"Then came the funeral. I would not, could not think. I drove the last warning he had spoken out of my mind. I clenched my teeth—I swore that I would not give you up. Not for the raving of a thousand madmen, not for the warning of a thousand dying fathers. From that hour I was a changed man—from that hour my doom was sealed.

"I returned to Powyss Place, but not as I had left. I was a haunted man. By day and night—all night long, all day through, the awful warning pursued me. 'My fate may be yours—your mother's fate hers!' It was my destiny, there was no escape; my mother's doom would be yours; on our wedding-day I was fated to kill you! It was written. Nothing could avert it.

"I don't know whether the family taint was always latent within me, or that it was continual brooding on what I had heard, but the fate certainly befell me. My father's homicidal mania became mine. Edith, I felt it, felt the dreadful whisper in my ear, the awful desire stirring in my heart, to lift my hand and take your life! Often and often have I fled from your presence when I felt the temptation growing stronger than I could withstand.

"And yet I would not give you up; that is where I can never forgive myself. I could not tell you; I could not draw back then. I hoped against hope; it seemed like tearing body and soul asunder, the thought of losing you. 'Come what may,' I cried, in my anguish, 'she shall be my wife!'

"Our wedding-day came; the day that should have been the most blessed of my life, that was the most miserable. All the night before, all that morning, the demon within me had been, battling for the victory. I could not exorcise it; it stood between us at the altar. Then came our silent, strange wedding-journey. I wonder sometimes, as I looked at you, so still, so pale, so beautiful, what you must think. I dare not look at you often, I dare not speak to you, dare not think of you. I felt if I did I should lose all control of myself, and slay you there and then.

"I wonder, as you sit and listen there, my love, my bride, whether it is pity or loathing that fills your heart. And yet I deserved pity; what I suffered no tongue can ever tell. I knew myself mad, knew that sooner or later my madness would be stronger than myself, and then it came upon me so forcibly when we reached Carnarvon, that I fled from you again and went wandering away by myself, where, I knew not. 'Sooner or later you will kill her;' that thought alone filled me; 'it is as certain as that you live and stand here. You will kill this girl who trusts you and who has married you, who does not dream she has married a demon athirst for her blood.'

"I went wild then. I fell down on my knees in the wet grass, and held up my hands to the sky. 'O God!' I cried out in despair, 'show me what to do. Don't let me kill my darling. Strike me dead where I kneel sooner than that!' And with the words the bitterness of death seemed to pass, and great calm fell. In that calm a voice spoke clearly, and said:

"Leave her! Leave your bride while there is yet time. It is the only way. Leave her! She does not love you—she will not care. Better that you should break your heart and die, than that you should harm a hair of her head.'

"I heard it as plainly, Edith, as I hear my own voice speaking now. I rose—my resolution taken—a great, unutterable peace filling my heart. In my exalted state it seemed easy—I alone would be the sufferer, not you—I would go.

"I went back. The first sight I saw was you, my darling, sitting by the open window, fast asleep. Fast asleep, as my mother had been that dreadful night. If anything had been wanting to confirm my resolution, that would have done it. I wrote the note of farewell; I came in and kissed your dear hands, and went away from you forever. O love! it seemed easy then, but my heart broke in that hour. I could not live without you; thank Heaven! the sacrifice is not asked. I have told you all—it lay between two things—I must leave you, or in my madness kill you. Edith, it would have happened. You have heard my story—you know all—the dreadful secret that has held us asunder. It is for you to say whether I can be forgiven or not."

She had all the time been sitting, her face hidden in her hands, never stirring or speaking. Now she arose and fell once more on her knees beside him, tears pouring from her eyes. She drew his head into her arms, she stooped down, and, for the first time in her life, kissed again and again the lips of the man she had married.

"Forgive you!" she said. "O my husband, my martyr! It is I who must be forgiven! You are an angel, not a man!"



CHAPTER VI.

THE LAST ENDING OF THE TRAGEDY.

An hour later, when Lady Helena softly opened the door and came in, she found them still so, his weak head resting in her arms as she knelt, her bowed face hidden, her falling tears hardly yet dried. One look into his radiant eyes, into the unspeakable joy and peace of his face, told her the story. All had been revealed, all had been forgiven. On the anniversary of their most melancholy wedding-day husband and wife were reunited at last.

There was no need of words. She stooped over and silently kissed both.

"It is growing late, Edith," she said gently, "and you must be tired after your journey. You will go up to your room now. I will watch with Victor to-night."

But Edith only drew him closer, and looked up with dark, imploring eyes.

"No," she said, "no, no! I will never leave him again. I am not in the least tired, Lady Helena; I will stay and share your watch."

"But, my dear—"

"O Lady Helena—aunt—don't you see—I must do something—make reparation in some way. What a wretch—what a wretch I have been. Oh, why did I not know all sooner? Victor, why did I not know you? To remember what my thoughts of you have been, and all the time—all the time—it was for me. If you die I shall feel as though I were your murderess."

Her voice choked in a tearless sob. She had hated him—loathed him—almost wished, in her wickedness, for his death, and all the time he was yielding up his life in his love for her.

"You will let me stay with you, Victor?" she pleaded almost passionately; "don't ask me to go. We have been parted long enough; let me be with you until—" again her voice choked and died away.

With a great effort he lifted one of her hands to his lips—that radiant smile of great joy on his face.

"She talks almost as if she loved me," he said.

"Love you! O Victor!—husband—if I had only known, if I had only known!"

"If you had known," he repeated, looking at her with wistful eyes. "Edith, if you really had known—if I had dared to tell you all I have told you to-night, would you not have shrunk from me in fear and horror, as a monster who pretended to love you and yet longed for your life? Sane on all other points—how would you have comprehended my strange madness on that? It is gone now—thank God—in my weakness and dying hour, and there is nothing but the love left. But my own, if I had told you, if you had known, would you not have feared and left me?"

She looked at him with brave, steadfast, shining eyes.

"If I had known," she answered, "how your father killed your mother, how his madness was yours, I would have pitied you with all my heart, and out of that pity I would have loved you. I would never have left you—never. I could never have feared you, Victor; and this I know—what you dreaded never would have come to pass. I am as sure of it as that I kneel here. You would never have lifted your hand against my life."

"You think so?" Still with that wistful, earnest gaze.

"I know so—I feel it—I am sure of it. You could not have done it—I should never have been afraid of it, and in time your delusion would have worn entirely away. You are naturally superstitious and excitable—morbid, even; the dreadful excitement of your father's story and warning, were too much for you to bear alone. That is all. If you could have told me—if I could have laughed at your hypochondrical terrors, your cure would have been half effected. No, Victor, I say it again—I would never have left you, and you would never have harmed a hair of my head."

Her tone of resolute, conviction seemed to bring conviction even to him. The sad, wistful light deepened in his blue eyes.

"Then it has all been in vain," he said very sadly; "the suffering and the sacrifice—all these miserable months of separation and pain."

Again Lady Helena advanced and interposed, this time with authority.

"It won't do," she said; "Edith you must go. All this talking and excitement may end fatally. If you won't leave him he won't sleep a wink to-night; and if he passes a sleepless night who is to answer for the consequences? For his sake you must go. Victor tell her to go—she will obey you."

She looked at him beseechingly, but he saw that Lady Helena was right, and that Edith herself needed rest. It was easy to make one more sacrifice now, and send her away.

"I am afraid Aunt Helena is right," he said faintly. "I must confess to feeling exhausted, and I know you need a night's sleep, so that I may have you with me all day to-morrow. For a few hours, dear love, let me send you away."

She rose at once with a parting caress, and made him comfortable among his pillows.

"Good-night," she whispered. "Try to sleep, and be strong to talk to me to-morrow. Oh!" she breathed as she turned away, "if the elixir of life were only not a fable—if the days of miracles were not past, if he only might be restored to us, how happy we all could be!"

Lady Helena heard her, and shook her head.

"It is too late for that," she said; "when suffering is prolonged beyond a certain point there is but one remedy—death. If your miracle could take place and he be restored, he has undergone too much ever to live on and be happy and forget. There can only be one ending to such a year as he has passed, and that ending is very near."

Edith went to her room—one of the exquisite suite that had been prepared for her a year before. She was occupying it at last, but how differently from what she had ever thought. She remembered this night twelve months so well, the strange vigil in which she had spent in taking her farewell of those letters and that picture, and waiting for her wedding-day to dawn.

To-night she slept, deeply and soundly, and awoke to find the October sun shining brightly in. Was he still alive? It was her first thought. Death might have come at any moment. She arose—slipped on a dressing gown, and rang the bell.

It was Inez who answered in person.

"I heard your bell," she said as she kissed her good-morning, "and I knew what you wanted. Yes, he is still alive, but very weak and helpless this morning. The excitement and joy of last night were almost too much for him. And he remembers what anniversary this is."

