Chapter III: Striking the Flag (1)

The events narrated in our last chapter took place early in November, and it was not till the following March that the astonished friends of Horace Rutherford saw him reappear amongst them as suddenly and as unexpectedly as he had departed. "Business of importance" was the sole explanation he vouchsafed to those who questioned him respecting the motive of his brief European tour; and with that answer public curiosity was perforce obliged to content itself. Society had, in fact, grown weary of discussing the affairs of the Rutherford family. Clement Rutherford's _mesalliance_, his mother's sudden illness at that memorable dinner-party, her subsequent seclusion from the world, and Horace's inexplicable absence, had all afforded food for the insatiable appetite of the scandal-mongers. Then Gossip grew eloquent respecting the flirtations and "fast" manners of Clement Rutherford's wife, and whispered that the old lady's seizure had been either apoplexy or paralysis, brought on by her distress of mind at her son's marriage, and that she had never been herself since. Next, the elegant establishment of the newly-wedded pair on Twenty-sixth street, with its gorgeous furniture and costly appointments, furnished a theme for much conversation, and doubts were expressed as to whether the "Upper Ten" would honor with its august presence the ball which Mrs. Clement Rutherford proposed giving on Shrove Tuesday, which in that year came about the middle of March. But as to that, it was generally conceded that they would. Youth, beauty, wealth and the shadow of an old family name could cover a multitude of such sins as rapid manners, desperate flirtations and a questionable origin; and notwithstanding her fastness, and, worse still, her _ci-devant_ governess-ship, Mrs. Clement Rutherford was a decided social success.

On the day succeeding that oh which he had arrived, Horace made his appearance at his brother's house. Clement had not heard of his return, and received him with a cordiality strikingly at variance with his usual manner.

"Come into the library," he said, after the first greetings had been exchanged. "I have some fine cigars for you to try, and you can tell me something about your travels."

"Thank you, Clement: I believe I must decline your offer. I have a message for your wife: can I see her?"

A cloud swept over the brow of the elder brother.

"I suppose you can," he said, coldly, looking at his watch as he spoke. "Two o'clock. She took breakfast about half an hour ago, so she is probably at home. You had better go up stairs to her _boudoir_, as she calls it, and Christine, her maid, will tell her that you wish to see her."

He turned away, and was about to leave the room when Horace caught his hand.

"Clement! brother! Answer me one question: Are you happy in your married life?"

"Go ask the scandal-mongers of New York," was the bitter reply: "_they_ are eloquent respecting the perfection of my connubial bliss."

"If she had been a kind and affectionate wife, if she had made him happy," muttered Horace as he ascended the stairs, "my task would have been a harder one. Now my duty is clear, and my course lies smooth and straight before, me."

The room into which he was ushered by Christine, the pretty French maid, was a perfect marvel of elegance and extravagance. It was very small, and on every part of it had been lavished all that the combined efforts of taste and expenditure could achieve. The walls had been painted in fresco by an eminent Italian artist, and bevies of rosy Cupids, trailing after them garlands of many-hued flowers, disported on a background of a delicate green tint. The same tints and design were repeated in the Aubusson carpet, and on the fine Gobelin tapestry which covered the few chairs and the one luxurious couch that formed the useful furniture of the tiny apartment. Étagères of carved and gilded wood occupied each corner, and, together with the low mantelshelf (which was upheld by two dancing nymphs in Carrara marble), were crowded with costly trifles in Bohemian glass, Dresden and Sèvres porcelain, gilded bronze, carved ivory and Parian ware. An easel, drawn toward the centre of the room, supported the one painting that it contained, the designs on the walls being unsuited for the proper display of pictures. This one picture had evidently been selected on account of the contrast which it afforded to the gay coloring and _riante_ style of the decorations. It was a superb marine view by Hamilton--a cloudy sunset above a stormy sea, the lurid sinking sun flinging streaks of blood-red light upon the leaden waters that, in the foreground, foamed and dashed themselves wildly against the rocks of a barren and precipitous shore.

Horace stood lost in contemplation before the easel, when the door opened and his sister-in-law entered. He turned to greet her, and her beauty, enhanced as it was by the elegance of her attire, drew from him an involuntary glance of admiration. Her dress was an exemplification of how much splendor may be lavished on a morning-costume without rendering it absolutely and ridiculously inappropriate. She wore a robe of turquoise-blue Indian cashmere, edged around the long train and flowing sleeves with a broad border of that marvelous gold embroidery which only Eastern fingers can execute or Eastern imaginations devise. A band of the same embroidery confined the robe around her slender, supple waist, and showed to advantage the perfection of her figure. A brooch and long ear-pendants of lustreless yellow gold, and a fan of azure silk with gilded sticks, were the adjuncts to this costume, whose rich hues and gorgeous effects would have crushed a less brilliant and stylish-looking woman, but which were wonderfully becoming to its graceful wearer.

"Welcome home, Horace!" she said in that low sweet voice which was one of her most potent charms. "How kind it is of you to pay me a visit so soon after your return!"

She placed herself on the couch and motioned to him to take a seat near her. He drew up his chair, and a short, embarrassed pause succeeded.

