwards the servant entered,
and announced "Mr. Ashley."
A stream of fire seemed suddenly to pour along her veins; but by the
time he had shaken hands with Vyner and Blanche, and had turned to
her, she was comparatively calm. His face was very sallow, and there
was a nervous quivering of his delicate nostrils, which indicated the
emotion within, but which was unobserved by her, as her eyes were
averted.
The conversation was uneasy and common-place. Marmaduke's manner was
calm and composed, but his voice was low. Violet sat with her eyes
upon the carpet, deadly pale, and with colourless lips. Blanche, who
did not quite understand the relation between them, but who knew that
Violet loved him, was anxious on her account. Vyner alone was glib
and easy. He talked of parliament, and remarked, that the best thing
he knew of it was, that the members always quoted Horace.
As the interview proceeded, Marmaduke's grave, cold manner became
slightly tinged with irony and bitterness; and when Vyner said to
him, "Apropos, what--if the question be permissible--what induces you
to leave us? are you to be away long?"
He replied, with a marked emphasis, "Very long."
"Is Brazil, then, so very attractive?"
"England ceases to be attractive. I want breathing space. There I
can, as Tennyson sings,--
'Burst all the links of habit--there to wander far away,
On from island unto island, at the gateways of the day.'"
Blanche, mildly interposing, said,--
"But what does he also sing, and in the same poem?
'Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.'"
Violet's eyes were fixed upon the ground.
"And, after all--poetry aside--what are you going to do with yourself
in that hot climate?"
"To marry, perhaps," he said, carelessly, and with a forced laugh.
Violet shook all over; but she did not raise her eyes.
"An heiress?" asked Vyner.
"No,--to continue Tennyson,--
'I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.'"
There was singular bitterness, as he added,--
"In those climates, the passions are not cramped by the swaddling
clothes of civilisation; their franker natures better suit my own
impulsiveness; when they love they love--they do not stultify their
hearts with intricate sophisms."
Violet now raised her large eyes, and, with mournful steadiness,
reproached him by a look, for the words he had just uttered. He met
her look with one as steady, but flashing with scorn.
"Well, for my part," said Vyner, tapping his snuff-box, "Brazil would
have little attraction for me, especially if the women are violent.
I can't bear violent women."
Marmaduke had expected some remark from Violet in answer to his
speech; but that one look was her only answer, and she was now as
intently examining the carpet as before. He noticed her paleness,
and the concentrated calmness of her manner, and it irritated him the
more.
Blanche, with true feminine sagacity, saw it was desirable, in every
case, that Violet should have an opportunity of speaking with him
alone, so walked out of the room, and in a few minutes sent the
servant with a message to Vyner that he was wanted for an instant
down stairs.
The lovers were now alone, and horribly embarrassed. They wanted to
break the uneasy silence, but neither of them could utter a word.
At last Violet, feeling that it was imperative on her to say
something, murmured, without looking at him,--
"And when do you start?"
"On Monday."
Another pause ensued; perhaps worse this time than before, because of
the unsuccessful attempt.
"I wonder whether it still rains?" he said, after a few moments'
silence, and walked to the window to look out.
Left thus sitting by herself--an emblem of the far more terrible
desertion which was to follow--Violet looked in upon her desolate
heart, and felt appalled at the prospect. The imperious cry of
passion sounded within her, and would not be gagged: the pent-up tide
burst away the barriers, and rushed precipitately onwards, carrying
before it all scruples like straws upon a stream.
"Marmaduke!" she exclaimed.
He turned from the window; she had half-risen from her seat; he
walked up to her.
She flung herself into his arms.
"Is this true, Violet? Speak--are you mine--mine?"
She pressed him closer to her. It is only men who find words in such
moments; and Marmaduke was as eloquent as love and rapture could make
him.
When she did speak, it was in a low fluttering tone, her pale face
suffused with blushes, as she told him, that to live apart from him
was _impossible_;--either he must stay, or take her with him.
Meanwhile, Vyner had been prettily rated by Blanche for his dulness
in not perceiving that the lovers wanted to be alone.
"But are you certain, Blanche, that they are lovers? For my part, I
wish it were so; but although Violet certainly has a regard for him,
I have reason to believe, that he has none for her."
Blanche sighed and said,--
"Then let us go back, for in that case, they will only be
uncomfortable together."
