Transcriber’s Notes:

“Retribution,” “Ishmael,” “Self-Raised,” “India,” “The Missing
Bride,” “The Curse of Clifton,” “Vivia,” “The Discarded
Daughter,” “The Lost Heiress,” “The Mother-in-Law,”
“The Deserted Wife.”

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
PUBLISHERS
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

(Printed In the United States of America)

LOVE’S LABOR WON.

CHAPTER I.
THE IMPROVVISATRICE.

“Hers was the spell o’er hearts

That only genius gives;

The mother of the sister Arts,

Where all their beauty lives.”

—Varied from Campbell.

“Beautiful.”

“Glorious.”

“Celestial!”

Such were the exclamations murmured through the room, in low but earnest tones.

“So fair and dark a creature I have never seen,” said the French ambassador.

“The rarest and finest features of the blonde and the brunette combined; look at her hair and brow! It is as if the purple lustre of Italia’s vines lay upon the snow of Switzerland’s Alps,” said a young English gentleman, of some twenty years of age, and from whom the air of the university had scarcely fallen.

“You are too enthusiastic, Lord William,” gravely observed an elderly man, in the dress of a clergyman of the Church of England.

“Too enthusiastic, sir! Ah, now! do but see for yourself, if it be not profane to gaze at her. Is she not now—what is she? Queenly? Pshaw! I was, when a boy, at Versailles with my father; I saw Marie Antoinette and the beautiful princesses of her train; but never, no, never, have I seen beauty and dignity and grace like this. You have the honor of knowing the lady, sir?” he concluded, turning abruptly to a member of the French legation, standing near him.

“Oh, yes, monsieur, I have that distinction,” said the affable Parisian, with a bow and smile.

“And her name is——”

“Ah, pardon me, monsieur—Mademoiselle Marguerite De Lancie.”

“Oh! a countrywoman of your own?”

“Excuse, monsieur—a Virginie.”

“Ah, ha! Miss De Lancie, of Virginia,” said the young Englishman, who, having thus ascertained all that he wished to know for the present, now, with the characteristic and irresponsible bluntness of his nature, turned his back upon the small Frenchman, and gave himself up to the contemplation of the lady seated at the harp.

This conversation occurred in a scene and upon an occasion long to be remembered. The scene was the saloon of the old Presidential mansion at Philadelphia. The occasion was that of Mrs. Washington’s last reception, previous to the final retirement of General Washington from office. The beauty, talent, fashion and celebrity of the “Republican Court” were present—heroes of the Revolutionary struggle—warriors, whose mighty swords had cleft asunder the yoke of foreign despotism; sages, whose gigantic minds had framed the Constitution of the young Republic; men whose names were then, as now, of world-wide glory and time-enduring fame; foreign ministers and ambassadors, with their suites, all enthusiastic admirers, or politic flatterers of the glorious New Power that had arisen among the nations; wealthy, aristocratic or otherwise distinguished tourists, whom the fame of the young Commonwealth and the glory of her Father had attracted to her shores; women, also, whose beauty, grace and genius so dazzled the perceptions of even these late habitues of European courts that they avowed themselves unable to decide whether were the sons of Columbia the braver or her daughters the fairer!

And through them all, but greater than all, moved the Chief, arrayed simply, as a private gentleman, but wearing on his noble brow that royalty no crown could give.

But who is she, that even in this company of splendid magnificence, upon this occasion of supreme interest, can for an hour become the magnet of all eyes and ears!

Marguerite De Lancie was the only child of a Provençal gentleman and a Virginia lady, and combined in her person and in her character all the strongest attributes of the Northern and the Southern races; blending the passions, genius and enthusiasm of the one with the intellectual power, pride and independence of the other; and contrasting in her person the luxuriant purplish-black hair and glorious eyes of the Romaic nations, with the fair, clear complexion and roseate bloom of the Saxon. Gifted above most women by nature, she was also favored beyond most ladies by fortune. Having lost her mother in the tender age of childhood, she was reared and educated by her father, a gentleman of the most accomplished cultivation. He imbued the mind of Marguerite with all the purest and loftiest sentiments of liberty and humanity, that in his country somewhat redeemed the wickedness of the French Revolution. Monsieur De Lancie, dying when his daughter was but eighteen years of age, made her his sole heiress, and also, in accordance with his own liberal and independent principles, and his confidence in Marguerite’s character and strength of mind, he left her the irresponsible mistress of her own property and person. Marguerite was not free from grave faults. A beautiful, gifted and idolized girl, left with the unrestrained disposal of her time and her ample fortune, it was impossible but that she must have become somewhat spoiled. Her defects exhibited themselves in excessive personal pride and extreme freedom of thought and speech, and some irradicable prejudices which she took no trouble to conceal. The worshiped of many suitors, she had remained, up to the age of twenty-two, with her hand unengaged and her heart untouched. Several American women had about this time married foreign noblemen; and those who envied this superb woman averred that the splendid Marguerite only waited for a coronet.