Mrs. Rutherford toyed with her fan and stole glances from under her long black lashes at her visitor, who sat twisting one of his gloves and wishing most ardently that Providence had entrusted the painful task before him to some one of a more obdurate and less chivalrous nature.

Wearied of silence, the lady spoke at last.

"Have you nothing of interest respecting your travels to tell me?" she asked.

Her voice seemed to break the spell which paralyzed him. He turned toward her with the look of one who nerves himself up to take a desperate resolution:

"Yes: I have a story to relate to you, and one of more than common interest."

"Really!" She yawned behind her fan. "Excuse me, but I was at Mrs. Houdon's ball last evening, and the 'German' was kept up till five o'clock this morning. I am wretchedly tired. Now do go on with your story: I have no doubt but that I shall find it amusing, but do not be much surprised if I fall asleep."

"I think you will find it interesting, and I have no fear of its putting you to sleep. But you must make me one promise. I am but a poor narrator, and you must engage not to interrupt me."

"I have no hesitation in promising to remain perfectly quiet, no matter how startling your incidents or how vivid your descriptions may be."

She leaned back among the cushions with another stifled yawn and shaded her eyes with her fan. Without heeding the veiled impertinence of her manner, Horace commenced his narrative:

"Some twenty-five years ago a friendless, penniless Englishwoman died at one of the cheap boarding-schools in Dieppe, where she had officiated for some time as English teacher and general drudge. She left behind her a little girl about five years of age--a pretty, engaging child, whose beauty and infantile fascinations so won the heart of Madame Tellier, the proprietress of the establishment, that she decided to take charge of the little creature and educate her, her project being to fit her for the post of English teacher in her school. But the pretty child grew up to be a beautiful but unprincipled girl, with an inborn passion for indolence and luxury. At the age of seventeen she eloped from the school with a young Parisian gentleman, who had been spending the summer months at one of the seaside hotels in Dieppe, and her benefactress saw her and heard of her no more.

"We will pass over the events of the next few years. It would hardly interest you to follow, as I did, each step by which the heroine of my history progressed ever downward on the path of vice. We find her at last traveling in Italy under the protection of the Count von Erlenstein, an Austrian noble of great wealth and dissolute character. She has cast aside the name she once bore, and, anticipating the jewel-borrowed cognomens of Cora Pearl and La Reine Topaze, she adopts a title from the profusion of pink coral jewelry which she habitually wears, and Rose Sherbrooke is known as Rose Coral."

Horace paused. A short, sharp sound broke the momentary silence: it was caused by the snapping of one of the gilded fan-sticks under the pressure of the white, rigid fingers that clasped it. But the listener kept her face hidden, and but for that convulsive motion the speaker might have fancied that she slept, so silent and motionless did she remain. After a short pause Horace continued:

"The attachment of Count von Erlenstein proved to be a lasting one, and we find Rose Coral at a later period installed in a luxurious establishment in Vienna, and one of the reigning queens of that realm of many sovereigns, the _demi-monde_ of the gay capital of Austria. But the count falls ill; his sickness speedily assumes a dangerous form; his death deprives Rose Coral of her splendor; and the sunny streets of Vienna know her fair face no more. I will not retrace for you, as I could do, each step in her rapid descent from luxury to poverty, from splendor to vice, from celebrity to ruin. But one day she makes her appearance, under the name of Rhoda Steele, on board the steamship America, bound for New York. The state-room which she occupies is shared by a young girl named Marion Nugent, whose future career is to be that of a governess in the United States. On the first night out one of the occupants of the state-room is taken suddenly ill and dies, the corpse is committed to the deep, and it is reported throughout the ship that the name of the deceased is Rhoda Steele. The tale was false: it was Marion Nugent who died--it was Rose Sherbrooke, _alias_ Rose Coral, _alias_ Rhoda Steele, who lived to rob the dead girl of her effects and to assume her name!"

The broken fan was flung violently to the floor, and Mrs. Rutherford sprang to her feet, her face livid with passion and her blue eyes blazing with a steel-like light.

"How dare you come here to assert such falsehoods?" she cried. "You have always hated me--you and all the rest of your haughty family--because it pleased Clement Rutherford to marry me--me, a penniless governess. But I am your sister-in-law, and I _demand _ that you treat me with proper respect. You came here to-day simply to insult me. Well, sir, I will summon my husband, and he shall protect me from your insolence."

She turned toward the door as she spoke, but he motioned her back with an imperative and scornful gesture.

"Softly, Rose Coral," he said, with a sneer: "the manners of the Quartier Brèda are not much to my taste, nor do they suit the character you have been pleased to assume. Do you think me so void of common sense as to return home without full proof of your identity? I have in my possession a large colored photograph of you, taken some years ago by Hildebrandt of Vienna, and endorsed by him on the back with a certificate stating that it is an accurate likeness of the celebrated Rose Coral. Secondly, I have brought home with me two witnesses--one is Jane Sheldon, late housekeeper for the Rev. Walter Nugent, and formerly nurse to the deceased Marion Nugent; and the other is a French hairdresser who lived many years in Vienna, and who, for several months, daily arranged the profuse tresses of Rose Coral. One will prove who you are _not_, and the other will as certainly prove who you _are_."