Edith turned away—some of the bitterness, some of the pain of loss she knew he was enduring filling her own heart.

"If I had only known! if I had only known!" was again her cry.

"If you had—if he had told—I believe with you all would have been well. But it is too late to think of that—he believed differently. The terrible secret of the father has wrought its terrible retribution upon the son. If he had told you when he returned from Poplar Lodge, you would have been happy together to-day. You are so strong—your mind so healthful—some of your strength and courage would have been imparted to him. But it is too late now—all is over—we have only to make him happy while he is left with us."

"Too late! too late!" Edith's heart echoed desolately. In those hours of his death she was nearer loving her husband than perhaps she could ever have been had he lived.

"I will send breakfast up here," said Inez, turning to go; "when you have breakfasted, go to him at once. He is awake and waiting for you."

Edith made her toilet. Breakfast came; and, despite remorse and grief, when one is nineteen one can eat. Then she hurried away to the sick-room.

He was lying much as she had left him, propped up among the pillows—his face whiter than the linen and lace, whiter than snow. By daylight she saw fully the ghastly change in him—saw that his fair hair was thickly strewn with gray, that the awful, indiscribable change that goes before was already on his face. His breathing was labored and panting—he had suffered intensely with spasms of the heart all night, sleeping none at all. This morning the paroxysms of pain had passed, but he lay utterly worn and exhausted, the cold damp of infinite misery on his brow, the chill of death already on hands and limbs. He lay before her, the total wreck of the gallant, hopeful, handsome gentleman, whom only one year ago she had married.

But the familiar smile she knew so well was on his lips and in his eyes as he saw her. She could not speak for a moment as she looked at him—in silence she took her place close by his side.

He was the first to break the silence, in a voice so faint as hardly to be more than a whisper. "How had she slept—how did she feel? She looked pale, he thought—surely she was not ill?"

"I?" she said bitterly. "O, no—I am never ill—nothing ever seems to hurt hard heartless people like me. It is the good and the generous who suffer. I have the happy knack of making all who love me miserable, but my own health never fails. I don't dare to ask you what sort of night you have had—I see it in your face. My coming brings, as it always does, more ill than good."

"No," he said, almost with energy; "a hundred times no! Ah, love! your coming has made me the happiest man on earth. I seem to have nothing left to wish for now. As to the night—the spasms did trouble me, but I feel deliciously easy and at rest this morning, and uncommonly happy. Edith, I talked so much last evening I gave you no chance. I want you to tell me now all about the year that has gone—all about yourself."

"There is so little to tell," she responded; "it was really humdrum and uneventful. Nothing much happened to me; I looked for work and got it. Oh, don't be distressed! it was easy, pleasant work enough, and I was much better busy. I begin to believe plenty of hard work is a real blessing to dissatisfied, restless people—you can't be very miserable when you are very busy—you haven't time for luxuries. I got along very well, and never was ill an hour."

"But, tell me," he persisted; "you don't know how I long to hear. Tell, me all about your life after—after—"

"Hush!" she interposed, holding his hands tight. "You were the sufferer, not I. O my poor boy! I never was half worthy such a heart as yours. I am only beginning to realize how selfish, and cruel and hard I have been. But, with Heaven's help, I will try and be different from this day."

She told him the story of her life, from the time of her flight from Powyss Place to the present, glossing over all that was dark, making the most of all that was bright. But he understood her—he knew how her pride had suffered and bled.

"I never thought of your going away," he said sadly. "I might have known you better, but I did not—I was so sure you would have stayed, if not with Lady Helena, then in some safe shelter; that you would have taken what was justly yours. I was stunned when I first heard of your flight. I searched for you everywhere—in America and all. Did you know I went to America, Edith?"

"Inez told me," she answered faintly.

"I could not find your father—I could not find the Stuarts. I must have been very stupid somehow—I could find no one. Then arrived that day when I saw you in the Oxford Street shop, when I tried to follow you home and could not. What an evening it was! Then came my last desperate hope when I sent Inez to you and failed. It seemed almost hardest to bear of all."

"If I had only known—if I had only known!" was still her cry.

"Yes, the trouble lay there. With your pride you could not act otherwise than as you did. For you are very proud, my darling," with a smile. "Do you know it?"

"Very proud—very heartless—very selfish," she answered brokenly. "Oh, no need to tell me how base I have been!"

"Yet, I think I like you the better for your pride; and I foresee—yes, I foresee, that one day you will be a happy woman, with as noble, and loving, and generous a heart as ever beat. I understand you, it seems to me now, better than you understand yourself. One day—it may be years from now—the happiness of your life will come to you. Don't let pride stand between you and it then, Edith. I hope that day may come—I pray for it. Lying in my grave, love, I think I shall rest easier if I know you are happy on earth."

"Don't! don't!" she said; "I cannot bear it! Your goodness breaks my heart."

"There is one thing I must ask, Edith," he resumed after a pause; "a last favor. You will grant it, will you not?"

"Victor! is there anything I would not grant?"

"It is this, then—that when I am gone, you will take what is your right and your due. This you must promise me; no more false pride—the widow of Sir Victor Catheron must take what is hers. Juan Catheron is married to a Creole lady, and living in the island of Martinique, a reformed man. He inherits the title and Catheron Royals, with its income, as heir-at-law. For the rest you have your jointure as my widow; and my grandmother's large fortune, which descended to me, I have bequeathed to you in my will. So that when I leave you, my dearest, I leave you safe from all pecuniary troubles. It is my last wish—nay, my last command, that you take all without hesitation. You promise me this, Edith?"

"I promise," she answered lowly. She could not look at him—it seemed like the Scriptural words, "heaping coals of fire on her head."

Then for a long time there was silence. He lay back among the pillows with closed eyes, utterly exhausted, but looking very happy. The bitterness of death was passed—a great peace had come. With the wife he loved beside him, her hand clasped in his, he could go forth in peace, knowing that in her heart there was nothing but affection and forgiveness—that one day, in the future, she would be happy. In his death as in his life he was thoroughly unselfish. It brought no pang to him now to feel that years after the grass grew over his grave she would be the happy wife of a happier man. He talked little more; he dozed at intervals during the day. Edith never left him for a moment. His aunt and cousin shared her watch off and on all day. They could all see that the last great change was near. Pain had left him—he was entirely at rest.

"Read to me, Edith," he said once as the day wore on. She took up a volume of sermons that Lady Helena was fond of. She opened it, haphazard, and read. And presently she came to this, reading of the crosses and trials and sorrows of life: "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death; neither sorrow nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain."

His eyes were fixed upon her with so radiant a light, so infinite a thankfulness, that she could read no more. Her voice choked—she laid the book down. Later, as the sunset came streaming in, he awoke from a long slumber, and looked at the glittering bars of light lying on the carpet.

"Open the window, Edith," he said; "I want to see the sun set once more."

She obeyed. All flushed with rose light, and gold and amythist splendor, the evening sky glowed like the very gates of paradise.

"It is beautiful," Edith said, but its untold beauty brought to her somehow a sharp pang of pain.

"Beautiful!" he repeated in an ecstatic whisper. "O love! if earth is so beautiful, what must Heaven be!"

Then she heard him softly repeat to himself the words she had read: "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death; neither sorrow nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain." He drew a long, long breath, like one who is very weary and sees rest near.

"Darling," he said, "how pale you are—white as a spirit. Go out for a little into the air—don't mind leaving me. I feel sleepy again."

She kissed him and went. All her after life she was glad to remember their last parting had been with a caress on her part, a happy smile on his. She descended the steps leading from the window with unquestioning obedience, and passed out into the rose and gold light of the sunset. She remained perhaps fifteen minutes—certainly not more. The red light of the October sky was fast paling to cold gray—the white October moon was rising. She went back. He still lay as she had left him—his eyes were closed—she thought he was asleep. She bent over him, close—closer—growing white almost as himself. And then she knew what it was.

"And there shall be no more death; neither sorrow nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain."

A cry rang through the room, the long, wailing cry of widowhood. She fell on her knees by the bed. An hour after, the passing bell tolled sombrely through the darkness from the steeple of Chesholm Church, telling all whom it might concern that Sir Victor Catheron had gone home.



CHAPTER VII.

TWO YEARS AFTER.

One brilliant, August noonday a Cunard ship steamed gallantly down the Mersey and out into the open sea.

There were a great number of passengers on board—every cabin, every berth, was filled. Every country under Heaven, it seemed, was represented. After the first two or three days out, after the first three or four times assembling around the dinner-table and congregating on the sunny decks, people began to know all about one another, to learn each other's names and histories.

