"I, too, have worshiped an ideal all my life. A man without reproach, and above dishonor. A man strong in all manly attributes, strong in his loves and his emotions, but strong, too, in his pride, and in his will power. I think God never bestows the one without the other; but man too often cultivates the former and leaves the latter unused. For the ideal I so worshiped, I kept my heart free and my soul unsullied. When you came, all unconsciously I invested you with the attributes of my ideal. All unconsciously—until too late to place a guard upon my unwise heart—it poured out its long-hidden treasures. So suddenly the knowledge came upon me, that I betrayed to you what had been wiser to conceal. Wiser, because added to the Creator's uneven distribution of pains and penalties, the world bestows its merciless condemnation upon the woman who reveals that which is so difficult to hide.
God formed man and woman out of the self-same clay! breathed into their bodies the self-same breath of life—endowed them with the self-same human nature. But a civilized Society permits man to exult in a display of the emotions which it demands that woman shall mask or deny.
Upon the weaker being devolves the double duty of fighting against the aggressive impulses of the stronger, while she controls her own.
She who fails to do this, loses the esteem of the man who has awakened the slumbering passions of her heart.
That I love you, I will not attempt to deny. I think God meant us for each other in the beginning. But I give much to the man I love, when I give myself, penniless and nameless though I am, I give a whole heart, untouched by any belittling half-loves or debasing jealousies. While I have waited for the coming of the King, I have allowed no pretender to occupy the throne in my heart, even for an hour. I have given no man on earth the right to think I loved him, until you came. No man exists who can point his hand at me and say, 'we were lovers once.' Has not she who gives a stainless womanhood, a pure, wholesome body, and a true, warm heart, the right to demand much in return? She either undervalues her own worth, or overvalues the worth of any man, it seems to me, who does not demand it.
And yet, knowing the story of your life, in all its tragic details, its temptations, and its trials, I have felt to-day many times, that I loved as deeply or as unwisely as other women have loved—loved enough to find my happiness in reforming the object of my affections. Let no man consider this a woman's true sphere. If, out of the vastness of her love, she is willing to lean down to him, let him bow in reverence before her: not lightly taking it as her duty and his right.
But while I love you, and must love you forever, even as you have said, I can never be your wife.
I cannot lead you into your newly-found Kingdom of Love, when by so doing I must tread upon another woman's bleeding heart. I could not accept happiness bought at the price of another's misery and despair.
Over the fairest day the future could prepare for us, there would always hang the shadow of another's life-long sorrow.
Could I answer you otherwise, under the circumstances, I would not be worthy of your love. Yet, if I did not know that this life is only a very small portion of our existence, I might be so mad with selfish passion that I should forget every consideration save my love for you.
But I believe that those who belong to each other spiritually will find each other and dwell together through eternities of love.
I believe we shall. But while here, on earth, we must make ourselves worthy of that life, by unselfish thoughtfulness of others, by self-denial, and suffering, if need be. You have made a terrible mistake, which can only be atoned for by a life of repentance and resolve. And I must suffer with you. The great wrong, in a mistake or a sin like yours, is that it reaches out and injures those who are guiltless. Two people make laws unto themselves and say, 'It is no one's business—we wrong no one save ourselves.' Yet invariably others are eventually wronged.
No soul ever transgressed a divine law of morality, without injuring some innocent being.
There is no absolute individuality. We are all linked and lashed together by invisible but indestructible threads, spun down from the Great Source. When any man attempts to extricate himself from others and stand alone, a guide and god unto himself, he but more hopelessly interlaces and snarls the web which unites us all.
You, my friend, have snarled the threads about us: but even in my pain there lies a joy in the consciousness that I suffer through, and with you. It is sweeter than to rejoice with another. In the beginning of time, God married our souls; that we are separated during one brief stage of existence cannot hinder our final eternal union. Be true to your new self, and 'run your race in patience, for you are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses.' God bless you, and adieu.
"Helena."
A chill that seemed to shake the marrow in his bones and the core in his heart, seized upon Percy as he laid the letter down. He disrobed as quickly as possible, and rolled himself up in the covers of his warm bed, but he felt as if he were packed in ice, despite all his efforts, until the return of the fever set his veins on fire.