"Who I _was_" she said, defiantly. "I will deny it no longer: I am Rose Sherbrooke, once known as Rose Coral, and, what is more to the purpose, I am the wife of Clement Rutherford. Have a care, my brother Horace, lest you reveal to the world that your immaculate relatives have been touching pitch of the blackest hue and greatest tenacity. Prove me to be the vilest of my sex, I remain none the less a wedded wife--your brother's wife--and I defy you. The game is played out, and I have won it."

She threw herself back in her chair and cast on him a glance of insolent disdain. Horace Rutherford looked at her with a scornful smile.

"The game is _not_ played out," he said, calmly. "One card remains in my hand, and I produce it. It is the Ace of Diamonds, and its title is The Rose of the Morning."

A livid paleness overspread Mrs. Rutherford's features, and a stifled cry escaped from her lips. She half rose from her seat, but, seeming to recollect herself, she sank back and covered her face with her hands. Horace continued, after a momentary pause:

"My investigations into the history of the Count Wilhelm von Erlenstein during the last years of his life revealed the fact that he had lost the most valuable of the jewels of his family. It had been stolen. It was a pink diamond of great size and beauty, known to gem-connoisseurs by the name of The Rose of the Morning--one of those remarkable stones which have a history and a pedigree, and which are as well known by reputation to diamond-fanciers as are Raphael's Transfiguration and the Apollo Belvidere to the lovers of art. This gem was worn by Count Wilhelm as a clasp to the plume in his toque at a fancy ball given by one of the Metternich family, at which he appeared in the costume of Henri III. of France. He afterward, with culpable carelessness, placed it, amongst his studs, pins, watch-chains and other similar bijouterie, in a small steel cabinet which stood in his bed-chamber. His illness and the dismissal of Rose Coral occurred soon after the fancy ball in question, and it was not till his heir, the present count, had been for some time in possession of the estates that it was discovered that the great diamond was missing. It was not to be found, and suspicion immediately fell upon the late count's valet, a Frenchman named Antoine Lasalle; who was found to have been mysteriously possessed of a large sum of money after the count's death. He was arrested, and it was conclusively proved that he had stolen a number of valuable trinkets from his dying master, but still no trace of The Rose of the Morning could be discovered, and Lasalle strenuously denied all knowledge respecting it. The family offered large rewards for its recovery, and the detectives of all the large cities of Europe have been for some time on the alert to discover it, but in vain. As soon as I heard this story, I thought that I could make a tolerably shrewd guess as to the whereabouts of the missing jewel; and I caused investigations to be set on foot in New York by a trusty agent, which resulted in the discovery that The Rose of the Morning had been sold some six months before to a jeweler in Maiden lane for about one-twenty-fifth of its value, the peculiar tint of the stone, and the purchaser's ignorance of the estimation in which it is held by the gem-fanciers of Europe, having militated against the magnitude of the valuation set upon it. It was secured for me at a comparatively trifling price. The person who sold it to the jeweler some six months ago, in spite of a partial disguise and an assumed name, was easy to recognize, from the description given, as that lady of many names, Mrs. John Archer's governess. Now, Rose Coral, what say you? You may be Mrs. Clement Rutherford, my brother's lawful wife, but you are not the less a thief and a criminal, for whom the laws have terrible punishment and bitter degradation."

"This is but a poor invention: where are your proofs?" she cried, looking up as she spoke, but her faltering voice and quivering lips contradicted her words.

"Here is my chief witness." He drew off his left-hand glove as he spoke, and extended his hand toward her. On the third finger blazed the beautiful gem of which he had spoken, its great size and purity fully displayed in the pale afternoon sunlight that flashed back in rosy radiance from its bright-tinted depths.

"It is almost too large to wear as a ring," he said with great coolness, looking at the jewel, "but I wish it to run no further risks till I can transfer it to its lawful owner, which will be as soon as it has played its talismanic part by freeing my brother from his impostor-wife."

The lady rose from her seat, pale, calm and resolved.

"Further insults are useless, sir," she said. "The game is ended now, and you have won it. What is it that you wish me to do?"

"You must sail for Europe in one of next week's steamers, leaving behind you such a confession of guilt as will enable my brother to procure a divorce without revealing the shameful fact that he was the innocent means of introducing an impostor--a _ci-devant_ lorette--to his family and friends as his wife. Better this scandal of an elopement than the horror of having such a story made public. An income amply sufficient for your wants will be settled upon you, on condition that you never return to the United States, and never, in any way, proclaim the fact that Mrs. Clement Rutherford and Rose Coral were one and the same person."

"I accept your conditions," she said, wearily. "I will go, never to return. Now leave me. But stay: will you not answer me one question?"

"I will, certainly."

"Who was it that discovered my secret?"

