Chapter XXXVIII

"Fare thee well! and if forever,
Still forever, fare _thee well_,
Even though unforgiving, never
'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.

Yet, O, yet thyself deceive not;
Love may sink by slow decay,
But by sudden wrench, believe not,
Hearts can thus be torn away.
Still thine own its life retaineth,
Still must mine, though bleeding, beat,
And the undying thought which paineth,
Is, that we no more may meet."

Sudden death had entered the home of Louise Edson and made her a widow. Her husband died of cholera, in a distant city, whence he had gone for the purchase of goods, and was brought home a corpse. Louise reeled to earth beneath the sudden and unexpected blow. Her soul was lacerated by constant memory of the wrong she had done him, and it seemed to her aroused and trembling conscience that avenging Heaven had taken to itself the man she had so deeply injured, and left her to grope darkly on in her own wickedness and sin. True she had been cruelly disappointed, and through long years compelled to struggle on in all the bitter loneliness of feelings unreplied to, bound by indissoluble chains to one who had no tastes or sympathies in common with her. Death had freed her now, but, ah! too late. The taint of sin was on her soul. She had forgot her vows at the altar, debased herself and wronged her husband by listening to words of passion from another. O, far less bitter would have been her grief, as she stood weeping over his lifeless form, could she have laid her hand on the cold, damp brow and said, "I have loved thee ever, and through life's cares and perplexities stood closely at thy side to cheer and smooth thy pathway." But this she could not say. She only felt that the soul had gone to God, to learn her falsity and sin, and looked from the skies upon her with grief and avenging anger. Bitterly she thought of the man who had led her from the path of rectitude, and resolved to see him no more. As a self-inflicted penance, she immured herself within the walls of her own mansion, and determined to pass the remainder of her life in solitude. Many of her numerous friends sought admittance to express sympathy and condolence in her affliction, but she refused to see them and resisted all their overtures. Only one person gained entrance to her seclusion. That was Mrs. Stanhope, whose kind heart was deeply pained by the apparently incurable sorrow that had settled on the mind of her young friend, and strove, by every effort in her power, to lighten her woes and lead her to more hopeful views of the future.

"It grieves me," said she, "to see you, in the bloom of youth and health, immure yourself in a living tomb, and refuse the consolations you would receive from intercourse with your species."

"I want no more of the world," answered the sufferer; "it has no pleasure or enjoyment for me."

"But, my dear, you should not allow your feelings to overpower your better judgment," remonstrated Mrs. Stanhope.

"Ah, my feelings!" said Louise, bitterly, with tears rolling over her pale cheeks; "they have been my destruction. Had I always controlled them, I had not been the miserable creature I am to-day."

Mrs. Stanhope hardly understood this passionate outburst, but she still strove to soothe and comfort her afflicted friend.

"Your brow is hot and feverish," said she, rising to depart. "I caution you to calm yourself and take some rest, or severe sickness will prostrate you ere long."

"And why should I fear sickness or death," asked Louise, in a hopeless tone, "when the only calm for me is the calm of the grave, the only rest its dreamless slumbers?"

Mrs. Stanhope gazed on the suffering face with tearful pity, and turned away. On opening the hall door, she encountered Col. Malcome, pacing to and fro on the icy piazza. He started suddenly on beholding her, and asked if she came from Mrs. Edson. Mrs. Stanhope answered affirmatively.

"And how have you left her?" inquired he, with an expression of strong anxiety and emotion on his features.

"She seems deeply afflicted," returned Mrs. Stanhope.

"Does she still persist in refusing to see her friends?" asked he.

"She is thus disposed, I regret to say," was Mrs. Stanhope's reply.

"Would you do me the favor to return, and entreat her to grant me a few moments in her presence?" inquired he, in an earnest tone.

"I will perform your request with pleasure," she said; "but I fear I shall bring you naught but a gloomy refusal." Thus saying, she reëntered the apartment of Louise.

"I am come with a petition, Mrs. Edson," she remarked, approaching her side, and laying a hand softly on the bowed head. "Will you grant it your favor?"

"I must hear it first," said Louise.

"Col. Malcome is walking on the piazza; he wishes to see you."

"Go and tell him, in another and a darker world I'll see him; never again in this," answered Louise, starting to her feet, her whole frame trembling with excitement and anger.

Mrs. Stanhope was astonished and alarmed at her appearance, and stood gazing on her in wondering silence. At length she said, "I cannot take a message like that to him; he would think it the wild raving of a lunatic."

"Tell him, then, to go away, and never approach these doors again," said Louise, suddenly bursting into tears. Mrs. Stanhope lingered in surprise at her friend's emotion, and strove to soothe it.

"Go," said Louise; "I command you to go, and send him away. I shall die if I hear another of his footfalls on the piazza."

Alarmed by the dreadful energy of her manner, Mrs. Stanhope hurried away. The colonel came eagerly to her side, as she stepped forth.

"Does she refuse me?" he asked.