When at home, Miss De Lancie resided either at her elegant town house in the old city of Winchester, or upon one of her two plantations, situate, the upper among the wildest and most beautiful hills of the Blue Ridge, and the lower upon the banks of the broad Potomac, where she reigned mistress of her land and people, “queen o’er herself.”

Marguerite was at present in Philadelphia, on a visit to her friend, Miss Compton, whose father occupied a “high official station” in the Administration. This was Miss De Lancie’s first appearance in Philadelphia society. And now that she was there, Marguerite, with the constitutional enthusiasm of her nature, forgot herself in the deep interest of this assembly, where the father of his country met for the last time, socially, her sons and daughters.

In accordance with the elegant ease that characterized Mrs. Washington’s drawing-rooms, several ladies of distinguished musical taste and talent had varied the entertainment of the evening by singing, to the accompaniment of the harp, or piano, the national odes and popular songs of that day.

Then ensued a short interval, at the close of which Miss De Lancie permitted herself to be led to the harp by Colonel Compton. She was a stranger to most persons in that saloon, and it was simply her appearance as she passed and took her place at the harp that had elicited that restrained burst of admiration with which this chapter opens.

She was, indeed, a woman of superb beauty, which never shone with richer lustre than upon this occasion that I present her to the reader.

Her figure was rather above the medium height, but elegantly proportioned. The stately head arose from a smoothly-rounded neck, whose every curve and bend was the very perfection of grace and dignity; lustrous black hair, with brilliant purple lights like the sheen on the wing of some Oriental bird, was rolled back from a queenly forehead, and turned over a jeweled comb in a luxuriant fall of ringlets at the back of her head; black eyebrows distinctly drawn, and delicately tapering toward the points, were arched above rich, deep eyes of purplish black, that languished or glowed, rocked or flashed, from beneath their long lashes with every change of mood; and all harmonized beautifully with a pure, rich complexion, where the clear crimson of the cheeks blended softly into the pearly whiteness of the blue-veined temples and broad forehead, while the full, curved lips glowed with the deepest, brightest flush of the ruby. She was arrayed in a royal purple velvet robe, open over a richly-embroidered white satin skirt; her neck and arms were veiled with fine point lace; and a single diamond star lighted up the midnight of her hair.

Having seated herself at the harp and essayed its strings, she paused, and seemingly unconscious of the many eyes riveted upon her, she raised her head, and gazing into the far-off distance, threw her white arm across the instrument, and swept its chords in a deep, soul-thrilling prelude—not to a national ode or popular song, but to a spirit-stirring, glorious improvisation! This prelude seemed a musical paraphrase of the great national struggle and victory. She struck a few deep, solitary notes, and then swept the harp in a low, mournful strain, like the first strokes of tyranny, followed by the earliest murmurs of discontent; then the music, with intervals of monotone, arose in fitful gusts like the occasional skirmishes that heralded the Revolution; then the calm was lost in general storm and devastation—the report of musketry, the tramp of steeds, the clashing of swords, the thunder of artillery, the fall of walls, the cries of the wounded, the groans of the dying, and the shouts of victory, were not only heard, but seen and felt in that magnificent tempest of harmony.

Then the voice of the improvvisatrice arose. Her subject was the retiring chief. I cannot hope to give any idea of the splendor of that improvisation—as easily might I catch and fix with pen, or pencil, the magnificent life of an equinoctial storm, the reverberation of its thunder, the conflagration of its lightning! Possessed of Apollo, the light glowed upon her cheeks, irradiated her brow, and streamed, as it were, in visible, living rays from her glorious eyes! The whole power of the god was upon the woman, and the whole soul of the woman in her theme. There was not a word spoken, there was scarcely a breath drawn in that room. She finished amid a charmed silence that lasted until Colonel Compton appeared and broke the spell by leading her from the harp.