"My mother--my blind mother. Some years ago, before she lost her sight, I accompanied her on a short European tour, in which we visited England, France, Switzerland, and finally Italy. While we were at Rome I fell ill with the fever of the country, and my physicians gave orders that as soon as I was well enough to travel I should leave Italy for a more bracing climate. We had not visited Naples, and I was anxious that my mother should not return home without seeing the wonders of that city; so as soon as I became convalescent I prevailed upon her to leave me in the care of some friends and to join a party who were going thither. During her stay she went frequently to the opera. One evening she was greatly disturbed by the loud talking and laughing of some persons in the box next to the one she occupied, and she was much struck with the beauty, the brilliant toilette and the boisterous conduct of one of the female members of the party. She inquired the name of the person she had thus remarked. It was yourself, and she learned not only your name, but your whole history. When at her own dinner-table she heard the sweet and singular laugh that had so struck her on that occasion, the sensitiveness of hearing peculiar to the blind caused her to recognize the sound at once; and the description which I afterward gave her of your personal appearance only changed torturing doubt into agonizing certainty."

"Thanks for your courtesy: I will detain you no longer."

Horace bowed and approached the door. Suddenly, as if moved by a sudden impulse, he turned back.

"Believe me, this task has been a hard one," he said, earnestly. "And remember, if hereafter you may need pecuniary aid, do not hesitate to apply to me. For Heaven's sake, do not return to the life you once led. There was one redeeming feature in the imposture which you practiced: it showed that some yearning for a pure name and an innocent life was yet possible to you."

"I want no sermons," she answered, abruptly. "Only leave me at peace. Go: I am sick of the sight of you."

As he closed the door he cast one parting glance on the room and its occupant. She stood leaning against the back of a large arm-chair, her clasped hands resting on the top, and her white, rigid face set in the fixed calmness of total despair.

Thus left alone, she remained standing for some time as motionless as though she were a marble statue and not a living woman. Suddenly she seemed to take some desperate resolve: she threw back her head with a bitter, mirthless laugh, and going to the bell she rang it. Her maid quickly appeared.

"I have a wretched headache, Christine," she said. "I shall not come down to dinner, and do not disturb me till nine o'clock: that will give me time enough to dress for Mrs. Winchester's ball. I will wear the pale-blue satin and my point-lace tunic. Be sure you change the white roses that loop it for pink ones, and lay out my parure of pearls and diamonds, and my point-lace fan and handkerchief. Now bring me the two phials that stand on the third shelf of the closet in my bed-chamber."

Christine departed on her errand and soon returned, bringing with her two bottles, the smallest of which was labeled "Solution of Morphia--POISON. Dose for an adult, ten drops;" while the largest Was simply inscribed "Sulphuric Ether." These she placed on the chimney-piece, and then proceeded to arrange the cushions of the lounge and to draw the curtains. "I will now leave madame to her repose," she said. "Does madame need anything more?"

"No, I shall want nothing more," was the reply. The door closed upon the maid's retreating form, and Mrs. Rutherford instantly shot the bolt.

She cast a sad and wistful glance around the dainty room and on its glittering contents. "_J'etais si bien ici_," she said regretfully. "I had found here the existence which suited me, and now the end has come. It is not in my nature to remain satisfied with a life of poverty and respectability, and I will not return to one of degradation and vice. But, after all, what does it matter? My fate would have found me sooner or later, and this soft couch is better than a hospital bed or the slabs of La Morgue: this draught is more soothing than the cold waters of the Thames or the Seine. Life is no longer a game that is worth the candle: let us extinguish the lights and put the cards away."

She took up the phial of morphia, drew the little sofa nearer to the fireplace and extended herself upon it. The daylight faded from the sky and night came, and with the night came sleep--a sleep whose dream was of Eternity, and whose wakening light would be the dawn of the resurrection morning.

"Accidental death" was the verdict of the coroner and the newspapers, and, in fact, of the world in general--a conclusion much assisted by the evidence of Christine, who testified that her mistress was in the habit of using narcotics and anaesthetics in large quantities to relieve the pain of the neuralgic headaches from which she was a constant sufferer. Society said, "How sad! Dreadful, is it not?" and went on its way--not exactly rejoicing, for the death of Mrs. Rutherford deprived its members of her long-promised, long-talked-of Shrove-Tuesday ball, and consequently the gay world mourned her loss very sincerely for a short time; in fact, till a well-known leader of fashion announced her intention of giving a fancy-dress party on the night thus left vacant, whereupon Society was consoled, and Mrs. Rutherford's sad fate was forgotten.

Only two persons--Horace Rutherford and his mother--suspected that her death was not an accidental one; but they guarded their secret carefully, and Clement Rutherford will never learn that his dead wife was other than the innocent English girl she represented herself to be. Walter Nugent wrote a pathetic letter to Mrs. Rutherford, begging that a lock of his lost and now forgiven darling's hair might be sent to him; and it cost Horace a sharp pang of regret when he substituted for the black, wavy tress furnished by Clement a golden ringlet purchased from one of the leading hairdressers of New York.

"Heaven forgive me!" he said to himself, remorsefully, as he sealed the little packet; "but I really think that this is one of the cases wherein one cannot be blamed for not revealing the truth."

A few months later, Horace Rutherford stood in Greenwood Cemetery contemplating with curiosity and interest the inscription on a recently-erected monument of pure white marble.