Dr. Sydney smiled grimly, with an "I told you so" expression, when he again stood by Percy's bed-side. But Percy did not wait to hear his accusing words.
"I have resigned myself to my fate, you see, doctor," he said, "and I am convinced that you know more than I do. I think I am going to be very sick; and I want you to tell me the exact truth about myself, as I have some very important directions to leave concerning my affairs, if there is the least hope of my death."
"Hope!" echoed Dr. Sydney, "Tut, tut, man, what are you talking in that vein for—a young, handsome, fortunate fellow like you, with all your life before you?"
Percy smiled sadly.
"My life is all behind me, unfortunately, Doctor," he said. "At least the best opportunities of it are, and they lie among tares—lost in a rank growth of wild oats. It is all very well to say that every man must plant that crop—but I realize when too late that I must reap the harvest as well; and it has filled my store-house so full, there is no room for one golden sheaf of wheat."
"Might thresh your wheat then, in the stack, and sell it without storing it," suggested the old doctor, facetiously, as he held Percy's pulse between his thumb and finger. "Fall wheat brings good prices now. H'm! pretty high fever—how's your tongue?"
"Pretty sick, pretty sick, my boy!" he said, as he finished his examination. "Liver in an awful state. That's what makes you want to die, and all that. A diseased liver and melancholy views of life are as natural companions as a boy and a piece of string. If you don't object, I'll call counsel?"
Percy looked up quickly.
"Then I am in danger?"
"Possibly, not positively. I see indications that lead me to think an abcess is forming on your liver. But I am not sure of it."
"In case there is?"
"In case there is, you will have to submit to an operation."
"And such operations are often fatal, are they not, in their results? Frequently so."
Dr. Sydney hesitated.
"They are sometimes fatal," he said. "You would require skillful treatment, and careful nursing. I must obtain a good nurse for you, at once, and I would like to call in Dr. Manville."
Dr. Manville, after a thorough examination, and diagnosis of the case, agreed with Dr. Sydney in relation to the symptoms of the disease.
"They are obscure, and it is at this time difficult to locate the abcess," he said to Percy, who insisted upon knowing his exact condition. "But I am convinced that an operation must take place before long. Your case is serious; and I would advise you to send for your relatives."
Percy shook his head sadly.
"I have only one relative in the world," he said, "and she is now in Europe with her husband and children. But I have friends I wish to send for at once. Will you kindly give me the utensils to write out a telegram, Doctor?"
The telegram, when completed, was addressed to "Mr. Thomas Griffith, Centerville, N. Y.," and read: "Come at once. Bring your wife and Helena. A matter of life and death." Then followed his name and address.
A few hours later, they came—startled, wondering, anxious. Dr. Sydney was alone with the patient, awaiting the arrival of the nurse. He ushered the pale trio to Percy's bed-side, and was about to retire to an adjoining room, when Percy detained him.
"Wait!" he said. "I want you to tell my friends, Doctor, my exact condition, just as you have told me. Spare nothing."
Dr. Sydney did as Percy requested. "And now," added Percy, "I wish to say for myself that I have no expectations of recovery. I do not want to live, and I shall make no effort to assist my medical advisers in restoring me to health. And since I must die, Helena, let me make you my wife. Let me leave you the lawful heir of my otherwise useless wealth—and let your hands minister to my last wants while on earth. It will not be long; but that brief time will be rendered the happiest of my whole life, if I can have your care, and companionship. Helena will you not consent?"
Mrs. Griffith was sobbing and Mr. Griffith and Dr. Sydney were wiping their eyes.
Helena alone was tearless. But her heart seemed dying within her, so sudden, so terrible, so unexpected was this situation.
"Helena, will you consent?" Percy repeated.
"I cannot, oh, I cannot!" she cried.
"Helena!" It was Mrs. Griffith who spoke now through her sobs. "Helena, you are cruel. Don't you know it is a dying man you are refusing to make happy upon his death-bed?"
"There may be one chance for his life, and you are ruining that. It is murder!" Mr. Griffith added.
"He needs some tender woman's care—he must have it!" said the Doctor. "No money can buy the kind of care and nursing he needs during the next month or six weeks."
Helena put her hands to her temple, with a distracted gesture. "Oh—you do not any of you understand!" she cried; "it is not my place—Percy, may I see you alone a moment?"