Then arose low murmurs of enthusiastic admiration, restrained only by the deep respect due to the chief personage in that assembly.

“La Marguerite des Marguerites!” said the gallant French attaché.

“A Corinne! I must know her, sir. Will you do me the honor to present me?” inquired the English student, turning again to the Frenchman.

“Lord William!” interrupted the clerical companion, with an air of caution and admonition.

“Well, Mr. Murray! well! did not my father desire that I should make the acquaintance of all distinguished Americans?—and surely this lady must be one of their number.”

“Humph,” said the clergyman, stroking his chin, “the marquis did not, probably, include distinguished actresses, Lord William.”

“Actresses! have you judgment, Mr. Murray? Do but look with what majesty she speaks and moves!”

“So I have heard does Mrs. Siddons. Let us withdraw, Lord William.”

“Not yet, if you please, sir! I must first pay my respects to this lady. Will you favor me, monsieur?”

“Pardon! I will make you known to Colonel Compton, who will present you to the lady under his charge,” said the Frenchman, bowing, and leading the way, while the clergyman left behind only vented his dissatisfaction in a few emphatic grunts.

“Miss De Lancie, permit me to present to you Lord William Daw, of England,” said Colonel Compton, leading the youthful foreigner before the lady.

Miss De Lancie bowed and half arose. She received the young gentleman coldly, or rather absently, and to all that he advanced she replied abstractedly; for she had not yet freed herself from the trance that had lately bound her.

Nevertheless, Lord William found “grace and favor” in everything the enchantress said or did. He lingered near her until at last, with a congé of dismissal to her boyish admirer, she arose and signified her wish to retire from the saloon.

The next day but one was a memorable day in Philadelphia. It was the occasion of the public and final farewell of George Washington and the inauguration of his successor. From an early hour the city was thronged with visitors, who came, not so much to witness the installment of the new, as to take a tearful last look at the deeply-venerated, retiring President.

The profound public interest, however, did not prevent Lord William Daw from pursuing a quite private one. At an hour as early as the laxest etiquette would permit, he paid his respects to Miss De Lancie at the house of Colonel Compton, and procured himself to be invited by his host to join their party in witnessing the interesting ceremonies at the Hall of Representation.

The family, consisting of the colonel and Mrs. Compton and their daughter Cornelia, went in a handsome landeau, or open carriage.

Miss De Lancie rode a magnificent black charger, that she managed with the ease of a cavalry officer, and with a grace that was only her own.

Lord William, on a horse placed at his service by Colonel Compton, rode ever at her bridle rein; and if he admired her as a gifted improvvisatrice, he adored her as an accomplished equestrienne, an excellence that of the two his young lordship was the best fitted to appreciate.

Afterward, in the Hall of Representation, he was ever at her side; nor could the august ceremonies and the supreme interest of the scene passing before them, where the first President of the United States offered his valedictory, and the second President took his oath of office, win him for a moment from the contemplation of the queenly form and resplendent face of Marguerite De Lancie.

When the rites were all over, and their party had extricated themselves from the outrushing crowd, who were crushing each other nearly to death in their eagerness to behold the last of the retiring chief; when they had seen Washington enter his carriage and drive homeward; in fine, when at last they reached their own door, Lord William Daw manifested so little inclination to take leave, and even betrayed so great a desire to remain, that nothing was left Colonel Compton but to invite the enamored boy to stay and dine, an invitation that was unhesitatingly accepted.

Dinner over, and lights brought into the drawing-room, and Lord William Daw still lingering.

“Unquestionably, this young man, though a scion of nobility, is ignorant or regardless of the usages of good society,” said Colonel Compton to himself. Then addressing the visitor, he said: “The ladies, sir, are going, this evening, to the new theatre, to see Fennel and Mrs. Whitlock in Romeo and Juliet. Will it please you to accompany us?”

“Most happy to do so,” replied the youth, with an ingenuous blush and smile at what he must have considered a slight departure from the formal manners of the day, even while unable to resist the temptation and tear himself away.

In a few moments, the carriage was at the door, and the ladies ready.

Miss Compton and Miss De Lancie, Colonel Compton and Lord William Daw, filled the carriage, as well as they afterward filled the box at the theatre.