"Sacred to the memory of Marion Nugent, beloved wife of Clement Rutherford," he read. "Well, this is consistent at least. She wears the disguise of a virtuous woman in her very tomb. Marion Nugent rests beneath the waves of the Atlantic ocean, and here Rose Sherbrooke sleeps in an honored grave beneath the shelter of the dead girl's stainless name. But the deception has power to harm no longer, so let us leave her in peace. It is well for our family that, even as a sunken wreck, we still find this pirate bark Under False Colors,"

LUCY HAMILTON HOOPER.

The Hungry Heart.

A village on the coast of Maine; in this village a boarding-house; in this boarding-house a parlor.

This parlor is, strictly speaking, a chamber: it is in the second story, and until lately it contained a bed, washstand, etc.; but a visitor from New York has taken a fancy to change it to a reception-room. In the rear, communicating with it, is a sleeping-closet.

The room is what you might expect to find in a village boarding-house: the floor of liliuptian extent; the ceiling low, uneven, cracked and yellow; the originally coarse and ugly wall-paper now blotched with age; the carpet thin, threadbare, patched and stained; the furniture of various woods and colors, and in various stages of decrepitude.

But a tiny bracket or two, three or four handsome engravings, two fresh wreaths of evergreens, two vases of garden flowers, a number of Swiss and French knickknacks, and a few prettily-bound books, give the little nest an air of refinement which is almost elegance.

You judge at once that the occupant must be a woman--a woman moreover of sensibility and taste; a woman of good society. Of all this you become positive when you look at her, take note of her gracious manner and listen to her cultured voice.

Her expression is singularly frank and almost childlike: it exhibits a rapid play of thoughts, and even of emotions: it is both vivacious and refined, both eager and sweet. It would seem as if here were the impossible combination, the ideal union, so often dreamed of by poets and artists, of girlish simplicity and innocence with womanly cleverness and feeling.

In a large easy-chair reclines her rather small, slender and willowy form, starting slightly forward when she speaks, and sinking back when she listens. Her sparkling eyes are fixed on the eyes of her one visitor with an intentness and animation of interest which should be very fascinating.

He, a young man, not five years older than herself, very gentle in manner and with a remarkably sweet expression of face, evidently is fascinated, and even strongly moved, if one may judge by the feverish color in his cheeks, the eager inquiry of his gaze and the tremor of his lips.

The first words of hers which we shall record are a strange utterance to come from a woman:

"Let me tell you something which I have read lately. It sounds like a satire, and yet there is too much truth in it: 'Every woman in these days needs two husbands--one to fill her purse, and one to fill her heart; one to dress her, and one to love her. It is not easy to be the two in one.' That is what I have read, and it is only too true. Remember it, and don't marry."

A spasm of intense spiritual pain crossed the young man's fine and kindly face.

"Don't say such things, I beg of you!" he implored. "I am sure that in what you have quoted there is a slander upon most women. I know that it slanders you."

Her lips parted as if for a contradiction, but it was evidently very pleasant to her to hear such words from him, and with a little childlike smile of gratification she let him proceed.

"I have perfect confidence in you," he murmured. "I am willing to put all my chances of happiness in your hands. My only fear is that I am not half worthy of you--not a thousandth part worthy of you. Will you not listen to me seriously? Will you not be so kind?"

A tremor of emotion slightly lifted her hands, and it seemed for a moment as if she would extend them to him. Then there was a sudden revulsion: with a more violent shudder, evidently of a painful nature, she threw herself backward, her face turned pale, and she closed her eyes as if to shut him from her sight.

"I ought to ask your pardon," she whispered. "I never thought that it would come to this. I never meant that it should. Oh, I ask your pardon." Recovering herself with singular quickness, a bright smile dancing along the constantly changing curves of her lips, like sunbeams leaping from wavelet to wavelet, she once more leaned cordially toward him, and said in a gay yet pleading tone, "Let us talk of something else. Come, tell me about yourself--all about yourself, nothing about me."

"I cannot speak of anything else," he replied, after looking at her long in silence. "My whole being is full of you: I cannot think of anything else."

A smile of gratitude sweetly mastered her mouth: then it suddenly turned to a smile of pity; then it died in a quiver of remorse.

"Oh, we cannot marry," she sighed. "We must not marry, if we could. Let me tell you something dreadful. People hate each other after they are married. I know: I have seen it. I knew a girl of seventeen who married a man ten years older--a man who was Reason itself. Her friends told her, and she herself believed it, that she was sure of happiness. But after three years she found that she did not love, that she was not loved, and that she was miserable. He was too rational: he used to judge her as he would a column of figures--he had no comprehension for her feelings."

There was a momentary pause, during which she folded her hands and looked at him, but with an air of not seeing him. In the recollection of this heart-tragedy of the past and of another she had apparently forgotten the one which was now pressing upon herself.

"It was incredible how cold and unsympathizing and dull he could be," she went on. "Once, after she had worked a week in secret to surprise him with a dressing-gown made by her own hands--labored a week, waited and hoped a week for one word of praise--he only said, 'It is too short.' Don't you think it was cruel? It was. I suppose he soon forgot it, but she never could. A woman cannot forget such slights: they do not seem little blows to her; they make her very soul bleed."

"Don't reproach _me_ for it," whispered the young man with a pleading smile. "You seem to be reproving me, and I can't bear it. I am not guilty."