There was one lady passenger who from the first excited a great deal of talk and curiosity. A darkly handsome young lady in widow's weeds, who rather held herself aloof from everybody, and who seemed all sufficient unto herself. A young lady, pitifully young to wear that sombre dress and widow's cap, remarkable anywhere for her beauty, and dignity, and grace. Who was she? as with one voice all the gentlemen on board cried out that question the moment they saw her first.

She was a lady of rank and title, an English lady, travelling with her two servants—otherwise quite alone—the name on the passenger list was Lady Catheron.

For the first two days that was all that could be ascertained—just enough to whet curiosity to burning-point. Then in the solitude and seclusion of the ladies' cabin the maid servant became confidential with one of the stewardesses, and narrated, after the manner of maids, her mistress's history as far as she knew it. The stewardess retailed it to the lady passengers, and the lady passengers gave it at third hand to the gentlemen. This is what it was:

Lady Catheron, young as she looked and was, had nevertheless been a widow for two years. Her husband had been Sir Victor Catheron, of Cheshire, who had died after the first year of married felicity, leaving an immensely rich widow. Miserable Sir Victor! thought all the gentlemen. She—Sarah Betts, the maid—had not known her ladyship during the year of her married life, she had been engaged in London, some months after my lady's bereavement, to travel with her on the continent. My lady had travelled in company with her aunt, the Lady Helena Powyss, and her cousin, a "Mrs. Victor." They had spent the best part of two years wandering leisurely through every country in Europe, and now my lady was finishing her tour of the world by coming to America—why, Betts did not know. Not many ladies of rank came to America alone, Betts thought, but she had heard my lady was American by birth. Everywhere my lady went she had been greatly admired—gentlemen always raved about her, but she seemed as cold as marble, very high and haughty, utterly indifferent to them all. She did not go into society—she had been awfully fond of her late husband, and quite broken-hearted at losing him so soon. That was Miss Betts' story, and like Sam Weller's immortal valentine, was just enough to make them wish there was more.

For the man servant and avant courier of my lady, he was a genteel, dignified, taciturn gentleman, like an elderly duke in difficulties, with whom it was impossible to take liberties or ask questions—a sort of human oyster: who kept himself and his knowledge hermetically sealed up. He told nothing, and they had to be contented with Betts' version.

So Lady Catheron became the lady of interest on board. Everybody saw her on deck, her railway rug spread in the sunshine, her low wicker-work chair placed upon it, a large umbrella unfurled over her head, reading or gazing over the sea toward the land they were nearing. She made no acquaintances, she was perfectly civil to everybody who spoke to her, friendly to a degree with the children, and her smile was bright and sweet as the sunshine itself. Her reticence could hardly be set down to pride. Before the voyage was over she was many times forward among the steerage passengers, leaving largesses behind her, and always followed by thanks and blessings when she came away. Not pride, surely—the great dark fathomless eyes were wondrously sweet and soft; the lips, that might once have been haughty and hard, tender and gentle now, and yet there was a vague, intangible something about her, that held all at arm's length, that let no one come one inch nearer than it was her will they should come. Lady Catheron had been their interest from the first—she was their mystery to the end.

Yes, it was Edith—Edith going home—home! well hardly that, perhaps; she was going to see her father, at his urgent request. He had returned once more to Sandypoint, he had been ailing lately, and he yearned to see his darling. His letter reached her in Paris, and Edith crossed over at once, and came.

Was there in her heart any hope of seeing, as well, other friends? Hardly—and yet, as America drew near and nearer, her heart beat with a hope and a restlessness she could no more explain than I can. In Naples, six months ago, she had met a party of Americans, and among them Mrs. Featherbrain, of light-headed memory. Mrs. Featherbrain had recognized an old acquaintance in Lady Catheron, and hailed her with effusion.

For Edith, she shrank away with the old feeling of dislike and repulsion, and yet she listened to her chatter, too.

"How sad it was," said gay Mrs. Featherbrain, "about the poor, dear Stuarts. That delightful Charley, too! ah! it was very sad. Did Lady Catheron correspond with them? But of course she did, being a relative and everything."

"No," Edith answered, her pale face a shade paler than usual; "she had entirely lost sight of them lately. She would be very glad to hear of them, though. Did Mrs. Featherbrain know—"

"Oh, dear, no!" Mrs. Featherbrain answered; "I have lost sight of them too—every one has. When people become poor and drop out of the world, as it were, it is impossible to follow them up. She had heard, just before their party started, that Trixy was about to be married, and that Charley—poor Charley! was going to California to seek his fortune. But she knew nothing positively, only that they were certainly not to be seen in New York—that the places and people who had known them once, knew them no more." That was all.

It could not be, then, that the hope of meeting them was in Edith's mind, and yet, her whole soul yearned to meet them—to ask their forgiveness, if no more. To clasp Trixy's hand once again,—honest, loving, impulsive, warm-hearted Trixy,—to feel her arms about her as of old, it seemed to Edith Catheron, she could have given half her life. Of any other, she would not let herself think. He had passed out of her life forever and ever—nothing could alter that.

"Everywhere she went, she was admired," her servants had said, "but to all she was cold as marble." Yes, and it would always be so while life remained. There had been but one man in all the world for her from the first—she had given him up of her own free will; she must abide by her decision; but there never would be any other. One loveless marriage she had made; she never would make another. Charley Stuart might—would, beyond doubt—forget her and marry, but she would go to her grave, her whole heart his.

They reached New York; and there were many kindly partings and cordial farewells. Lady Catheron and her two servants drove away to an up-town hotel, where rooms had been engaged, and all the papers duly chronicled the distinguished arrival. One day to rest—then down to Sandypoint, leaving gossiping Betts and the silent elderly gentleman behind her. And in the twilight of an August day she entered Sandypoint, and walked slowly through the little town, home. Only three years since she had left, a happy, hopeful girl of eighteen—returning now a saddened; lonely woman of twenty-one. How strangely altered the old landmarks, and yet how familiar. Here were the stores to which she used to walk, sulky and discontented, through the rain, to do the family marketing. Here spread the wide sea, smiling and placid, whereon she and Charley used to sail. Yonder lay the marsh where, that winter night, she had saved his life. Would it have been as well, she thought with weary wonder, if they had both died that night? Here was the nook where he had come upon her that wet, dark morning with his mother's letter, when her life seemed to begin—here the gate where they had stood when he gave her his warning: "Whatever that future brings, Edith, don't blame me." No, she blamed nobody but herself; the happiness of her life had lain within her grasp, and she had stretched forth her hand and pushed it away. There was the open window where he used to sit, in the days of his convalesence, and amuse himself setting her inflammable temper alight. It was all associated with him. Then the house door opens, a tall, elderly man comes out, there is a great cry,—father and daughter meet, and for an hour or so, she can forget even Charley.

She remains a week—how oddly familiar and yet strange it all seems. The children noisier and ruder than ever, her father grown grayer and more wrinkled, her stepmother, shrill of tongue and acid of temper as of yore, but fawningly obsequious to her.

The people who used to know her, and who flock to see her, the young men who used to be in love with her, and who stare at her speechlessly and afar off now. It amuses her for a while, then she tires of it, she tires of everything of late, her old fever of restlessness comes back. This dull Sandypoint, with its inquisitive gapers and questioners, is not to be endured, even for her father's sake. She will return to New York.

In the bustling life there—the restless, ceaseless flow of humanity, she alone finds solitude and rest now. She goes, but she leaves behind her that which renders keeping boarders or teaching classics forever unnecessary to Frederick Darrell.

She goes back. What her plans are for the future she does not know. She has no plans, she cannot tell how long she may remain, or where she will eventually take up her abode. It seems to her she will be a sort of feminine Wandering Jew all her life. That life lacks something that renders her restless—she does not care to think what. She may stay all winter—she may pack up and start any day for England.

September passes, and she has not gone. A few of the acquaintances she made when here before with the Stuarts call upon her, but they can tell her nothing of them. If the Stuarts were all dead and buried they could not more completely have dropped out of the lives of their summer-time friends. It must be true, she thinks, what Mrs. Featherbrain told her. Trixy is married and settled somewhere with her mother, and Charley is thousands of miles away, "seeking his fortune."

Then, all at once, she resolves to go back to England. Her handsome jointure house awaits her, Lady Helena and Inez long for her, love her—she will go back to them—try to be at peace like other women, try to live her life out and forget. She has some purchases to make before she departs. She goes into a Broadway store one day, advances to a counter, and says:

"I wish to see some black Lyons velvet." Then she pauses, and looks at some black kid gloves lying before her.

"What is the number?" she asks, lifting a pair.

The young man behind the counter makes no reply.

She raises her eyes to his face for the first time, and sees—Charley Stuart!



CHAPTER VIII.

FORGIVEN OR—FORGOTTEN?

Charley Stuart! The original of the pictured face that lies over her heart by night and day. Charley—unchanged, calm, handsome, eminently self-possessed as ever, looking at her with grave gray eyes.