The play had already commenced when they entered, and the scene in progress was that of the ball at old Capulet’s house. It seemed to confine the attention of the audience, but as for Lord William Daw, the mimic life upon the stage had no more power than had had the real drama of the morning to draw his attention from the magnificent Marguerite. He spoke but little; spellbound, his eyes never left her, except when, in turning her regal head, her eyes encountered his—when, blushing like a detected schoolboy, he would avert his face. So, for him; the play passed like a dream; nor did he know it was over until the general rising of the company informed him.

Every one was enthusiastic. Colonel Compton, who had been in London in an official capacity, and had seen Mrs. Siddons, averred it as his opinion that her sister, Mrs. Whitlock, was in every respect the equal of the great tragedienne. All seemed delighted with the performance they had just witnessed, excepting only Lord William Daw, who had seen nothing of it, and Marguerite De Lancie, who seemed perfectly indifferent.

“What is your opinion, Miss De Lancie?” inquired the youth, by way of relieving the awkwardness of his own silence.

“About what?” asked Marguerite, abstractedly.

“Ahem!—about—Shakespeare and—this performance.”

“Oh! Can I be interested in anything of this kind, after what we have witnessed in the State House to-day? Least of all in this thing?”

“This thing?—what, Marguerite, do you not worship Shakespeare and Mrs. Whitlock, then?” exclaimed Cornelia Compton.

“Mrs. Whitlock? I do not know yet; let me see her in some other character. Shakespeare? Yes! but not traditionally, imitatively, blindly, wholly, as most of you worship, or profess to worship him; I admire his tragedies of Lear, Richard the Third, Macbeth, and perhaps one or two others; but this Romeo and Juliet, this lovesick boy and puling girl—bah! bah! let’s go home.”

“That’s the way with Marguerite! Now I should not have dared to risk my reputation for intelligence by uttering that sentiment,” said Cornelia Compton.

“Never fear, child; naught is never in danger,” observed Colonel Compton, with good-humored, though severe raillery.

While Lord William Daw, with the morbid and sensitive egotism of a lover, inquired of himself: Does she intend that remark for me? Does she look upon me only in the light of a lovesick boy? Do I only disgust her, then? Thus tormenting himself until their party had entered the carriage, and driven back once more to Colonel Compton’s hospitable mansion, and where his host, inwardly laughing, pressed him to come in and take a bed and breakfast.

But the youth, doubtful of the colonel’s seriousness, piqued at his inamorata’s scornfulness, and ashamed of his own devotedness, declined the invitation, bowed his adieus, and was about to retire, when Colonel Compton placed his carriage and servants at Lord William’s disposal, and besought him to permit them to set him down at his own hotel, a service that the young gentleman, with some hesitation, accepted.

In a few days from this, General Washington left Philadelphia for Mount Vernon. And Colonel Compton, who went out of office with his chief, broke up his establishment in Philadelphia, and, with his family, set out for his home in Virginia.

CHAPTER II.
“THE LOVE CHASE.”

“——When shines the sun aslant,

The sun may shine and we be cold;

Oh, listen, loving hearts and bold,

Unto my wild romaunt,

Margaret, Margaret!”

—E. B. Browning.

Colonel Compton and family, traveling at leisure in their private carriage, reached the Blue Ridge on the fifth, and Winchester on the seventh day of their journey, and went immediately to the fine old family mansion on the suburbs of the old town, which was comfortably prepared for the occupancy of the proprietor.

Miss De Lancie’s elegant house on Loudoun street, under the charge of an exemplary matron, was also ready for the reception of its mistress; but Marguerite yielded to the solicitations of her friend Cornelia, and remained her guest for the present.

Compton Lodge was somewhat older than the town; it was a substantial building of gray sandstone, situated in a fine park, shaded with great forest trees, and inclosed by a stone wall; it had once been a famous hunting seat, where Lord Fairfax, General Morgan, Major Helphinstine and other votaries of St. Hubert, “most did congregate;” and even now it was rather noted for its superior breed of hounds and horses; and for the great foxhunts that were there got up.

Marguerite De Lancie liked the old place upon all these accounts, and sometimes, when the hunting company was very select, she did not hesitate to join their sylvan sports; and scarcely a hunter there, even old Lord Fairfax himself, who still, in his age, pursued with every youthful enthusiasm the pleasures of the chase—acquitted himself better than did this Diana.

But now, in March, the hunting season was over, and if Marguerite De Lancie preferred Compton Lodge to her own house, it was because, after a long winter in Philadelphia—with the monotony of straight streets and red brick walls, and the weariness of crowded rooms—the umbrageous shade of forest trees, the silence and the solitude of nature, with the company of her sole bosom friend, was most welcome.