"Oh, not you," she answered quickly. "I am not scolding you. I could not."

She did not mean it, but she gave him a smile of indescribable sweetness: she had had no intention of putting out her hands toward him, but she did it. He seized the delicate fingers and slowly drew her against his heart. Her face crimson with feeling, her whole form trembling to the tiniest vein, she rose to her feet, turning away her head as if to fly, and yet did not escape, and could not wish to escape. Holding her in his arm, he poured into her ear a murmur which was not words, it was so much more than words.

"Oh, _could_ you truly love me?" she at last sobbed. "Could you _keep_ loving me?"

After a while some painful recollection seemed to awaken her from this dream of happiness, and, drawing herself out of his embrace, she looked him sadly in the eyes, saying, "I must not be so weak. I must save myself and you from misery. Oh, I must. Go now--leave me for a while: do go. I must have time to think before I say another word to you."

"Good-bye, my love--soon to be my wife," he answered, stifling with a kiss the "No, no," which she tried to utter.

Although he meant to go, and although she was wretchedly anxious that he should go, he was far from gone. All across the room, at every square of the threadbare carpet, they halted to renew their talk. Minutes passed, an hour had flown, and still he was there. And when he at last softly opened the door, she herself closed it, saying, "Oh no! not yet."

So greedy is a loving woman for love, so much does she hate to lose the breath of it from her soul: to let it be withdrawn is like consenting to die when life is sweetest.

Thus it was through her, who had bidden him to go, and who had meant that he should go, that he remained for minutes longer, dropping into her ear whispers of love which at last drew out her confession of love. And when the parting moment came--that moment of woman's life in which she least belongs to herself--there was not in this woman a single reservation of feeling or purpose.

These people, who were so madly in love with each other, were almost strangers. The man was Charles Leighton, a native of Northport, who had never gone farther from his home than to Boston, and there only to graduate in the Harvard College and Medical School.

The lady was Alice Duvernois: her name was all that was known of her in the village--it was all that she had told of herself. Only a month previous to the scene above described she had arrived in Northport to obtain, as she said, a summer of quiet and sea-bathing. She had come alone, engaged her own rooms, and for a time seemed to want nothing but solitude.

Even after she had made herself somewhat familiar with the other inmates of the boarding-house, nothing positive was learned of her history. That she had been married was probable: an indefinable something in her face and carriage seemed to reveal thus much: moreover, her trunks were marked "James Duvernois."

And yet, so young did she sometimes look, so childlike was her smile and so simple her manner, that there were curious ones who scouted the supposition of wifehood. People addressed her both as "Miss" and "Mrs."; at last it was discovered that her letters bore the latter title: then she became popularly known as "the beautiful widow."

It would be a waste of time to sketch the opening and ripening of the intimacy between Doctor Leighton and this fascinating stranger. On his part it was as nearly a case of love at first sight as perhaps can occur among people of the Anglo-Saxon race. From the beginning he had no doubts about giving her his whole heart: he was mastered at once by an emotion which would not let him hesitate: he longed with all his soul for her soul, and he strove to win it.

Well, we will not go over the story: we know that he had triumphed. Yes, in spite of her terror of the future, in spite of some withholding mystery in the past, she had granted him--or rather she had not been able to prevent him from seizing--her passionate affection. She had uttered a promise which, a month before, she would not have dreamed herself capable of making.

In so doing she had acquired an almost unendurable happiness. It was one of those mighty and terrible joys which are like the effect of opium--one of those joys which condense life and abbreviate it, which excite and yet stupefy, which intoxicate and kill. With this in her heart she lived ten of her old days in one, but also she drew for those ten days upon her future.

After one of her interviews with Leighton, after an hour of throbbing, of trembling, of vivid but confused emotions, her face would be as pale as death, and her weakness such that she could hardly speak. The hands which, while they clung to his, had been soft and moist, became dry and hot as with fever, and then cold as ice. At night she could scarcely sleep: for hours her brain throbbed with the thought of him, and of what stood between him and her. In the morning she was heavy with headache, dizzy, faint, hysterical; yet the moment she saw him again she was all life, all freshness.

From the point of confession there was no more resistance. She would be his wife; she would be married whenever he wished; she seemed mad to reward him for his love; she wanted somehow to sacrifice herself for his sake. Yet, although she hesitated no longer, she sometimes gazed at him with eyes full of anxiety, and uttered words which presaged evil.

"If any trouble springs from this, you must pardon me," she more than once whispered. "I cannot help it. I have never, never, never been loved before; and oh, I have been so hungry, so famished for it, I had begun to despair of it. Yes, when I first met you, I had quite despaired of there being any love in the world for me. I could not help listening to you: I could not help taking all your words and looks into my craving heart; and now I am yours--forgive me!"

Stranger as she was in Northport, everybody trusted the frank sweetness in her face, and sought no other cause for admiring her and wishing her happiness. The whole village came to the church to witness her marriage and to doat upon a bridal beauty which lay far more in expression than in form or feature. A few words of description--inadequate notes to represent the precious gold of reality--must be given to one who could change the stare of curiosity to a beaming glance of sympathy.