* * * * * *
_N.B._--The journey to Brazil was indefinitely postponed.
EPILOGUE.
1845.
"Je l'aurais supprimée si j'écrivais un roman; je sais que l'héroine
ne doit avoir qu'un goùt; qu'il doit être pour quelqu'un de parfait
et ne jamais finir; mais le vrai est comme il peut, et n'a de mérite
que d'être ce qu'il est."
MADAME DE STAAL DE LAUNAY.
The moon was serenely shining one soft July night, exactly ten years
from the date of the prologue to this long drama, when a young woman
crept stealthily from the door of an old and picturesque-looking
house, at the extremity of the town of Angoulême, and with many
agitated glances thrown back, as one who feared pursuit, ran, rather
than walked, on to the high road.
The moonbeams falling on that pale, wan, terror-stricken face,
revealed the scarcely recognisable features of the gay, daring,
fascinating girl, whom ten years before we saw upon the sands, behind
Mrs. Henley's house, parting, in such hysterical grief, from the
lover whom she then thought never could be absent from her heart, and
whom a few months afterwards she jilted for twelve thousand a year.
Yes, that pale, wan woman was Mrs. Meredith Vyner; and she fled from
the man for whom she had sacrificed her name!
Her face was a pathetic commentary upon her life. No longer were
those tiger eyes lighted up with the fire of daring triumph, no
longer were those thin lips curled with a smiling cruel coquetry, no
longer drooped those golden ringlets with a fairy grace. The eyes
were dull with grief; the lips were drawn down with constant
fretfulness; the whole face sharpened with constant fear and
eagerness. Her beauty had vanished--her health was broken--her
gaiety was gone. Crushed in spirit, she was a houseless fugitive,
escaping from the most hateful of tyrants.
Retribution, swift and terrible, had fallen upon her head. From the
moment when, in obedience to that wild impulse, she had fled from her
husband with her saturnine lover, her life had been one protracted
torture. Better, oh! better far, would it have been for her to have
refused him, and to have died by his hand, than to have followed him
to such misery as she had endured!
It would take me long to recount in detail the sad experience of the
last two years. She found herself linked to a man, whose diabolical
temper made her shudder when he frowned, and whose mad, unreasonable,
minute jealousy kept her in constant terror. She dared not look at
another man. She was never allowed to quit his sight for an instant.
If she sighed, it made him angry; if she wept, it drew down
reproaches upon her, and insinuations that she repented of the step
she had taken, and wished to leave him. A day's peace or happiness
with such a man was impossible. He had none of the amiable qualities
which might have made her forget her guilty position. Dark,
passionate, suspicious, ungenerous, and exacting, he was always
brooding over the difference between the claims he made upon her
admiration and love, and the mode in which she responded to those
claims. His tyrannous vanity, could only have been propitiated by
the most abject and exorbitant adulation--adulation in word, look,
and act. She had sacrificed herself, but that was only one act, and
he demanded a continued sacrifice. No woman had ever loved him
before, yet nothing less than idolatry, or the simulation of it,
would content him. He could not understand how she should have any
other thought than that of ministering to his exacting vanity.
Now, of all women, Mrs. Vyner was the last to be capable of such a
passion; and certainly, under such circumstances, no woman could have
given way to the passion, had she felt it. In constant terror and
perpetual remorse, what time had she for the subtleties of love? She
dreaded and despised him. She saw that her fate was inextricably
inwoven with his; and--what a humiliation!--she saw that he did not
love her!
No, Maxwell did not love her. She had not been with him a month
before he became aware of the fact himself. It is a remark I have
often made, that men thwarted in their desires confound their own
wilfulness with depth of passion. With fierce energy, they will move
heaven and earth to gain what, when gained, they disregard. This is
usually considered as a proof of the strength of their love; it only
shows the strength of their self-love.
It was Maxwell's irritated vanity which made him so persisting in his
pursuit of Mrs. Vyner. It was his wounded vanity which made him
capable of murdering her; not his love: for love, even when wounded,
is still a generous feeling;--it is sympathy, and admits no hate.
What, then, was Maxwell's object in living with Mrs. Vyner after the
discovery that he did not really love her? Why did he not quit her,
or at least allow her to quit him?