The second morning after their settlement at home, Colonel Compton’s family were seated around the breakfast table, discussing their coffee, buckwheat cakes and broiled venison.

Marguerite’s attention was divided between the conversation at the table, and the view from the two open windows before her, where rolling waves of green hills, dappled over with the white and pink blossoms of peach and cherry trees, now in full bloom, wooed and refreshed the eye.

Colonel Compton was sipping his coffee and looking over the Winchester Republican, when suddenly he set down his cup and broke into a loud laugh.

All looked up.

“Well, what is the matter?” inquired the comfortable, motherly Mrs. Compton, without ceasing to butter her buckwheat.

“Oh! ha, ha, ha, ha,” laughed the colonel.

“That is a very satisfactory reply, upon my word,” commented the good woman, covering her cakes with honey.

“Don’t—don’t—that fellow will be the death of me!”

“Pleasant prospect to laugh at—that!” said his wife, twisting a luscious segment of her now well-sauced buckwheat around the fork, preparatory to lifting it to her lips.

“Oh! do let us have the joke, if there is a joke, papa,” pleaded Cornelia.

“Hem! well, listen, then!” said Colonel Compton, reading:

“Distinguished arrival at McGuire’s Hotel. Lord William Daw, the second son of the most noble, the Marquis of Eaglecliff, arrived at this place last evening. His lordship, accompanied by his tutor, the Rev. Henry Murray, is now on a tour of the United States, and visits Winchester for the purpose of becoming acquainted with the history and antiquities of the town!”

“That is exceedingly rich! that will quite do!” commented the colonel, laying down his newspaper, and turning with a comic expression toward Marguerite.

She was looking, by the by, in high beauty, though her morning costume was more picturesque than elegant, and more careless than either, and consisted simply of a dark chintz wrapper, over which, drawn closely around her shoulders, was a scarlet crape shawl, in fine contrast with the lustrous purple sheen of her black hair, one-half of which was rolled in a careless mass at the nape of her neck, and the other dropped in rich ringlets down each side of her glowing, brilliant face.

“Hem! the antiquities of Winchester. I rather suspect it is the juvenilities that our young antiquarian is in chase of. Pray, Miss De Lancie, are you one of the antiquities?”

Marguerite curled her proud lip, erected her head and deigned no other reply.

“Unquestionably you also have conquered a title, Marguerite; when you are married, will you place me on your visiting list, Lady William Daw?” asked Cornelia Compton, with an arch glance.

“Cease,” said Marguerite, peremptorily, “if I were to be married, which is utterly out of the question, it would not be to a schoolboy, let me assure you!”

“If you ‘were to be married, which is utterly out of the question’—why, you don’t mean to tell us that you have forsworn matrimony, Marguerite? What do you intend to do? go into a cloister? Nonsense! in nine month you will marry,” said Colonel Compton.

“I marry? ha! ha! ha! there must be a great improvement in the stock of men! Where is the unmarried son of Adam that I would deliberately vow to love, honor and obey? Why I should forswear myself at the altar! Of all the single men I meet, the refined ones are weak and effeminate, and the strong ones are coarse and brutal! I’ll none of them!” said Marguerite, with a shrug of her shoulders.

“Thank you for making my husband a sort of presumptive exception,” said Mrs. Compton.

“Will you call upon Lord William, this morning, papa?” inquired Miss Compton.

“My dear, believe me, the opportunity will scarcely be allowed. His lordship will not stand upon ceremony, I assure you. I expect to hear his name announced every moment.”

And then, as in confirmation of Colonel Compton’s predictions, a servant entered and handed a card.

“Humph! where have you shown the gentleman, John?”

“Into the front drawing-room, sir.”

“Nonsense—bring him in here.”

The servant bowed and left the room.

“Such a free and easy visitor is not to be treated with formality. It is as I foresaw, ladies! Lord William Daw waits to pay his respects.”

At that moment the door was once more opened, and the visitor announced.

Lord William Daw was a pleasing, wholesome, rather than a handsome or distinguished-looking youth—with a short, stout figure, dark eyes and dark hair, a round rosy face, and white teeth, and an expression full of good-humor, frank and easy among his friends, and disembarrassed among strangers to whom he was indifferent, he was yet timid and bashful as a girl in presence of those whom he admired and honored; how much more so in the society of her—the beautiful and regal woman who had won his young heart’s first and deepest worship. With all this the youngster possessed an indomitable will and power of perseverance, which, when aroused, few men, or things, could withstand, and which his messmates at Oxford denominated (your pardon, super-refined reader) an “English bull-dogish—hold-on-a-tiveness.”