Small, slender, fragile; neither blonde nor brunette; a clear skin, with a hectic flush; light chestnut hair, glossy and curling; eyes of violet blue, large, humid and lustrous, which at the first glance seemed black because of the darkness, length and closeness of the lashes, and capable of expressing an earnestness and sweetness which no writer or artist might hope to depict; a manner which in solitude might be languid, but which the slightest touch of interest kindled into animation; in fine, white teeth that sparkled with gayety, and glances that flashed happiness.

She was married without bridal costume, and there was no wedding journey. Leighton was poor, and must attend to his business; and his wife wanted nothing from him which he could not spare--nothing but his love. Impossible to paint her pathetic gratitude for this affection; the spiritual--it was not passionate--fondness which she bore him; the softness of her eyes as she gazed for minutes together into his; the sudden, tremulous outreachings of her hands toward him, as she just touches him with her finger and draws back, then leans forward and lies in his arms, uttering a little cry of happiness. Here was a heart that must long have hungered for affection--a heart unspeakably thankful and joyous at obtaining it.

"I have been smiling all day," she sometimes said to him. "People have asked me why I looked so gay, and what I had heard that was funny. It is just because I am entirely happy, and because the feeling is still a surprise. Shall I ever get over it? Am I silly? No!"

Her gladness of heart seemed to make her angelic. She rejoiced in every joy around her, and grieved for every sorrow. She visited the poor of her husband's patients, watched with them when there was need, made little collections for their relief, chatted away their forebodings, half cured them with her smile. There was something catching, comforting, uplifting in the spectacle of that overbrimming content.

The well were as susceptible to its influence as the sick. Once, half a dozen men and twice as many boys were seen engaged in recovering her veil out of a pond into which the wind had blown it; and when it was handed to her by a shy youth on the end of a twenty-foot pole, all felt repaid for their labors by the childlike burst of laughter with which she received it. Now and then, however, shadows fell across this sunshine. In those dark moments she frequently reverted to the unhappy couple of whom she had told Leighton when he first spoke to her of marriage. She was possessed to describe the man--his dull, filmy, unsympathetic black eyes, his methodical life and hard rationality, his want of sentiment and tenderness.

"Why do you talk of that person so much?" Leighton implored. "You seem to be charging me with his cruelty. I am not like him."

The tears filled her eyes as she started toward him, saying, "No, you are _not_ like him. Even if you should become like him, I couldn't reproach you. I should merely die."

"But you know him so well?" he added, inquiringly. "You seem to fear him. Has he any power over you?"

For a moment she was so sombre that he half feared lest her mind was unstrung on this one subject.

"No," she at last said. "His power is gone--nearly gone. Oh, if I could only forget!"

After another pause, during which she seemed to be nerving herself to a confession, she threw herself into her husband's arms and whispered, "He is my--uncle."

He was puzzled by the contrast between the violence of her emotion and the unimportance of this avowal; but as he at least saw that the subject was painful to her, and as he was all confidence and gentleness, he put no more inquiries.

"Forget it all," he murmured, caressing her; and with a deep sigh, the sigh of tired childhood, she answered, "Yes."

The long summer days, laden with happiness for these two, sailed onward to their sunset havens. After a time, as August drew near its perfumed death, Alice began to speak of a journey which she should soon be obliged to make to New York. She _must_ go, she said to Leighton--it was a matter of property, of business: she would tell him all about it some day. But she would return soon; that is, she would return as soon as possible: she would let him know how soon by letter.

When he proposed to accompany her she would not hear of it. To merely go on with her, she represented, would be a useless expense, and to stay as long as she might need to stay would injure his practice. In these days her gayety seemed forced, and more than once he found her weeping; yet so innocent was he, so simple in his views of life, so candid in soul, that he suspected no hidden evil: he attributed her agitation entirely to grief at the prospect of separation.

His own annoyance in view of the journey centred in the fact that his wife would be absent from him, and that he could not incessantly surround her with his care. Whether she would be happy, whether she would be treated with consideration, whether she would be safe from accidents and alarms, whether her delicate health would not suffer, were the questions which troubled him. He had the masculine instinct of protection: he was as virile as he was gentle and affectionate.

The parting was more painful to him than he had expected, because to her it was such an undisguised and terrible agony.

"You will not forget me?" she pleaded. "You will never, never hate me? You will always love me? You are the only person who has ever made the world pleasant to me; and you have made it so pleasant! so different from what it was! a new earth to me! a star! I will come back as soon as this business will let me. Some day I will come back, never to go away. Oh, will not that be delightful?"

Her extreme distress, her terror lest she might not return, her forebodings lest he should some day cease to love her, impressed him for a moment--only for a truant moment--with doubts as to a mystery. As he left the railway station, full of gratitude for the last glance of her loving eyes, he asked himself once or twice, "What is it?"

What was it?

We will follow her. She is ominously sad during the lonely journey: she is almost stern by the time she arrives in New York. In place of the summer's sweetness and gayety, there is a wintry and almost icy expression in her face, as if she were about to encounter trials to which she had been long accustomed, and which she had learned to bear with hardness if not with resentment.