She turns giddy, with the utter shock of the great surprise—she leans for a second heavily against the counter, and looks at him with eyes that cannot believe what they see.

"Charley!"

"Edith!"

Yes, it is his voice, his smile, and he stretches his hand across the counter and takes hers. Then she sinks into a seat, and for a moment the store, and the faces, swim about her in a hot mist. But her heart has given one great glad leap, and she knows she has found what all unconsciously she has been longing for, seeking for—Charley!

He is the first to recover himself—if indeed he has lost himself for an instant—and speaks:

"This is a staggerer," he says; "and yet I don't know why it should be either, since everybody, high and low, who visits New York drops in here for the necessaries of life, sooner or later. I began to think, however, that you must have gone away again."

She looks at him. He is in no way changed that she can see—the very same Charley of three years before. "You knew I was here!" she asks.

"Certainly, Lady Catheron. I read the morning papers, and always look out for distinguished arrivals. Like the scent of the roses, my aristocratic tastes cling to me still. I thought you would hardly endure a month of Sandypoint—delightful, no doubt, as that thriving township is. I don't need to ask you how you have been—I can see for myself you never looked better."

He meets her steady, reproachful gaze with perfect sang-froid. "You knew I was here, and you would not come to see me," those dark luminous eyes say. His perfectly careless, indifferent manner stings her to the quick.

"Trixy knew I was here too, of course!" she says in a very low voice.

"No," Charley answers; "I don't think she did. I didn't tell her, and I am pretty sure if she had found it out for herself her family circle would have heard of it. I greatly doubt even whether she would not have taken the liberty of calling upon you."

She lifts her eyes again, with a reproach her lips will not speak.

"I have deserved it," that dark, sad glance says, "but you might spare me."

"We were all very sorry to hear of Sir Victor Catheron's death," Charley resumes gravely. "Hammond told us; he writes occasionally. Heart disease, wasn't it?—poor fellow! I hope Lady Helena Powyss is quite well?"

"She is quite well."

Then there is a pause—her heart is full, and he stands here so utterly unmoved, talking common-places, and looking as though even the memory of the past were dead and buried. As no doubt indeed it is. She handles the gloves she still holds nervously, for once in her life at a loss.

"Your mother and Trix are well?" she says after that pause.

"Quite well."

She looks up desperately:

"Charley," she exclaims; "mayn't I see them? I have wanted to see them so much—to—" No, her voice breaks, she cannot finish the sentence.

"Certainly you can see them," Mr. Stuart answers promptly; "they will be delighted, I am sure. They might not feel at liberty to call upon you, Lady Catheron, of course, but all the same they will only be too happy if Lady Catheron will so far honor them."

He says this in the old lazy, pleasant voice, but it is quite evident he does not mean to spare her—his half-sarcastic accent makes her wince as though in actual bodily pain.

"I'll give you the address if you like," he goes on; "it's not the most aristocratic neighborhood in the world, but it's perfectly quiet and safe." He scribbles something in pencil. "Here it is—due east you see. Trix won't be home until seven; she's at work in a fancy shop in Sixth avenue, you know—no, you don't know of course, but she is, and I generally call round for her at closing-up time. But you're safe to find her at home any evening you may name, Lady Catheron, after seven P.M."

She takes the slip of paper very humbly—very unlike the Edith he used to know—her lips quivering, as he can see.

"May I go at once?" she asks in that humble little voice; "I can't wait. I want to see your mother, and I will stay until Trixy comes."

"My mother will be there, and charmed to see you. Of course you can go at once—why should you hesitate—it's very kind of you and all that I would escort you there if I could, but unhappily I'm on duty. You'll have no trouble at all finding it."

He is perfectly cordial—perfectly indifferent. He looks at her as he might look at Mrs. Featherbrain herself. Edith, it is all over for you!

"I thought you were in California," she says as she rises to go; "and that Trixy was married."

"No, I have never left New York, and Trix is pining in single blessedness still. We are going to alter all that shortly though—for further particulars, apply to Trix. Are you going? good-by, for the present, Lady Catheron."

She is out in the bright sunshine, feeling as though she were in a dream.

She summons a hack, and is driven away eastward to the address he has given her. She finds it—a tall tenement house in a close street, smelling of breweries, and she ascends a long flight of carpetless stairs, and knocks at a door on the upper landing. It is opened, and the well-remembered face of Aunt Chatty looks out.

"Mrs. Stuart!"

A darkly, beautiful face is before her, two black gloved hands are outstretched, two brown brilliant eyes shine upon her through tears. And Mrs. Stuart recoils with a gasp.

"Oh, dear me!" she says, "it is Edith!"

Yes, it is Edith, with tears large and thick in her eyes, who kisses the familiar face, and who is sitting beside her, how, Mrs. Stuart never knows in her amaze and bewilderment, in the humble little front room.

How changed it all is from the splendor of that other house in Fifth Avenue. How different this dingy black alpaca dress and rusty widow's cap from the heavy silks and French millinery of other days. But Aunt Chatty's good, easy, kindly face is the same.

A hundred questions are asked and answered. Edith tells her how long she has been in New York, of how only an hour ago she chanced upon Charley, and found out their whereabouts. And now, if Aunt Chatty pleases, she is going to take off her bonnet and wait until Beatrix comes home.

"Of course you will wait! take off your things right away. Dear me! and it is really our Edith; won't Trix be surprised and glad. It isn't much of a place this," says poor Mrs. Stuart, glancing about her ruefully; "not what you're used to, my dear, but such as it is—"

An impetuous kiss from Edith closes her lips.

"Ah hush!" she says; "you are in it—and glad to see me. I ask no more."

"And you are a widow too, dear child," Mrs. Stuart sighs, touching her black dress compassionately; "it is very hard—so young, and only one short year his wife. Captain Hammond told us—he writes to Trixy, you know. Poor Sir Victor! so nice as he was, and that good pleasant Lady Helena. We were all so sorry. And you, my dear—how have you been?"

"Perfectly well," Edith answers, but she will not talk of herself. Aunt Chatty must tell her all about their trouble. Aunt Chatty tells plaintively, only too glad to pour her sorrows into sympathizing ears.

"It was very hard at first—dreadfully hard. Poor Mr. Stuart died—it was too much for him. Everything was sold—everything—we were left beggars. Work was difficult to get—then I fell ill. Charley was in despair almost—he grew thin and hollow-eyed, the very ghost of himself. All our old friends seemed to drop off and only Providence sent Nellie Seton along, we might all have died or gone to the almshouse."

"Nellie Seton?" Edith inquired; "who is she? what did she do?"

"She was a school friend of Trixy's, in reduced circumstances like ourselves, who came to our succor like an angel in human form. She got Trix a situation in a fancy store, she nursed me, and kept me alive on wine and jellies when I could touch nothing else. She cheered up Charley and kept him from dying of despair. To Nellie Seton, under Heaven, we owe it that we are alive at all"

"She is a young lady—this good Miss Seton?" Edith asks, with a sharp contraction of the heart.

"Yes; about Trixy's age, and wonderfully clever. She writes poetry and gets paid for it, and the prettiest stories for the magazines, and is quite rich. She is one of the family now almost,—very likely she will be home presently with Charley and Trix—they're always together. And now, if you will excuse me Edith, I'll go and get tea."

She bustles away, and Edith sits in the little parlor alone. And she feels, with a heart like a stone, that what she has lost forever, this brave, good Nellie Seton has won. Well! she deserves it; she will try to like her, Edith thinks; but somehow even at the thought, her heart revolts. The old feeling for Mrs. Featherbrain, for Lady Gwendoline, tries to come back, in spite of her, for this unseen Miss Seton. She is an altered woman—a better woman, a more unselfish woman, but the old leaven of iniquity is not dead yet.

The moments drag on—it is drawing near seven. How will Trixy receive her, she wonders. Will she be generous, and forget the past, or will she make her feel it, as her brother has done? Seven. Mrs. Stuart has set the table. How odd, it seems to see Aunt Chatty working. The tea is sending its fragrance through the little rooms, the buttered toast is made, the cake is cut, the pink ham is sliced, everything looks nice and inviting. Suddenly there is the sound of footsteps on the stairs, of girls gay tones and sweet laughter—then the kitchen door flies open, and Trixy's well-remembered voice is animatedly exclaiming:

"Ma! is tea ready? I am famished and so is Nell. What! the table set in the parlor in state. Goodness!"

Edith rises, white as the dainty Marie-Stuart widow's cap she wears—still and beautiful she stands. She sees Trixy's tall figure, a smaller, slighter young lady beside her, and Charley standing behind both. Half a minute later Trix sweeps in, sees the motionless figure, and recoils with a shriek.

"Trix!" Edith advances with the word that is almost a sob. And Trixy's face grows radiant.

"It is! it is! it IS!"