"H'm—h'm! quite a romance here!" mused Dr. Sydney, as he trotted out of the room with his hands clasped under his coat-tails. "Liver trouble and love affairs together—bad complication—very bad. Enough to pull any man down. Hope the girl will marry him and nurse him. She has the look of a born mother in her face. Some women have. They always make good nurses."
Meanwhile, Helena was kneeling by Percy's bed-side, her hands clasping his, her face luminous with love and her heart torn with conflicting emotions.
"Oh, my darling, my darling!" she cried, passionately, "it is not that I do not love you enough to forgive all that has occurred, in this solemn hour, and devote myself to your care. But I think of her—you have belonged to her—she has loved you and shared your life; and now, to come suddenly forward, to displace her, to take your name, your fortune, and the sad, sacred duty of ministering to perhaps your last wants on earth—oh, it seems cruel—heartless! It is her right—not mine."
"And now listen to me quietly," Percy answered, as he stroked her hair gently. "She whom you mention is not within call, even if I desired her presence. When I returned from Centerville, I found her all packed to go to California. I bade her adieu—with the understanding that it was our last farewell—and she supposes me now preparing for a trip to Europe. She does not need my fortune, and she never desired my name. I shall die happier to bestow both on you. If I believed there remained one possibility of recovery for me, I would never ask you to be my wife, Helena. I am not, I never can be worthy of you here. But I think I shall make greater progress in the spirit world, and be better fitted to journey on beside you there, if I die knowing you are my wife. Will you consent, Helena?"
"I will," she said, solemnly; and leaned her face, wet now with tears, upon his breast. And that was their betrothal.
Then, as gently as he could, he told her of the strange discovery he had made during his last interview with Dolores: a discovery Helena's clairvoyant perceptions had already half divined. From the hour he first told her his story, she had constantly associated his unknown and unnamed friend with the thought of Dolores.
Though bitter and painful the actual knowledge of the truth, she was yet spared the ordeal of a stunning surprise as she listened to his revelation.
An hour later, the always solemn and now doubly-impressive marriage service was responded to by a bride clothed all in black, and a pallid groom lying upon his death-bed.
Scarcely was the ceremony concluded, when Percy was seized by a violent chill, followed by intense pain, and other alarming symptoms. The morning found him greatly reduced in strength, and unable to move upon the pillow without a groan of agony; throughout the day he grew rapidly worse, and every hope of ultimate recovery was abandoned.
"I doubt if he lives to endure the operation which must take place shortly," Dr. Sydney said to Mr. Griffith in the afternoon, as he paused by the door before descending the stairs. "He has passed through too much mental excitement during the last twenty-four hours. He has developed most alarming symptoms since midnight, which complicate the case seriously. Permit no one to see him to-day; leave this door open occasionally to allow circulation of fresh air."
As he turned to go, a boy in messenger's costume, presented himself at the door. "Message for Mr. Durand," he said, smartly. "Thirty cents due."
Dr. Sydney gave the boy a slight push.
"Go along with you," he growled. "Mr. Durand is sick—he may not live till morning. Go tell your employer not to bother us at such a time with messages."
The boy hurried away, as if frightened at the close proximity of death to the locality.
"I shall call again this evening," Dr. Sydney added, as he went slowly down the stairs; and then he muttered to himself: "A serious case, a serious case."
CHAPTER XXII.
DEAD IN HER BED.
S the door closed upon Percy after that tragic interview, Dolores stood and listened to his departing footsteps, until the last echo died away.
Then she flung herself down among the objects which were all associated with their happy hours of love and companionship, while dry despairing sobs shook her frail form.
"Oh, Christ, pity me! my life is all in ruins, all in ruins!" she moaned, "Father—Mother—God, why did you curse me with the existence I never desired?"
After a time, she rose up and tried to set her apartment in order. Every where she turned her eyes, they were greeted with some reminder of her life with Percy. Here was a souvenir of the happy bohemian days, in Paris. There a momento of that fatal ice-boat journey. Fatal, because she believed it was during that dangerous experience that Mrs. Butler contracted the illness which resulted in her death; and because on that day, Percy really passed from the position of friend to lover. Then, as she opened a book, trying to divert her tortured mind from these memories, out dropped a pressed fern, gathered in the Andean valley. She covered her face with her hands; she seemed to see again the fading glory of that wonderful sunset, the towering steeples of granite, and again she could hear the saucy Ta-ha-ha of the arajojo bird.