Lord William entered the breakfast-room, smiling and blushing between pleasure and embarrassment.

Colonel Compton arose and advanced, with a cordial smile and extended hand, to welcome him. “Heartily glad to see you, sir! And here are Mrs. Compton, and my daughter Cornelia, and my sweetheart, Marguerite, all waiting to shake hands with you.”

The ladies arose, and Lord William, set at ease by this friendly greeting, paid his respects quite pleasingly.

“And now here is a chair and plate ready for you, for we hope that you have not breakfasted?” said the host.

Lord William had breakfasted; but would do so again. So he sat down at the table and spoiled a cup of coffee and a couple of buckwheat cakes without deriving much benefit from either. A lively conversation ensued.

“The history and antiquities of Winchester, sir,” said Colonel Compton, with a half-suppressed smile, in reply to a question of the young tourist. “The history is scarcely a hundred years old, and the antiquities consist mainly of some vestiges of the Shawanee’s occupancy, and of Washington’s march in the old French and Indian War; but the society, sir—the society representing the old respectability of the State may not be unworthy of your attention.”

Lord William was sure that the society was most worthy of cultivation, nevertheless, he would like to see those “vestiges” of which his host spoke.

“The ladies will take their usual morning ride within an hour or two, sir, and if you would like to attend them, they will take pleasure in showing you these monuments.”

Lord William was again “most happy.” And Colonel Compton rang and ordered “Ali,” to be brought out saddled for his lordship’s use.

Within an hour after rising from the table, the riding party, consisting of Miss Compton, Miss De Lancie, Lord William Daw, and a groom in attendance, set forth. The lions of Winchester and its environs were soon exhausted, and the party returned to Compton Lodge in time for an early dinner.

Lord William Daw sojourned at Winchester, and became a daily visitor at Compton Lodge. Colonel Compton, to break the exclusiveness of his visits to one house, introduced him at large among the gentry of the neighborhood. And numerous were the tea, card, and cotillion parties got up for the sole purpose of entertaining the young scion of nobility, where it was only necessary to secure Miss De Lancie’s presence in order to ensure his lordship’s dutiful attendance. Mr. Murray chafed and fretted at what he called his pupil’s consummate infatuation, and talked of writing home to his father, “the marquis.” Marguerite scorned, or seemed to scorn, his lordship’s pretensions, until one morning at breakfast, Colonel Compton, half seriously, half jestingly, said:

“Sweetheart, you do not appear to join in the respect universally shown to this young stranger.”

“If,” said Marguerite, “the young man had any distinguished personal excellence, I should not be backward in recognizing it; but he is at best—Lord William Daw! Now who is Lord William Daw that I should bow down and worship him?”

“Lord William Daw, my dear, is the second son of the most noble, the Marquis of Eaglecliff, as you have already seen announced with a flourish of editorial trumpets, by our title-despising and very consistent democratic newspapers! He is heir presumptive, and as I learn from Mr. Murray, rather more than heir presumptive to his father’s titles and estates; for it appears that the marquis has been twice married, and that his eldest son, by his first marchioness, derives a very feeble constitution from his mother; and it is not supposed that he will ever marry, or that he will survive his father; ergo, the hopes of the marquis for re-union rest with his second son, Lord William Daw; finis, that young nobleman’s devoirs are not quite beneath the consideration even of a young lady of ‘one of the first families of Virginia,’ who is besides a belle, a blue, and a freeholder.”

“Marguerite, future marchioness of Eaglecliff, when you are married will your ladyship please to remember one poor Cornelia Compton, who lived in an old country house near Winchester, and once enjoyed your favor?” said Miss Compton.

Marguerite shrugged her shoulders with an expression to the effect that the future succession of the Marquisate of Eaglecliff was a matter of no moment to her.

But from this time, Marguerite’s friends accused her, with uncertain justice, of showing somewhat more favor to the boyish lover, who might one day set the coronet of a marchioness upon her brow. When rallied upon this point, she would reply:

“There are certainly qualities which I do like in the young man; he is frank, simple and intelligent, and above all, is perfectly free from affectation, or pretension of any sort. Upon individual worth alone he is entitled to polite consideration.”