She screams, and rushes forward, and catches Edith in a perfect bear's hug, laughing, crying, and kissing, all in a breath.



CHAPTER IX.

SAYING GOOD-BY.

No coldness about the welcome here, no ungracious remembrances of the past, no need ever to doubt Trixy's warm heart, and, generous, forgiving, impulsive nature.

All Edith's shortcomings were long ago forgotten and forgiven—it is in Edith's way to inspire ardent love. Trixy loves her as dearly, as warmly as she had ever done—she hugs, she kisses, she exclaims at sight of her, in a perfect rapture of joy:

"O darling!" she cries, "how good it is to see you again! what a surprise is this! Charley, where are you? look here! Don't you know Edith?"

"Most undoubtedly I know Edith," Charley answers, advancing; "old age may have impaired my faculties, but still I recognize a familiar face when I see it. I told her I thought you would be glad to see her, but I didn't tell her you intended to eat her alive."

"You told her! Where? when?"

"In the store—this afternoon. She came in 'promiscuous' for black Lyon's velvet, wasn't it, Lady Catheron? You didn't get it, by the way. Permit me to inform you, in my professional capacity, that we have a very chaste and elegant assortment of the article always in stock. Trix, where's your manners? Here's Nellie hovering aloof in the background, waiting to be introduced. Allow me to be master of the ceremonies—Lady Catheron, Miss Nellie Seton."

Both young ladies bowed—both looked each other full in the face—genuine admiration in Miss Seton's—keen, jealous scrutiny in Lady Catheron's. She saw a girl of two or three and twenty, under-sized and rather plump, with a face which in point of beauty would not for one instant compare with her own or Trixy's either. But it was such a thoroughly good face. And the blue, beaming eyes, the soft-cut smiling mouth, gentle, and strong, and sweet, were surely made to win all hearts at sight. Not a beauty—something infinitely better, and as a rival, something infinitely more dangerous.

"Lady Catheron's name is familiar to me as a household word," Miss Seton said, with a frank little laugh, that subdued Edith at once. "Trix wakes with your name on her lips, I believe, and goes to sleep murmuring it at night. Lady Catheron doesn't know how madly jealous I have been of her before now."

Edith turns once more to Trix—faithful, friendly, loyal Trix—and stretches forth both hands, with a swift, graceful impulse, tears standing, large and bright, in her eyes.

"My own dear Trix!" is what she says.

"And now I'll run away," Miss Seton exclaims brightly; "auntie will expect me, and I know Trix has ten thousand things to tell and to hear. No, Trixy, not a word. Charley, what are you doing with your hat? put it down instantly—I don't want you. I would very much rather go home alone."

"Yes, it's so likely I'll let you. There's no earthly reason why you shouldn't stay; but if, with your usual obstinacy and strong-mindedness, you insist upon going—"

"I do insist upon going, and without an escort. You know you are rather a nuisance—in the way than otherwise—oh, I mean it I get home twice as fast when I go by myself."

He looks at her—Edith turns sick—sick, as she sees the look. He says something in too low a tone for the rest to hear. Miss Seton laughs, but her color rises and she objects no more. Edith sees it all. A gray-kidded hand is extended to her.

"Good-night, Lady Catheron," Miss Seton's bright, pleasant voice says, and Lady Catheron takes it, feeling in her heart that for once she cannot dislike a rival. This girl who will be Charley's wife—O blissful fate!—is worthy of him. They go out together, laughing as they go.

"Isn't she just the dearest darling!" cries Trix in her gushing way; "and O Edith! whatever would have become of us all without her, I shudder to think. In the dark days of our life, when friends were few and far between, she was our friend—our savior. She nursed mamma from the very jaws of death, she got me my place in the fancy-store, and I believe—she won't own it—but I do believe she saved Charley's life."

"Saved his life?" Edith falters.

"It was such an awful time," Trix says in sombre tones, "we were starving, Edith, literally starving. All our old friends had forsaken us; work we could not get, 'to beg we were ashamed.' If you had seen Charley in those days, gaunt, hollow-eyed, haggard, wretched. He looks and feels all right now," goes on Trix, brightening up a bit, "but then! it used to break my heart to look at him. He tried for work, from morning until night, and day after day he came home, footsore, weary, despairing. He could not leave mother and me, and go elsewhere—she was sick, father was dead—poor pa!—and I was just crazy, or near it. And one dark, dreadful night he went out, and down to the river, and—Nellie followed, and found him there. Ah Edith, he wasn't so much to blame; I suppose he was mad that night. She came up to him, and put her arms around him, as he stood in the darkness and the rain, and—I don't know what she said or did—but she brought him back to us. And Providence sent him work next day—the situation in the store he has now. I don't know about his merits as a salesman," says Trix, laughing, with her eyes full of tears "but he is immensely popular with the ladies. Nellie says it isn't his eloquence—where the other clerks expatiate fluently on the merits of ribbons, and gloves, and laces, shades and textures, Charley stands silent and lets them talk, and smiles and looks handsome. I suppose it answers, for they seem to like him. So now you see we get on splendidly, and I've almost forgotten that we were ever rich, and wore purple and fine linen, and feasted sumptuously every day."

"You are happy?" Edith asks, with wonder and envy in her eyes.

"Perfectly happy," Trix replies cheerily; "I haven't a wish unsatisfied—oh well! now that you've come. I did want you, Dithy; it seems such ages and ages since we met, and I was troubled about you. I heard of him, you know, poor fellow."

She touches timidly Edith's widow's weeds. There is no answer—Edith's tears are falling. She is contrasting her own cowardice with Trixy's courage; her own hardness with Trixy's generosity.

"How do you know?" she asks at length.

"Captain Hammond. You remember Angus Hammond, I suppose?" Trix says, blushing and hesitating; "he wrote us about it, and"—a pause.

"Go on; what else did he write?"

"That there was trouble of some sort, a separation, I think—that you had parted on your very wedding-day. Of course we couldn't believe that"

"It is quite true," was the low reply.

Trixy's eyes opened.

"True! O Dithy! On your wedding-day!"

"On our wedding-day," Edith answered steadily; "to meet no more until we met at his death-bed. Some day, Trix, dear, I will tell you how it was—not now. Two years have passed, but even yet I don't care to think of it. Only this—he was not to blame—he was the bravest, the noblest, the best of men, ten thousand times too good for me. I was a mercenary, ambitious wretch, and I received my just reward. We parted at the last friends, thank God! but I can never forgive myself—never!"

There was a pause—an uncomfortable one for Trix.

"How long since you came to New York?" she asked at length.

Edith told her—told her how she had been wandering over the world since her husband's death—how she had come to America to see her father—how she had tried to find them here in New York—how signally she had failed—and how to-day, by purest accident, she had come upon Charley in the Broadway store.

"How astonished he must have been," his sister said; "I think I see him, lifting his eyebrows to the middle of his forehead. Did he take you for a ghost?"

"By no means, and he was not in the least surprised. He knew I was here, from the first."

"Edith!"

"He told me so. He saw my arrival in the paper when I first landed."

"And he never told me, and he never went to see you! The wretch!" cried Trix.

"I don't know that he is to blame," Edith responded quietly. "I deserved no better; and ah! Trixy, not many in this world are as generous as you. So you are perfectly happy, darling? I wonder if Captain Hammond, now, has anything to do with it?"

"Well, yes," Tax admits blushingly again; "I may as well tell you. We are to be married at Christmas."

"Trix! Married!"

"Married at last. We were engaged before I left England, three years ago. He wanted to marry me then, foolish fellow!" says Trix with shining eyes, "but of course, we none of us would listen to so preposterous a thing. He had only his pay and his debts, and his expectations from a fairy godmother or grandmother, who wouldn't die. But she died last mail—I mean last mail brought a black bordered letter, saying she was gone to glory, and had left Angus everything. He is going to sell out of the army, and will be here by Christmas, and—and the wedding is to take place the very week he arrives. And, oh! Edith, he's just the dearest fellow, the best fellow, and I'm the happiest girl in all New York!"

Edith says nothing. She takes Trix, who is crying, suddenly, in her arms, and kisses her. Angus Hammond has been faithful in the hour when she deserted them—that is her thought. Her self-reproach never ceases—never for one hour.

"We go to Scotland of course," said Trix, wiping her eyes; "and ma—also, of course, stays with Charley. Nellie will be here to fill my place—don't you think she will make a charming sister?"

She laughs as she asks the question—it is the one little revenge she takes. Before Edith can reply she runs on:

"Nellie's rich—rich, I mean, as compared with us, and she has made it all herself. She's awfully clever, and writes for magazines, and papers, and things, and earns oceans of money. Oceans," says Trix, opening her eyes to the size of saucers; "and I don't know really which of us ma likes best, Nellie or me. That's my one comfort in going. Here comes Charley now—let's have tea at once. I forgot all about it, but nobody has the faintest idea of the pangs of hunger I am enduring."