It was more than she could bear. She rose hurriedly, and walked across the room, weeping silently.
Suddenly her eyes fell upon the old faded photograph, which Percy had dropped beside the chair he occupied. She picked it up and gazed upon it with passionate fury, distorting her beautiful face.
"Curse you, curse you!" she almost shrieked, and tearing the card in a thousand fragments, she trampled them under her feet, and fell in a dead swoon upon the floor beside them.
It was dark when she returned to consciousness. She groped her way toward her couch, and, throwing herself upon it, fell into a troubled sleep, which lasted until the entrance of Lorette the following day.
She awoke to renewed suffering, and spent wretched hours in forming a thousand futile plans of revenge. Scarcely having tasted food since Percy's departure, she felt her strength leaving her. And with her strength, went her anger, resentment and pride. During the long sleepless night, of the second day, the desire to see Percy again overmastered every other feeling. The intensity of her love seemed to increase, as her physical vigor lessened. The knowledge that, no matter how she destroyed his happiness, or ruined his hopes in life, she must still love him, and live without him, bore down upon her heart like a burning weight, and put to flight all desire for revenge. The one thing, the only thing which made the future worth living, was a reconciliation with Percy.
She rose and sat by her window in the chill, gray dawn.
"He must come back to me, he must," she whispered, "at any cost! I have given up the whole world for his love, for his companionship. Even if his love has been given to another, he must still give me his companionship. I will see him—I will send for him to-day, and tell him so."
A strange idea had presented itself to her feverish, suffering heart. An idea born of her wild love and her crushed and ruined pride. In the silent watches of the night, the thought had come to her, that even if Percy made Helena his wife, he might still give her (his comrade, his long-time confidant and friend)—his occasional affectionate companionship. If she submitted quietly and passively to his marriage, he might not wholly cast her off. She believed that society was full of men, respectable citizens in the eyes of the world—who retained their intimate lady friends after marriage. And she knew that the United States Government permitted a large and increasing colony to exist, where men retained any number of wives.
Surely, if any woman on earth had the right to be so retained, it was she. And Percy would see it so—and he would not cast her off. She could scarcely wait for the day to advance, to send for him and lay the plan before him.
She had not the faintest comprehension of the mighty magnitude or the exalted nature of the love which had sprung to life in Percy's heart for Helena. She believed it to be the passing fancy of the hour—a sudden passion of the senses. She remembered the subtle magnetism which Helena possessed in days of old—a peculiar power of drawing people to her—of attracting them and winning their confidence with no seeming effort of her own. She remembered how popular she was in Madame Scranton's Academy—and in those days she had believed it to be the mesmerism of her eyes, that won the hearts of her companions. Percy was, no doubt, affected by this mysterious influence which fascinated every one who lingered long in Helena's presence. But it would pass away—and his love for her, his ideal mate and comrade, would burn again with greater lustre, if she waited patiently.
She wrote a note, full of humility, begging his forgiveness for her conduct during their last interview, and asking him to grant her a few moments' conversation during the day. She sent for a messenger to carry the note, and then she dismissed Lorette for the day and began to prepare herself for the expected guest.
Lorette took her departure reluctantly. "Madame is not herself; Madame is ill, and needs looking after!" she muttered, as she went out, and many times during the day and in succeeding days and weeks, her light volatile French spirits were shadowed by the recollection of her mistress's face, as she last saw it.
Dolores was one of the few women who can be beautiful even when suffering mental and physical pain. As a rule, happiness and health are necessary cosmetics to beauty; but hers was a face that even much weeping, and sleepless nights of torturing pain could not disfigure.
She robed herself all in white, as Percy best loved to see her. She wore his favorite jewels, and a bright knot of ribbon he had once admired, at her throat. Suddenly, in the midst of her preparation, she paused. The full consciousness of her humiliating position dawned upon her with startling force.
"My God! how low I have fallen!" she sobbed, and yet she did not draw back from the resolution she had formed, to throw herself upon the pity of the man she loved.
She had been Queen of the feast; and now she was about to beg for crumbs from the table presided over by another.