There was, perhaps, a slight discrepancy between this opinion and one formerly delivered by Miss De Lancie; but let that pass; the last-uttered judgment was probably the most righteous, as growing out of a longer acquaintance, and longer experience in the merits of the subject.

Thus—while Lord William Daw prolonged his stay, and Mr. Murray fumed and fretted, the months of April, May, and June went by. The first of July the family of Compton Lodge prepared to commence their summer tour among the watering, and other places of resort. They left Winchester about the seventh of the month.

Lord William Daw had not been invited to join their party, nor had he manifested inclination to obtrude himself upon their company, nor did he immediately follow in their train.

Nevertheless, a few days after their establishment at Berkeley Springs, Colonel Compton read in the list of arrivals the names of “Lord William Daw, Rev. Henry Murray, and two servants.”

Enough! The intimacy between the young nobleman and the Comptons was renewed at Berkeley. And soon the devotion of his youthful lordship to the beautiful and gifted Marguerite De Lancie was the theme of every tongue. To escape this notice, Marguerite withdrew from her party, and attended by her maid and footman, proceeded to join some acquaintances at Saratoga.

In vain! for unluckily Saratoga was as free to one traveler as to another, provided he could pay. And within the same week of Marguerite’s settlement at her lodgings, all the manœuvring mammas and marriageable daughters at the Springs were thrown into a state of excitement and speculation by the appearance among them of a young English nobleman, the heir presumptive of a marquisate.

But alas! it was soon perceived that Lord William had eyes and ears and heart for none other than the dazzling Miss De Lancie, “la Marguerite des Marguerites,” as the French minister had called her.

Miss De Lancie’s manner to her boyish worshiper was rather restraining and modifying than repulsing or discouraging. And there were those who did not hesitate to accuse the proud and queenly Marguerite of finished coquetry.

To avoid this, the lady next joined a party of friends who were going to Niagara.

And of course it was obvious to all that the young English tourist, traveling only for improvement, must see the great Falls. Consequently, upon the day after Miss De Lancie’s arrival at the Niagara Hotel, Lord William Daw led her in to dinner. And once more the “infatuation,” as they chose to call it, of that young gentleman, became the favorite subject of gossip.

A few weeks spent at the Falls brought the last of September, and Marguerite had promised, upon the first of October, to join her friends, the Comptons, in New York.

When Lord William Daw learned that she was soon to leave, half ashamed, perhaps, of forever following in the train of this disdainful beauty, he terminated his visit and preceded her eastward.

But when the stagecoach containing Miss De Lancie and her party drew up before the city hotel, Lord William, perhaps “to treat resolution,” was the first person to step from the piazza and welcome her back.

Colonel Compton and his family were only waiting for Marguerite’s arrival to proceed southward. The next day but one was fixed for their departure. But the intervening morning, while the family were alone in their private parlor, Lord William Daw entered, looking grave and troubled.

Colonel Compton arose in some anxiety to welcome him. When he had greeted the ladies and taken a seat, he said:

“I have come only to bid you good-by, friends.”

“I am sorry to hear that! but—you are not going far, or to remain long, I hope,” said Colonel Compton.

“I am going back to England, sir,” replied the young man, with a sorrowful glance at Miss De Lancie, who seemed not quite unmoved.

“You astonish us, Lord William! Is this not a sudden resolution?” inquired Mrs. Compton.

“It is a sudden misfortune, my dear madam! Only this morning have I received a letter from my father, announcing the dangerous illness of my dear mother, and urging my instant return by the first homeward-bound vessel. The Venture, Captain Parke, sails for Liverpool at twelve to-day. I must be on board within two hours,” replied the young man, in a mournful voice, turning the same deeply-appealing glance toward Marguerite, whose color slightly paled.

“We are very sorry to lose you, Lord William, and still sorrier for the occasion of your leaving us,” said Cornelia Compton. And so said all the party except—Miss De Lancie.

Lord William then arose to shake hands with his friends.

“I wish you a pleasant voyage and a pleasant arrival,” said the colonel.

“And that you may find your dear mother quite restored to health,” added Mrs. Compton.

“Oh, yes, indeed! I hope you will, and that you will soon visit us again,” said Cornelia.

Marguerite said nothing.

“Have you no parting word for me, Miss De Lancie?” inquired the young man, approaching her, and speaking in a low tone, and with a beseeching look.