Charley sauntered in, looking fresh and handsome, from the night air.

It was quite dark now. Trix lit the lamp and bustled about helping to get supper. "You told Nellie?" she asked her brother in a low tone, but Edith caught the words.

"Yes," Charley answered gravely, "I told her."

"What did she say?"

"Everything that was like Nellie—everything that was bright, and brave, and good. She will be here in the morning to say good-by. Now, Mrs. Stuart, if you have any compassion on a famished only son, hurry up, and let's have supper."

They sat down around the little table where the lamp shone brightly—Edith feeling cold and strange and out of place. Trixy and Aunt Chatty might, and did, forgive the past but she herself could not, and between her and Charley lay a gulf, to be spanned over on earth no more. And yet—how beautiful and stately she looked in her little white widow's cap, her sombre dress, and the frill of sheer white crape at her throat.

"Edith!" Trix said involuntarily, "how handsome you have grown! You were always pretty, but now—I don't mean to flatter—but you are splendid! It can't be that black becomes you, and yet—Charley, don't you see it? hasn't Edith grown lovely?"

"Trix!" Edith cried, and over her pale cheeks there rose a flush, and into her dark, brilliant eyes there came a light, that made her for the moment all Trixy said.

Charley looked at her across the table—the cool, clear, gray eyes, perfectly undazzled.

"I used to think it impossible for Edith to improve; I find out my mistake to-day, as I find out many others. As it is not permitted one to say what one thinks on these subjects, one had better say nothing at all."

The flush that has risen to Edith's cheeks remains there, and deepens. After tea, at Trixy's urgent request, she sits down at the little hired piano, and sings some of the old songs.

"Your very voice has improved," Trix says admiringly. "Edith, sing Charley he's my darling, for Charley. It used to be a favorite of his."

She gives him a malicious sidelong glance. Charley, lying back in his mother's comfortable, cushioned rocking-chair, takes it calmly.

"It used to be, but it has ceased to be," he answers coolly. "Trix, go out like a good child, and get me the evening paper. Among my other staid, middle-aged habits, Lady Catheron, is that of reading the Post every evening religiously, after tea."

Never Edith any more—always Lady Catheron—never the girl he loved three years ago—whom he had said he would love all his life, but the richly dowered widow of Sir Victor Catheron. He will not generously forget, even for an instant, that he is an impecunious dry goods clerk, she a lady of rank and riches.

She rises to go—it is growing almost more than she can bear. Trix presses her to stay longer, but in vain; he never utters a word.

"Shall Charley call a carriage, or will you prefer to walk?" Trix asks doubtfully.

"She will walk," says Charley, suddenly looking up and interfering; "the night is fine, and I will see her home."

For one instant, at the tone of his voice, at the look of his eyes, her heart bounds.

Her bonnet and mantle are brought—she kisses Trix and Aunt Chatty good-night—they have promised to dine with her to-morrow—and goes forth into the soft October night with Charley.

He draws her hand within his arm—the night is star-lit, lovely. The old time comes back, the old feeling of rest and content, the old comfortable feeling that it is Charley's arm upon which she leans, and that she asks no more of fate. To-morrow he may be Nellie Seton's—just now, he belongs to her.

"Oh!" she exclaims, with a long-drawn breath, "how familiar it all is! these gas-lit New York streets, the home-like look of the men and women, and—you. It seems as though I had left Sandypoint only yesterday, and you were showing me again the wonders of New York for the first time."

He looks down at the dusk, warm, lovely face, so near his own.

"Sandypoint," he repeats; "Edith, do you recall what I said to you there? Have you ever wished once, in those three years that are gone, that I had never come to Sandypoint to take you away?"

"I have never wished it," she answers truly; "never once. I have never blamed you, never blamed anyone but myself—how could I? The evil of my life I wrought with my own hand, and—if it were all to come over again—I would still go! I have suffered, but at least—I have lived."

"I am glad to hear that," he says after a little pause; "it has troubled me again and again. You see, Hammond wrote us all he ever knew of you, and though it was rather incomprehensible in part, it was clear enough your life was not entirely a bed of roses. All that, I hope, is over and done with—there can be no reason why all the rest of your life should not be entirely happy. This is partly why I wished to walk home with you to-night, that I might know from your own lips whether you held me blameless or not. And partly, also—" a second brief pause;—"to bid you good-by."

"Good-by!" In the starlight she turns deathly white.

"Yes," he responded cheerily; "good-by; and as our lives lie so widely apart in all probability, this time forever. I shall certainly return here at Christmas, but you may have gone before that. To-morrow morning I start for St. Louis, where a branch of our house is established, and where I am permanently to remain. It is an excellent opening for me—my salary has been largely advanced, and I am happy to say the firm think me competent and trustworthy. I return, as I said, at Christmas; after that it becomes my permanent home. You know, of course," he says with a laugh, "why I return—Trix has told you?"

So completely has she forgotten Trix, so wholly have her thoughts been of him, that she absolutely does not remember to what he alludes.

"Trix has told me nothing," she manages to answer, and she wonders at herself to find how steady is her own voice.

"No?" Charley says, elevating his eyebrows; "and they say the age of wonders is over! Trix in the new roll of keeping her own secrets! Well, I very naturally return for the wedding—our wedding. It's extraordinary that Trix hasn't told you, but she will. Then—my Western home will be ready by that time, and we go back immediately. My mother goes with me, I need hardly say."

Still so absolutely wrapped up in her thoughts of him, so utterly forgetful of Trix, that she does not understand. Our wedding—he means his own and Nellie Seton's of course. His Western home, the home where she will reign as his wife. In the days that have gone, Edith thinks she has suffered—she feels to-night that she has never suffered until now! She deserves it, but if he had only spared her,—only left it for some one else to tell. It is a minute before she can reply—then, despite every effort, her voice is husky:

"I wish you joy, Charley—with all my heart"

She cannot say one word more. Something in the words, in her manner of saying them, makes him look at her in surprise.

"Well, yes," he answers coolly; "a wedding in a family is, I believe, a general subject of congratulation. And I must say she has shown herself a trump—the bravest, best girl alive. And you"—they are drawing near a hotel—"may I venture to ask your plans, Lady Catheron? how long do you think of remaining in New York?"

"I shall leave at once—at once," she replied in the same husky tone. To stay and meet Nellie Seton after to-night is more than she is able to do. They are close to the hotel now. Involuntarily—unconsciously, she clings to his arm, as the drowning may cling to a straw. She feels in a dull, agonized sort of way that in five minutes the waters will have closed over her head, and the story of her life have come to an end.

"Here we are," his frank, cheery voice says—his voice, that has yet a deeper, more earnest tone than of old. "You don't know, Edith, how glad I am of this meeting—how glad to hear you never in any way blamed me."

"I blame you! oh, Charley!" she says with a passionate little cry.

"I rejoice to hear, that with all its drawbacks, you don't regret the past. I rejoice in the knowledge that you are rich and happy, and that a long, bright life lies before you. Edith," he takes both her hands in his strong, cordial clasp, "if we never meet again, God bless you, and good-by."

She lifts her eyes to his, full of dumb, speechless agony. In that instant he knows the truth—knows that Edith loves him—that the heart he would once have laid down his life almost to win, is his wholly at last!

The revelation comes upon him like a flash—like a blow. He stands holding her hands, looking at her, at the mute, infinite misery in her eyes. Someone jostles them in passing, and turns and stares. It dawns upon him that they are in the public street, and making a scene.

"Good-by," he says hastily once more, and drops the hands, and turns and goes.

She stands like a statue where he has left her—he turns a corner, the last sound of his footsteps dies away, and Edith feels that he has gone out of her life—out of the whole world.



CHAPTER X.

THE SECOND BRIDAL.

Miss Nellie Seton came early next morning to see her friend, Mr. Charley Stuart, off. He is looking rather pale as he bids them good-by—the vision of Edith's eyes upturned to his, full of mute, impassionate appeal, have haunted him all night long. They haunt him now, long after the last good-by had been said, and the train is sweeping away Westward. Edith loves him at last. At last? there has never been a time when he doubted it, but now he knows he has but to say the word, and she will lay her hand in his, and toil, and parting, and separation will end between them forever. But he will never, say that word—what Edith Darrell in her ambition once refused, all Lady Catheron's wealth and beauty cannot win. He feels he could as easily leap from the car window and end it all, as ask Sir Victor Catheron's richly dowered widow to be his wife. She made her choice three years ago—she must abide by that choice her life long.

"And then," he thinks rather doggedly, "this fancy of mine may be only fancy. The leopard cannot change his spots, and an ambitious, mercenary woman cannot change her nature. And, as a rule, ladies of wealth and title don't throw themselves away on impecunious dry goods clerks. No! I made an egregious ass of myself once, and once is quite enough. We have turned over a new leaf, and are not going back at this late day to the old ones. With her youth, her fortune, and her beauty, Edith can return to England and make a brilliant second marriage."