The hours lagged by on leaden wings. Why did not the messenger return?
It was late in the afternoon when he made his appearance. He was out of breath from running up the flight of stairs, and he handed her back—her own note.
"Could you not find the gentleman? I told you to leave the note if he was not in!" she said sharply, so keen was her disappointment.
"Yes'm, I know you did," the boy answered, "but there was people there, and a doctor. And the doctor he came to the door, and he said as the gentleman mustn't be disturbed—he was sick, and goin' to die before mornin', perhaps. And I felt scared like, and come off without leaving the letter."
The boy turned away, and Dolores closed the door upon him, quickly, as if to shut out his evil message with him.
Sick, dying! and who were the people with him? who had the right to be with him and minister to his needs, save herself? It was her place—hers only. She must go to him—she must save him by the strength of her love.
She did not wait to make any change in her attire. She seized the nearest garment at hand—a soft white shawl, and a hat with nodding white plumes, and hurried forth.
When she reached the building in which Percy's apartments were situated, she met the physician just emerging from the street door. She forced a calm exterior as she addressed him.
"I came to ask after your patient," she said. "Is it true that he is not expected to live?"
He looked at her sharply. Her white attire, her beauty and her pallor made her a remarkable picture as she stood there in the gathering dusk.
"Are you a relative of his?" he asked.
She shook her head. "No, only a friend; one to whom he has been very kind," she answered. "But I want you to tell me the truth. Will he die?"
"I fear he will," the old physician answered, gravely. "There is small chance that he can live through the night. If he lives, it will be a miracle." Then he passed on.
She glided through the entrance he had left open, and hurried up the flight of stairs that led to his rooms. The door stood ajar upon the landing. She pushed it open and entered; no one was visible in the outer room which served as a parlor. At one side, in a sort of study, sat a gentleman and lady engaged in low conversation; but they did not hear her light footsteps as she walked across the yielding carpet, and stood between the velvet portieres which curtained his sleeping-room.
Through the colored globe the gas-light shone with subdued lustre, filling the apartment with the mellow halo of an autumn sunset.
Propped up on pillows lay Percy, while above him leaned the shapely figure of a woman clothed all in black; her dusky hair and brunette face showing in marked contrast to the blond locks and marble pallor of the patient.
Her hand was making light soothing passes across his brow; her eyes were full of unutterable love and sorrow. Gently she drooped over his pillow and pressed a light kiss upon his closed lids, as she murmured—"My love—my husband."
Dolores drew a deep, gasping breath, like one who has been struck suddenly by an unseen foe.
Helena heard the sound, and turned a startled glance in the direction from which it came.
Standing between the velvet curtains, she saw the motionless figure of Dolores, majestic in her beauty, her white garments and her golden hair clearly defined against the crimson background of the draperies.
Just for one breathless, pained second the two women who had been schoolmates and dear friends, looked into each other's eyes again. Then, as Helena made a movement toward her, Dolores turned her glance upon Percy—a strange, radiant, triumphant smile illuminating her face—and vanished as suddenly as she had appeared.
As she made her way through the city streets, many turned to look upon the white-robed figure, and the strangely-beautiful smiling face under the nodding plumes of her hat. But no man dared speak to her. There was something in her face that awed them, and protected her from insult.
She was still smiling when she entered her own apartment again. Carefully laying aside her wraps, she proceeded to set the room in perfect order. Then she brought out a little ebony box, in which she kept many curious souvenirs of her life abroad. In one corner lay a small chamois-skin bag. She opened it, and into a corner of a snowy cambric handkerchief, she shook a portion of its contents—a brilliant, crystallized substance—and then replaced the bag and locked the ebony box away in her cabinet again.
Laying the handkerchief on the pillow of her couch, she disrobed, brushed out her beautiful hair, and leaving the gas jet turned low, she crept into her snowy bed. Bringing the handkerchief close to her face, she looked smilingly down on the tiny crystals of the powder, as she murmured, "If only Madame Volkenburg was not mistaken—if only it is swift and sure, as she said! Oh Love, Love! even in death we shall not be parted. She will mourn over your cold clay; but your spirit will be with me, with me! You would have lived for her, but I die for you. Ah, God! how much sweeter death is, than life. Oh, my Love, my Love, you shall not take the journey alone! Whatever the great mystery is, we will solve it—together. May Christ receive our spirits."