"She does," said Mrs. Stanhope.

"And does she give no encouragement that I may gain admittance at some future time?"

"None."

"Then carry this to her," said he, placing a small, folded letter in Mrs. Stanhope's hand, and turning dejectedly away.

Again she entered the mansion. Louise sat with head bowed between her hands, and did not raise her eyes. Mrs. Stanhope laid the missive on the table beside her, and silently left the apartment.

Twilight deepened into evening, and still the suffering woman sat there, in mute, unutterable agony. A servant entering with lights at length aroused her to consciousness, and her eye fell on the folded letter lying on the stand. Hastily tearing away the envelope, she dropped on her knees, and ran over its contents with devouring eagerness, while her features worked with strong, conflicting emotions, and tears rolled continually from her beautiful eyes and blistered the written page. "Why do you drive me from you?" it began. "If, in an unguarded moment, under the intoxicating influences which your bewitching presence, the quiet seclusion of the spot, and romantic hush and stillness of the hour threw around me, all combining to lap my soul in delicious forgetfulness of everything beyond the momentary bliss of having you at my side, I suffered words to escape my lips, which should have remained concealed in my own bosom, you might at least let the deep, overpowering love which forced their utterance, plead as some extenuation for my presumption and error. But it seems you have cast me from you forever--unpitied--unforgiven. O, Louise! I did not think you so implacable. The sin is mine, and I would come on bended knee to implore pardon for the suffering and sorrow my rashness has brought to your innocent heart; but you fly from my approach, and banish me from your presence. No mercy for one, who, though he may have erred, is surely atoning for his errors by anguish as deep, as poignant as your own. Night after night I walk the piazza beneath your windows. I know you hear my step and feel that I am near. But you will not open the casement and let me for a moment behold your features and crave your forgiveness. O, Louise, am I to die without a pitying word or look from you?

"I sit by my Edith's bed-side through long, weary midnight hours, and she wakes from her fitful slumbers and asks for you. 'Why does she never come to see me now? There's no arm raises me so lightly, no hand bathes my brow so gently, as hers. Will you not bring her, father?'

"O, what agony these words inflict! I have to feel my own rashness and folly have deprived my sick child of a tender nurse. Louise, do you not remember one dear, bright morning, long ago, when I was sitting at the piano in that pleasant parlor I'm forbidden to enter now, and you stood beside me in all your bewildering grace and beauty, that I sought from you a promise which was given? Still, still would I conjure you, as Steerforth said to David, _think of me at my best_. You will need to do it soon; for your contempt and scorn are hurrying me on to deeds of crime and wickedness. O, will you drive me to the wretch's doom, or win me to a life of happiness and virtue? It is yours to decide."

Such were the contents of the letter which remained clenched in the grasp of the agitated woman through the long hours of that woe-fraught night. When the first gray tints of dawn were visible, she started and hid it away in her bosom. Grasping a pen she traced a few lines with trembling hand, and placed them in an envelope directed to Mrs. Stanhope. Then unclosing her wardrobe, she selected a few articles of clothing, made them into a small bundle, and wrapping a heavy shawl round her slender form, and concealing her features in a large black bonnet with a long, thick veil, she opened softly the hall door, and stole forth into the cold, biting air, walking hurriedly over the frosty paths till she had gained the lonesome country road beyond the village.

As Mrs. Stanhope was sitting down to breakfast, a knock called her to the door, where she beheld Mrs. Edson's servant, who presented her with a letter, and said her mistress had gone away very suddenly, and she would like to know if she had left any word as to when she would return.

Mrs. Stanhope broke the seal, and read with surprise and astonishment depicted on her features. The girl stood waiting to learn its contents.

"I think," said Mrs. Stanhope, suddenly recollecting herself, "that your mistress will be absent some time. She informs me she has gone on a visit to the aunt with whom she resided previous to her marriage."

"Where does her aunt live?" asked the girl.

"I do not know," returned Mrs. Stanhope, "but I think at a considerable distance from this place."

The girl retired, and Mrs. Stanhope reëntered the breakfast room.

"Who was in the porch?" inquired Miss Pinkerton, as her sister assumed her place by the coffee urn.

"Mrs. Edson's servant," returned she, arranging the cups with an absent air.

"What did she want?" asked Miss Martha, opening her muffin and dropping a piece of golden butter on its smoking surface.

"She brought me a note from her mistress," said Mrs. Stanhope, "who has departed suddenly on a visit to her aunt, and wishes me to superintend the care of her mansion for a time."

"I guess she is coming out of her dumps," said Martha. "I always said there was no danger of her dying of grief for the loss of a husband. She'll come home one of these days a gay widow, and set her cap for Col. Malcome. I always thought she had a liking for him."

Mrs. Stanhope made no reply to this unfeeling speech. After breakfast the colonel chanced in to take the long-forgotten package away, when he learned of Louise's sudden departure, and went home in a state of increased anguish and despair.