And then Mr. Stuart sets his lips behind his brown mustache, and unfolds the morning paper, smelling damp and nasty of printer's ink, and immerses himself, fathoms deep, in mercantile news and the doings of the Stock Exchange.

He reaches St Louis in safety, and resumes the labor of his life. He has no time to think—no time to be sentimental, if he wished to be, which he doesn't.

"Love is of man's life a thing apart," sings a poet, who knew what he was talking about. His heart is not in the least broken, nor likely to be; there is no time in his busy, mercantile life, for that sort of thing, I repeat. He goes to work with a will, and astonishes even himself by his energy and brisk business capacity. If he thinks of Edith at all, amid his dry-as-dust ledgers and blotters, his buying and selling, it is that she is probably on the ocean by this time—having bidden her native land, like Childe Harold, "One long, one last, good-night." And then, in the midst of it all, Trixy's first letter arrives.

It is all Edith, from beginning to end. Edith has not gone, she is still in New York, but her passage is taken, and she will leave next week. "And Charley," says Trix, "don't be angry now, but do you know, though Edith Darrell always liked you, I fancy Lady Catheron likes you even better. Not that she ever says anything; bless you! she is as proud as ever; but we women can tell. And last night she told ma and me the story of her past, of her married life—or rather her un-married life—of her separation from Sir Victor on their wedding-day—think of it, Charley! on their wedding-day. If ever anyone in this world was to be pitied, it was he—poor fellow! And she was not to blame—neither could have acted other than they did, that I can see. Poor Edith! poor Sir Victor! I will tell you all when we meet. She leaves next Tuesday, and it half breaks my heart to see her go. Oh, Charley! Charley! why need she go at all?"

He reads this letter as he smokes his cigar—very gravely, very thoughtfully, wondering a great deal, but not in the least moved from his steadfast purpose. Parted on their wedding-day! he has heard that before, but hardly credited it. It is true then—odd that; and neither to be blamed—odder still. She has only been Sir Victor's wife in name, then, after all. But it makes no difference to him—nothing does—all that is past and done—she flung him off once—he will never go back now. Their paths lie apart—hers over the hills of life, his in the dingy valleys—they have said good-by, and it means forever.

He goes back to his ledgers and his counting-room, and four more days pass. On the evening of the fourth day, as he leaves the store for the night, a small boy from the telegraph office waylays him, and hands him one of the well-known buff envelopes. He breaks it open where he stands, and read this:

"NEW YORK, Oct. 28, '70. "Charley: Edith is lying dangerously ill—dying. Come back at once. BEATRIX."

He reads, and the truth does not come to him—he reads it again. Edith is dying. And then a grayish pallor comes over his face, from brow to chin, and he stands for a moment, staring vacantly at the paper he holds, seeing nothing—hearing nothing but these words: "Edith is dying." In that moment he knows that all his imaginary hardness and indifference have been hollow and false—a wall of pride that crumbles at a touch, and the old love, stronger than life, stronger than death, fills his heart still. He has left her, and—Edith is dying! He looks at his watch. There is an Eastward-bound train in half an hour—there will be barely time to catch it. He does not return to his boarding house—he calls a passing Mack, and is driven to the depot just in time. He makes no pause from that hour—he travels night and day. What is business; what the prospects of all his future life; what is the whole world now? Edith is dying.

He reaches New York at last. It seems like a century since that telegram came, and haggard and worn, in the twilight of the autumn day, he stands at last in his mother's home.

Trix is there—they expect him to-night, and she has waited to receive him. She looks in his face once, then turns away and covers her own, and bursts into a woman's tempest of tears.

"I—I am too late," he says in a hoarse sort of whisper.

"No," Trix answers, looking up; "not too late. She is alive still—I can say no more."

"What is it?" he asks.

"It is almost impossible to say. Typhoid fever, one doctor says, and cerebro spinal meningitis says the other. It doesn't much matter what it is, since both agree in this—that she is dying."

Her sobs breaks forth again. He sits and gazes at her like a stone.

"There is no hope?"

"While there is life there is hope." But it is in a very dreary voice that Trix repeats this aphorism: "and—the worst of it is, she doesn't seem to care. Charley, I believe she wants to die, is glad to die. She seems to have nothing to care for—nothing to live for. 'My life has been all a mistake,' she said to me the other day. 'I have gone wrong from first to last, led astray by my vanity, and selfishness, and ambition. It is much better that I should die, and make an end of it all.' She has made her will, Charley—she made it in the first days of her illness, and—she has left almost everything to you."

He makes no reply. He sits motionless in the twilit window, looking down at the noisy, bustling street.

"She has remembered me most generously," Trix goes softly on; "poor, darling Edith! but she has left almost all to you. 'It would have been an insult to offer anything in my lifetime,' she said to me; 'but the wishes of the dead are sacred,—he will not be able to refuse it then. And tell him not to grieve for me, Trixy—I never made him anything but trouble, and disappointment, and wretchedness. I am sorry—sorry now, and my last wish and prayer will be for the happiness of his life.' When she is delirious, and she mostly is as night draws on, she calls for you incessantly—asking you to come back—begging, you to forgive her. That is why I sent."

"Does she know you sent?" he asks.

"No—it was her desire you should not be told until—until all was over," Trix answered with another burst of tears; "but I couldn't do that. She says we are to bury her at Sandypoint, beside her mother—not send her body to England. She told me, when she was dead, to tell you the story of her separation from Sir Victor. Shall I tell it to you now, Charley?"

He makes a motion of assent; and Trix begins, in a broken voice, and tells him the sad, strange story of the two Sir Victors, father and son, and of Edith's life from her wedding-day. The twilight deepens into darkness, the room is wrapped in shadow long before she has finished. He never stirs, he never speaks, he sits and listens to the end. Then there is a pause, and out of the gloom he speaks at last:

"May I see her, and when?"

"As soon as you come, the doctors say; they refuse her nothing now, and they think your presence may do her good,—if anything can do it. Mother is with her and Nellie; Nellie has been her best friend and nurse; Nellie has never left her, and Charley," hesitatingly, for something in his manner awes Trix, "I believe she thinks you and Nellie are engaged."

"Stop!" he says imperiously, and Trixy rises with a sigh and puts on her hat and shawl. Five minutes later they are in the street, on their way to Lady Catheron's hotel.

One of the medical men is in the sick-room when Miss Stuart enters it, and she tells him in a whisper that her brother has come, and is waiting without.

His patient lies very low to-night—delirious at times, and sinking, it seems to him, fast. She is in a restless, fevered sleep at present, and he stands looking at her with a very sombre look on his professional face. In spite of his skill, and he is very skilful, this case baffles him. The patient's own utter indifference, as to whether she lives or dies, being one of the hardest things he has to combat. If she only longed for life, and strove to recruit—if, like Mrs. Dombey, she would, "only make an effort." But she will not, and the flame flickers, and flickers, and very soon will go out altogether.

"Let him come in," the doctor says. "He can do no harm—he may possibly do some good."

"Will she know him when she awakes?" Trix whispers.

He nods and turns away to where Miss Seton stands in the distance, and Trix goes and fetches her brother in. He advances slowly, almost reluctantly it would seem, and looks down at the wan, drawn, thin face that rests there, whiter than the pillows. Great Heaven! and this—this is Edith! He sinks into a chair by the bedside, and takes her wan, transparent hand in both his own, with a sort of groan. The light touch awakes her, the faint eyelids quiver, the large, dark eyes open and fix on his face. The lips flutter breathlessly apart. "Charley!" they whisper in glad surprise; and over the death-like face there flashes for a second an electric light of great amaze and joy.

"Humph!" says the doctor, with a surprised grunt; "I thought it would do her no harm. If we leave them alone for a few minutes, my dear young ladies, it will do us no harm either. Mind, my young gentleman," he taps Charley on the shoulder, "my patient is not to excite herself talking."

They softly go out. It would appear the doctor need not have warned him; they don't seem inclined to talk. She lies and looks at him, delight in her eyes, and draws a long, long breath of great content. For him, he holds her wasted hand a little tighter, and lays his face down on the pillow, and does not speak a word.

So the minutes pass.

"Charley," she says at last, in a faint, little whisper, "what a surprise this is. They did not tell me you were coming. Who sent for you? When did you come?"

"You're not to talk, Edith," he answers, lifting his haggard face for a moment—poor Charley! "Trix sent for me." Then he lays it down again.

"Foolish boy!" Edith says with shining eyes; "I do believe you are crying. You don't hate me, then, after all, Charley?"

"Hate you!" he can but just repeat.