His vanity! precisely that: the same exacting vanity which prompted
all his former actions, prompted this. He felt that she did not
idolize him; he knew she would be glad to quit him;--and there was
torture in the thought. Had she really loved him with passionate
self-oblivion, he would have deserted her. As it was, the same
motive which had roused his desire for her possession, which had made
him force her to sacrifice everything for his sake, was as active now
as then. If she left him, he was still, except for the one act of
her elopement, as far from his goal as before.
It may seem strange that, not loving her, he should prize so highly
the demonstrations of affection from her; but those who have probed
the dark and intricate windings of the heart, know the persistency of
an unsatisfied desire, and, above all, know the tyrannous nature of
vanity. To this must be added the peculiar condition of Maxwell: the
condition of a man intensely vain, who had never before been loved,
and who had, as it were, staked his existence on subduing this one
woman's heart.
What a life was theirs! A life of ceaseless suspicion, and of
ceaseless dread--of bitter exasperation, and of keen remorse--of
unsatisfied demands, and of baffled hope.
It lasted nearly two years. Then Maxwell, at the conclusion of some
brutal quarrel, burst another bloodvessel, and his life was despaired
of. Mary was his nurse; he would have no other. She had to sit up
with him; to attend upon him; to submit to his petty irritability,
made worse by illness; to watch him in his restless slumbers, hoping
that each time he closed his eyes would be the last.
One night--it was the very night on which this chapter opened--she
sat by his side absorbed in gloomy thought. The candle was flaring
in the socket. Everything was still. The dying man slept
peacefully. With her hands drooping upon her lap, she sat allowing
her thoughts to wander; and they wandered into the dim future, when,
released from her tyrant, she was once more a happy woman. Long did
she indulge in that sweet reverie, and when it ceased, she turned her
head mechanically to look upon the sleeper. He was wide awake: his
dull eyes were fixed intently upon her; and a shiver ran all over her
body as she met that gaze!
"_I am not dead yet!_" he said, as if he had interpreted her thoughts.
She trembled slightly. With a sneer, he closed his eyes again.
Silently she sat by his side, communing with her own dark thoughts.
He slept again; slept soundly. She rose, and moved about the room;
it did not awaken him. She took courage:--crept down stairs,
unfastened the door--and fled.
Fled, and left her tyrant dying;--fled, and left him without a human
being to attend upon him--left him to die there like a dog; or to
recover, if it should chance so. She cared not; her only thought was
flight; and, winged with terror, she flew from the accursed home of
guilt and wretchedness; and felt her heart beat distractedly, as, a
homeless, penniless wanderer, she urged her steps along that dusty
road under the quiet shining moon.
Ten days afterwards, Meredith Vyner received a long letter from his
wife, detailing the misery of her penniless condition, and imploring
pecuniary aid. The poor, old man wept bitterly over the letter, and
again reproached himself with having been the cause of her ruin. He
could not forget that he had loved her--had been happy with her. He
forgave her for not having loved one so old as himself; and wrote to
her the following reply:--
WYTTON HALL, 2nd August, 1845.
"MY DEAR WIFE,
"We have both need of forgiveness--you have mine. I know I am not
young enough to be loved by you:
Durum! sed levius fit patientia
Quidquid corrigere est nefas,
as our favourite says--not that the quotation is very good. But if
you can have patience, as I can have; if you can forget all
'incompatibilities,' and live quietly and not unhappily with me, come
back again, and all shall be forgotten. I will do my best to make
you happy, I promise that nothing of what has passed shall ever be
recurred to. You shall again be mistress of my house and fortune.
"But I do not wish to _force_ you even to this. If, on deliberate
reflection, you think you cannot live comfortably with me, I have
given instructions to Messrs. Barton and Hadley to remit you,
wherever you may choose to reside, eight hundred pounds a year. Upon
this you can live in all comfort in France. With every wish for your
happiness,
"Believe me, my dear Wife,
"Yours affectionately,
"H. S. MEREDITH VYNER."
This letter never reached Mrs. Vyner. Believing that her application
had been treated with the silent scorn it deserved, she left the
town, and toiled her way to a neighbouring town, where a young woman,
formerly one of her maids, kept a small _magazin de modes_, and
offered a temporary asylum. There she endeavoured to earn a
subsistence by teaching English; and at first, success crowned her
efforts; but having been recognised by an English traveller spending
a few days there, the fact of her having eloped from her husband
became bruited about, and all her pupils left her.