She emptied the powder into her sweetly-parted lips, folded the handkerchief under her cheek, and lay quite still, as if she slept.
When Lorette came in the morning, she found her lying in the same position, the handkerchief under her cheek, and a sweet, glad smile upon her dead face.
The papers, on the following day, reported the sudden death, by heart disease, of beautiful Madame Percy, a young French lady.
CHAPTER XXIII.
BITTER SWEET.
N the afternoon of the next day, Homer Orton presented himself at Percy's apartments, only to be met by Mrs. Griffith, and informed of that young man's critical condition.
"He is slightly easier to-day," she said, "but we are instructed to keep him very quiet. There is little hope entertained of his recovery."
The journalist stood for a moment silent, shocked, bewildered. Then he spoke:
"I wish to consult him upon a matter of the gravest importance. Can you direct me to his most intimate friend or relative, to whom I might impart some very serious information? It is a matter which cannot wait."
Mrs. Griffith was impressed with the earnestness of the young man's manner. Reluctantly she stepped into the adjoining study, where Helena's shapely form lay stretched upon a broad lounge. It was the first respite she had taken from her position as watcher. She seemed to be sleeping, and Mrs. Griffith spoke her name softly, unwilling to disturb her.
But Helena was not sleeping. Though worn out with fatigue and excitement, the memory of Dolores' face, as it appeared for one brief, terrible second at the door of Percy's apartment, drove slumber from her pillow.
The consciousness that her old friend was in the city, near to her, suffering all the agonies of slighted wounded love, wrung her gentle heart with inexpressible pain. She longed to go to her, to take her in her arms, to comfort her. She longed to bring her to Percy's bed-side, and to say: "Stay here with me; together we will minister to his dying needs; it is our mutual right, our mutual sorrow." But even if she could find Dolores, that suffering tortured woman would turn from her, in bitterness and anger. And Percy must not know that she was in the city; the knowledge might prove fatal to him in his weak, exhausted condition.
She arose wearily as Mrs. Griffith made known her errand.
"Do not let Percy know, that I am disturbed:" she said. "He made me promise to sleep until evening, without once leaving my couch. He would be annoyed if he knew I had disobeyed him."
"What! using authority so soon?" playfully asked Mrs. Griffith.
Helena answered only by a sad smile, as she passed out to meet Homer Orton. He arose with surprise, confusion, and distress mingled in his expression, as his eyes fell upon a comely young woman.
"I had a very painful piece of information to impart to Mr. Durand," he began, "and wished to ask his advice on the proper course to pursue. It is, however, a matter so extremely personal and of such a delicate nature, that I hardly know how to broach it to you. Are you—a relative?"
"I am Mr. Durand's nearest friend and confidant. We are very closely related indeed," Helena answered quietly. "Please proceed with what you have to say."
Homer drew a copy of the morning paper from his pocket.
"This paper reports the sudden death of an acquaintance of Mr. Durand," he said. "We both knew her abroad; but it seems she has been living in New York under an assumed name, or at least under the name of Madame Percy. I recognized her this afternoon as I visited her remains in company with another journalist, as the lady who had bestowed most graceful hospitality upon both Mr. Durand and myself, while we were abroad. I feel personally interested in her as a friend, and I am certain, that he also does. Whatever her secrets, or her sorrows, I desire to keep them from the daily papers. I wished the advice and assistance of Mr. Durand in this matter. The apartments of the deceased lady are left in care of a French maid who cannot speak a word of English. Unless some friend takes charge of her effects, it will be impossible to avoid an exposure of what I fear is a painful history."
"Exposure must be avoided at any cost," cried Helena, her voice choked with tears, her heart torn anew over this additional and unexpected sorrow. "Madame Percy was a dear friend of mine. I know her entire history; it is most sad, most unfortunate, but it must not be given to the public; it must not be discussed by curious people who did not know her as I knew her—to love and to pity."
"It need not be given to the public," Homer Orton answered, firmly. "But you must go at once and take charge of her effects. The knowledge that she has friends in the city will prevent the sensation-seekers from ferreting out her history. You can give the reporters such facts as you choose concerning her life, if they approach you, and I will use my influence to prevent anything unpleasant from creeping into print."