"You once said you did, you know; and I deserved it. But I have not been happy, Charley—I have been punished as I merited. Now it is all over, and it is better so—I never was of any use in the world, and never would be. You will let me atone a little for the past in the only way I can. Trix will tell you. And, by and by, when you are quite happy, and she is your wife—"

The faint voice breaks, and she turns her face away. Even in death it is bitterer than death to give him up.

He lifts his head, and looks at her.

"When she is my wife? when who is my wife?" he asks.

"Nellie—you know," she whispers; "she is worthy of you, Charley—indeed she is, and I never was. And she loves you, and will make you hap—"

"Stop!" he says suddenly; "you are making some strange mistake, Edith. Nellie cares for me, as Trix does, and Trix is not more a sister to me than Nellie. For the rest—do you remember what I said to you that night at Killarney?"

Her lips tremble—her eyes watch him, her weak fingers close tightly over his. Remember! does she not?

"I said—'I will love you all my life!' I have kept my word, and mean to keep it. If I may not call you wife, I will never call, by that name, any other woman. No one in this world can ever be to me again, what you were and are."

There is another pause, but the dark, uplifted eyes are radiant now.

"At last! at last!" she breathes; "when it is too late. Oh, Charley! If the past might only come over again, how different it all would be. I think"—she says this with a weak little laugh, that reminds him of the Edith of old—"I think I could sleep more happily even in my grave—if 'Edith Stuart' were carved on my tombstone!"

His eyes never leave her face—they light up in their dreary sadness now at these words.

"Do you mean that, Edith?" he says bending over her; "living or dying, would it make you any happier to be my wife?"

Her eyes, her face, answer him. "But it is too late," the pale lips sigh.

"It is never too late," he says quietly; "we will be married to-night."

"Charley?"

"You are not to talk," he tells her, kissing her softly and for the first time; "I will arrange it all. I will go for a clergyman I know, and explain everything. Oh, darling! you should have been my wife long ago—you shall be my wife at last, in spite of death itself."

Then he leaves her, and goes out. And Edith closes her eyes, and lies still, and knows that never in all the years that are gone has such perfect bliss been hers before. In death, at least, if not life, she will be Charley's wife.

He tells them very quietly, very resolutely—her father who is there from Sandypoint, his mother, sister, Nellie, the doctor.

They listen in wordless wonder; but what can they say?

"The excitement will finish her—mark my words," is the doctor's verdict; "I will never countenance any such melodramatic proceeding."

But his countenance does not matter it seems. The laws of the Medes were not more fixed than this marriage. The clergyman comes, a very old friend of the family, and Charley explains all to him. He listens with quiet gravity—in his experience a death-bed marriage is not at all an unprecedented occurrence. The hour fixed is ten, and Trixy and Nellie go in to make the few possible preparations.

The sick girl lifts two wistful eyes to the gentle face of Nellie Seton. It is very pale, but she stoops and kisses her with her own sweet smile.

"You will live now for his sake," she whispers in that kiss.

They decorate the room and the bed with flowers, they brush away the dark soft hair, they array her in a dainty embroidered night-robe, and prop her up with pillows. There is the fever fire on her wan cheeks, the fever fire in her shining eyes. But she is unutterably happy—you have but to look into her face to see that. Death is forgotten in her new bliss.

The bridegroom comes in, pale and unsmiling—worn and haggard beyond the power of words to tell. Trix, weeping incessantly, stands near, her mother and Mr. Darrell are at one side of the bed. Nellie is bridesmaid. What a strange, sad, solemn wedding it is! The clergyman takes out his book and begins—bride and bridegroom clasp hands, her radiant eyes never leave his face. Her faint replies flutter on her lips—there is an indescribable sadness in his. The ring is on her finger—at last she is what she should have been from the first—Charley's wife.

He bends forward and takes her in his arms. With all her dying strength she lifts herself to his embrace. It is a last expiring effort—her weak clasp relaxes, there is one faint gasp. Her head falls heavily upon his breast—there is a despairing cry from the women, cold and lifeless, Charley Stuart lays his bride of a moment back among the pillows—whether dead or in a dead swoon no one there can tell.



CHAPTER XI.

THE NIGHT.

At first they thought her dead—but it was not death. She awoke from that long, death-like swoon as morning broke—so near unto death that it seemed the turning of a hair might weigh down the scale. And so for days after it was—for weary miserable days and nights. The great reaction after the great excitement had come, all consciousness left her, she lay white and still, scarcely moving, scarcely breathing. The one beloved voice fell as powerless on her dulled ears now as all others, the dim, almost lifeless eyes, that opened at rare intervals, were blank to the whole world. She lay in a species of stupor, or coma, from which it was something more than doubtful if she ever would awake. The few spoonfuls of beef-tea and brandy and water she took they forced between her clenched teeth, and in that darkened room of the great hotel, strangely, solemnly quiet, Life and Death fought their sharp battle over her unconscious head.

And for those who loved her, her father, her friends, and one other, nearer and dearer than father or friend, how went those darkest days for them? They could hardly have told—all their after life they looked back, with a sick shudder, to that week.

For Charley Stuart he never wanted to look back—never to the last day of his life will he be able to recall, to realize the agony of those six days—days that changed his whole nature—his whole life.

They watched with her unceasingly—death might come at any moment. There were times when they bent above her, holding their own breath, sure that the faint thread had already snapped—times when they held a mirror to her lips to be sure she breathed at all. For her new-made husband, he never left her except when nature succumbed to the exhaustion of ceaseless vigil, and they forced him away. He forgot to eat or sleep, he sat tearless and still as stone by the bedside, almost as bloodless, almost as wan and hollow-eyed as the dying bride herself. The doctors stood gloomily silent, their skill falling powerless here.

"She needed only the excitement of this most preposterous marriage to finish her," one of them growled; "I said so at the time—I say so now. She had one chance for life—perfect quiet—and that destroyed it."

On the fourth day, a letter from England, in a woman's hand, and deeply bordered with black, arrived. Edith, in the first days of her illness, had told Trix to open all her letters. She would have passed the power over to her brother now, but he waved it away impatiently. What did it matter whom it was from—what it contained—what did anything matter now?

His haggard eyes went silently back to the marble face lying among its pillows, so awfully still.

Trixy opened and read it. It was from Inez Catheron, and announced the death of her aunt, the Lady Helena Powyss.

* * * * *

"Her end was perfect peace," said the letter; "and in her will, she has left her large fortune divided equally between you and me. If possible it would be well for you to return to England as speedily as may be. If wealth can make you happy—and I hope at least it will aid—my dearest Edith, you will have it. For me, I join a charitable Sisterhood here in London, and will try to devote the remainder of my life to the relief of my suffering and poor fellow-creatures. As to the rest, if you care at all to know, my brother reigns at Catheron Royals now! He is, in all respects, a changed man, and will not, I think, be an unworthy successor of him who is gone. His wife and children are all that can be desired.

"Farewell, my dear cousin. When you return to London come to the enclosed address, and see me. No one will welcome you more gladly than,

"INEZ CATHERON."

* * * * *

So another large fortune had been left Edith—she was rich now beyond her wildest dreams. Rich! And yonder she lay, and all the gold of earth, powerless to add a second to her life. What a satire it seemed. Youth, beauty, and boundless wealth were hers and all were vain—vain!

The seventh night brought the crisis.

"This can hold out no longer," the physician said; "before morning we will know the end, whether it is to be life or death."

"Then—there is hope yet?" Trix breathed, with clasped hands.

He looked at her gloomily and turned away, the meaningless formula on his lips:

"While there is life there is hope."

"It will be little less than a miracle if she lives, though," the other added; "and the days of miracles are over. Hope if you like—but—"

"You had better not let him sit up to-night," said the first physician, looking compassionately at Charley; "he won't be able to stand it. He is worn out now, poor fellow, and looks fit for a sick-bed himself."

"He knows it is the crisis," Trixy answered; "he won't go."

"He has watched the last two nights," Miss Seton, interposed: "he must go, doctor; leave me an opiate—I will administer it. If—if the worst comes, it will be but a moment's work to arouse him."

The doctor obeyed.

"I will return at day dawn," he said, "if she be still alive. If not—send me word."

The twilight was falling. Solemn and shadowy it crept into the sombre, silent room. They went back to the bedside, pale and tearless; they had wept, it seemed, until they could weep no more. This last night the two girls were to watch alone.

She lay before them. Dead and in her shroud she would never look more awfully death-like than now. He sat beside her—ah, poor Charley! in a sort of dull stupor of misery, utterly worn out. The sharp pain seemed over—the long, dark watches, when his passionate prayers had ascended for that dear life, wild and rebellious it may be, when he had wrestled with an agony more bitter than death, had left their impress on his life forever. He could not let her go—he could not! "O God!" was the ceaseless cry of his soul, "have mercy—spare!"