She was forced to quit the place, and to seek refuge and oblivion in
Paris. What bitter humiliations, and what severe trials, she had
there to undergo may be readily conceived. A mystery hangs over her
fate; she was seen once on the _Boulevard du Temple_, miserably
dressed, and so aged by suffering, that every trace of beauty had
disappeared; but nothing has since been heard of her.
Concerning the other persons of this tale, I have few particulars to
add.
Mrs. Langley Turner has married Lord ----, and now gives as many
parties as before, only they are fearfully dull: perhaps because so
much more "select;" for it is a very serious truth, that your high
people are anything but entertaining.
Frank Forrester has seen many ups and downs; but the last time I saw
him, his cab splashed me with mud as I lounged down St.
James's-street.
Rose has two chubby children, who promise to have the spirit of the
mother; they keep the nursery in a constant uproar!
Violet has one large, dark-eyed, solemn boy, who, though not a
twelvemonth old, looks at you with such thoughtful seriousness, that
you are puzzled what to say to him; and I refrained tickling him
under the chin, lest he should consider it as unseemly trifling; and
as to talking to him about his tootsy-pootsies being vezzy
pitty--that never could enter the mind even of the most ignorant
nurse.
Marmaduke continues his political career with dignity and success;
Violet cheering him on, and loving him with all her large heart, so
that Rose declares, except herself and Julius, she knows of nobody so
happy as these two;--Violet disputes the exception.
And Captain Heath? The narration of his happiness is a _bonne
bouche_ I have reserved for the last.
The whole family were at Wytton Hall, and though so happy in
themselves, frequent were their inquiries as to when the captain was
to come down--only one person never asked that question, and that
person was Blanche; the reason of her silence I leave to be guessed.
He came at last; came not to see the mild, affectionate greeting of a
sister from his much loved Blanche, but the delight, embarrassment,
and pain of one who loved and dared not avow it. He had been absent
three months. During that absence, she discovered her love. At
first, she merely felt a certain weariness; next, succeeded
melancholy; next, impatience to see him; and finally, the yearning of
her heart proclaimed she loved him.
Yes: such is the imperfection of poor human nature, that it cannot
reach the circulating library standard; with our best efforts to be
forlorn and disconsolate, we _will_ accept of society and
consolation; with the strongest idea of the virtue of constancy, a
loving heart cannot but love!
Blanche was embarrassed when she saw her lover again! and he, poor
fellow! was too modest to understand her embarrassment. In vain did
they ramble about the grounds together, not a syllable did he breathe
of his love. Blanche began to be almost fretful.
One morning they were playing with Rose Blanche together, and the
little toddler having climbed upon his knee, declared she intended to
"mazzy Captain Heath some day;" upon which her mama said a _leetle_
pettishly: "No, my darling, Captain Heath is not a _marrying man_.
He is to be an old bachelor."
Captain Heath made no reply, for he could not tell her why he was
condemned to be an old bachelor.
Yet, that very afternoon, as they were strolling through the wood
together, and the conversation turned upon her child, he was moved by
some mysterious impulse, to take her hand in his, and with a
faltering voice, to say,--
"Blanche ... dearest Blanche ... forgive me for what I am now going
to say ... refuse the offer if you will, but do not be offended with
me for making it ... Your child, Blanche, is growing up ... She will
soon need a better protector than even your love ... she ... I hope
you will not misunderstand me ... I know you cannot love me ...
though I have loved you so many years ... but I am grown used to that
... I have loved you, Blanche, for years, scarcely ever with the hope
of a return, and latterly, with the certainty, that my love was
hopeless ... But when I offer myself as a husband ... as a protector
to you, and to your child ... I do that which, if it would not pain
you, I feel to be right ... I want to have a husband's authority for
devoting my life to you. I do not ask your love...!"
Her head was turned away, and her eyes were filling with tears--tears
of exquisite pain, of inexpressible delight; as these words, "I do
not ask your love," thrilled through her, she suddenly turned and
looked him full in the face.
Was it her blushing tremor, was it her undisguised tenderness which
spoke so clearly to the yearning heart of her lover? I know not.
Love has a language of its own, untranslatable by any words of ours,
and that language in its mystic, yet unequivocal voice, told Captain
Heath, that he was loved.
Printed by STEWART and MURRAY, Old Bailey.