And so, while Percy believed Helena to be sleeping, she performed the last sad rites for the woman who had been her dearest friend and her unintentional foe. With the exception of faithful Lorette, she was the only mourner to shed tears as the beautiful body was lowered to its last resting-place. Tears made more scalding and bitter by the thought of another burial drawing near, where she must officiate in the lasting character of a life-long mourner.
A story which closes with a suicide and a death is not a pleasant story to relate, or to read. Yet we who peruse our daily papers, know that such stories are very true to life.
It is gratifying to me, however, that I need not complete my narrative with a double tragedy.
Percy did not die.
It might have been owing to the mental condition produced by the knowledge that Helena was really his wife, or it might have been due to the skill of his physician; but certain it is, that he recovered—recovered, to realize that he had gained a wife almost by "false pretenses;" and that Dolores was no longer in existence upon the earth where she came an undesired child, and from which she went forth a suffering, desperate woman.
Shocked and almost crazed with the knowledge of this tragedy, Percy called Helena to him, a few hours after she had imparted the sad information.
"I feel like a cheat and a liar," he said; looking mournfully in her eyes, "to think I did not die as I promised. But I shall not offend you with my presence long. As soon as my strength permits I am going abroad, to remain an indefinite time. I feel that I shall never return to my native land; something tells me I shall find a grave among strangers. Our marriage will, of course, remain a secret with the few who know it now, and need cause you no annoyance."
Percy followed out the course of action he had set for himself, but, as is frequently the case with presentiments of evil, his impression that he was to find a grave among strangers was not verified.
He returned, after two years spent in travel, bronzed and robust, the light of his pure love for Helena shining more warmly than ever in his blue eyes.
It is so easy for a man to live down the errors that a woman (Christ pity her) can only expiate in the grave.
He reached out his arms, when he once more stood face to face with Helena.
"Can you not forgive all that miserable darkened past, and come and brighten the future for me?" he asked, in a voice that was like a caress. "I love you and I need you, Helena."
She looked up into his face, her eyes heavy with unshed tears. The love in her heart triumphed over every preconceived resolve, over every cruel, agonizing memory, as great love always must.
Yet there are triumphs sadder than any defeat: there are joys more painful than any woe. It was such a triumph, and such a joy, that filled Helena's heart as she glided into her lover's embrace.
"Oh, yes, I can forgive it all," she sighed. "Because I love you and because I am a woman. I sometimes think, Percy, that God must be a woman. He is expected to forgive so much."
Into her great heart, as she nestled upon his breast, in this supreme hour of reconciliation and recompense, there shot a keen, agonizing memory of the woman she had displaced; of the woman who had wrecked her whole happiness and lost her life in an unwise love for this man, whose tender, passionate words were falling now upon willing ears.
It was a memory which must, to a nature as generous and unselfish as hers, cast a melancholy shadow over the most intense hour of happiness the future could hold for her.
It was a phantom shape, which must sit forever at her feasts of love. Percy had made to her a complete surrender of his very soul; and she knew that their doubly wedded spirits, like two united streams, would mix and flow on together to the ocean of Eternity. Yet the more perfect her own joy, the deeper into her sympathetic heart must sink the sorrowful memories of Dolores.
Always, as she looked up to him with the worshiping eyes of a loyal wife, and saw in him her hero, her ideal, her protector and her guide, she must remember the young life his thoughtless, selfish folly helped to lay in ruins. All these emotions, robed the joy of that nuptial hour in mourning, as she lifted her sweet, sad face and filmy eyes to his.
And Percy, folding her in his arms, felt all a man's selfish pride, and all a lover's keen rapture in the knowledge that he was pressing the first kiss upon her pure lips, which had ever been placed there since her father's dying benediction fell upon them.
THE END.
Transcriber's Note:
Many words in the text occur in both hyphenated and non-hyphenated form (e.g. room-mate/roommate): this is authentic to the original text.
Obsolete, variant or eccentric spelling has been retained. However, for consistency, the names 'Volkenburg', 'Lorette', and 'Shelley' have been changed when, in a few instances, they were spelled 'Volkenberg', 'Lorrete', and 'Shelly'.
Inconsistent quotation marks in the correspondence have been kept as printed.
Punctuation has been standardised, and typographical errors have been silently changed.