No one meets her at the railway station, no one at the door of the sombre house where her carriage stops--no one until she has passed up stairs into a darkling parlor.

There she is received by the man whom she has so often described to Deighton--a man of thin, erect form, a high and narrow forehead, regular and imperturbable features, fixed and filmy black eyes, a mechanical carriage, an icy demeanor.

At sight of her he slightly bowed--then he advanced slowly to her and took her hand: he seemed to be hesitating whether he should give her any further welcome.

"You need not kiss me," she said, her eyes fixed on the floor. "You do not wish to do it."

He sighed, as if he too were unhappy, or at least weary; but he drew his hand away and resumed his walk up and down the room.

"So you chose to pass your summer in a village?" he presently said, in the tone of a man who has ceased to rule, but not ceased to criticise. "I hope you liked it."

"I told you in my letters that I liked it," she replied in an expressionless monotone.

"And I told you in my letters that I did not like it. It would have been more decent in you to stay in Portland, among the people whom I had requested to take care of you. However, you are accustomed to have your own way. I can only observe that when a woman will have her own way, she ought to pay her own way."

A flush, perhaps of shame, perhaps of irritation, crossed her hitherto pale face, but she made no response to the scoff, and continued to look at the floor.

After a few seconds, during which neither of them broke the silence, she seemed to understand that the reproof was over, and she quietly quitted the room.

The man pushed the door to violently with his foot, and said in an accent of angry scorn, "That is what is now called a wife."

Well, we have reached the mystery: we have found that it was a crime.

In the working of social laws there occur countless cases of individual hardship. The institution of marriage is as beneficent as the element of fire; yet, like that, it sometimes tortures when it should only have comforted.

The sufferer, if a woman, usually bears her smart tamely--with more or less domestic fretting and private weeping indeed, but without violent effort to escape from her bed of embers. Divorce is public, ugly and brutal: her sensibility revolts from it. Moreover, mere unhappiness, mere disappointment of the affections, does not establish a claim for legal separation. Finally, there is woman's difficulty of self-maintenance--the fact that her labor will not in general give her both comfort and position.

What then? Unloved, unable to love, yet with an intense desire for affection, and an immense capacity for granting it, her heart is tempted to wander beyond the circle of her duty. A flattering shape approaches her dungeon-walls; a voice calls to her to come forth and be glad, if only for a moment; there seems to be a chance of winning the adoration which has been her whole life's desire; there is an opportunity of using the emotions which are burning within her. Shall she burst open the gate on which is written LEGALITY?

Evidently the temptation is mighty. Laden with a forsaken, wounded and perhaps angry heart, she is so easily led into the belief that her exceptional suffering gives her a right to exceptional action! She feels herself justified in setting aside law, when law, falsifying its purpose, violating its solemn pledge, brings her misery instead of happiness. She will not, or cannot, reflect that special hardships must occur under all law; that it is the duty of the individual to bear such chance griefs without insurrection against the public conscience; that entire freedom of private judgment would dissolve society.

Too often--though far less often than man does the like--she makes of her sorrow an armor of excuse, and enters into a contest for unwarrantable chances of felicity. Only, in general, she is so far conscious of guilt, or at least so far fearful of punishment, as to carry on her struggle in the darkness. Few, however maddened by suffering, openly defy the serried phalanx of the world. Still fewer venture the additional risk of defying it under the forms of a legality which they have ventured to violate.

Why is it that so few women, even of a low and reckless class, have been bigamists? It is because the feminine soul has a profound respect, a little less than religious veneration, for the institution of marriage; because it instinctively recoils from trampling upon the form which consecrates love; because in very truth it regards the nuptial bond as a sacrament. I believe that the average woman would turn away from bigamy with a deeper shudder than from any other stain of conjugal infidelity.

But there are exceptions to all modes of feeling and of reasoning.

Here is Alice Duvernois: she is a woman of good position, of intellectual quickness, of unusual sensitiveness of spirit; yet she has thought out this woeful question differently from the great majority of her sex. To her, thirsty for sympathy and love, bound to a man who gives her neither, grown feverish and delirious with the torment of an empty heart, it has seemed that the sanctity of a second marriage will somehow cover the violation of a first.

This aberration we can only explain on the ground that she was one of those natures--mature in some respects, but strangely childlike in others--whom most of us love to stigmatize as unpractical, and who in fact never become quite accustomed to this world and its rules.

On the very evening of her arrival home she put to her husband a question of infantile and almost incredible simplicity. It was one of the many observations which made him tell her from time to time that she was a fool.

"What do they do," she asked, "to women who marry two husbands?"

"They put them in jail," was his cool reply.

"I think it is brutal," she broke out indignantly, as if the iron gates were already closing upon her, and she were contesting the justice of the punishment.

"You are a pretty simpleton, to set up your opinion against that of all civilized society!" was the response of incarnate Reason.

From that moment she trembled at her danger, and quivered under the remorse which terror brings. At times she thought of flying, of abandoning the husband who did not love her for the one who did; but she was afraid of being pursued, afraid of discovery. The knowledge that society had already passed judgment upon her made her see herself in the new light of a criminal, friendless, hunted and doomed. The penalty of her illegal grasp after happiness was already tracking her like a bloodhound.