Marguerite waved her hand. “A good voyage, my lord,” she said.

He caught that hand and pressed it to his lips and heart, and after a long, deep gaze into her eyes, he recollected himself, snatched his hat, bowed to the party, and left the room.

Colonel Compton, in the true spirit of kindness, arose and followed with the purpose of attending him to his ship.

“There’s a coronet slipped through your fingers! Oh, Marguerite! Marguerite! if I had been in your place I should have secured that match! For, once married, they couldn’t unmarry us, or bar the succession, either, and so, in spite of all the reverend tutors and most noble papas in existence, I should, in time, have worn the coronet of a marchioness,” said Miss Compton.

“And you would have done a very unprincipled thing, Cornelia,” replied her mother, very gravely.

The blood rushed to Miss De Lancie’s brow and crimsoned her face, as she arose in haste and withdrew to her own chamber.

“But, mamma, what do you suppose to have been the cause of Marguerite’s rejection of Lord William’s addresses?”

“I think that she had two reasons, either of which would have been all sufficient to govern her in declining the alliance. The first was, that Marguerite could never yield her affections to a man who has no other personal claims upon her esteem than the possession of a good heart and a fair share of intelligence; the second was, that Miss De Lancie had too high a sense of honor to bestow her hand on a young gentleman whose addresses were unsanctioned by his family.”

The next day Colonel Compton and his party set out for Philadelphia, where, upon his arrival, he received from Mr. Adams an official appointment that required his residence in the city of Richmond. And thither, in the course of the month, he proceeded with his wife and daughter.

Miss De Lancie went down to pass the autumn at her own house in Winchester, where she remained until the first of December, when, according to promise, she went to Richmond to spend the winter with her friend Cornelia.

The Comptons had taken a very commodious house in a fashionable quarter of the city, and were in the habit of seeing a great deal of company. It was altogether a very brilliant winter in the new capital of Virginia. Quite a constellation of beauties and celebrities were there assembled, but the star of the ascendant was the splendid Marguerite De Lancie. She was even more beautiful and dazzling than ever; and she entered with spirit into all the gayeties of the season. Tea and card parties, dances and masked balls followed each other in quick succession.

It was just before Christmas that the belles of the metropolis were thrown into a state of delightful excitement by the issue of tickets from the gubernatorial mansion, to a grand ball to be given on the ensuing New Year’s Eve. Great was the flutter of preparation, and great the accession of business that flowed in upon the milliners, mantua-makers and jewelers.

Miss De Lancie and Miss Compton went out together to select their dresses for the occasion. I mention this expedition merely to give you a clew to what I sometimes suspected to be the true motive that inspired Cornelia Compton’s rather selfish nature, with that caressing affection she displayed for Marguerite De Lancie. As for Marguerite’s devotion to Cornelia, it was one of those mysteries, or prophecies of the human heart, that only the future can explain. Upon this occasion, when Miss De Lancie ordered a rich, white brocade for her own dress, she selected a superb pink satin for her friend’s; and when from the jeweler’s Marguerite’s hereditary diamonds came, set in a new form, they were accompanied by a pretty set of pearls to adorn the arms and bosom of Cornelia. Colonel Compton knew nothing of his guest’s costly presents to his daughter. With a gentleman’s inexperience in such matters, he supposed that the hundred dollars he had given “Nellie” for her outfit had covered all the expenses. And when Mrs. Compton, who better knew the cost of pearls and brocade, made any objection, Marguerite silenced her by delicately intimating the possibility, that, under some circumstances, for instance, that of her being treated as a stranger, she might be capable of withdrawing to a boarding-house.

The eventful evening of the governor’s ball arrived. The entertainment was by all conceded to be, what it should have been, the most splendid affair of the kind that had come off that season. A suite of four spacious rooms, superbly furnished and adorned, and brilliantly lighted, were thrown open. In the first, or dressing-room, the ladies left their cloaks and mantles, and rearranged their toilets. In the second, Governor Wood stood, surrounded by the most distinguished civil and military officers of the State, and with his unequaled, dignified courtesy received his guests. In the third, and most spacious saloon, where the floor was covered with canvas for dancing, the walls were lined with mirrors, and festooned with flowers that enriched the atmosphere with odoriferous perfumes, while from a vine-covered balcony a military band filled all the air with music. Beyond the saloon, the last, or supper-room, was elegantly set out. The supper table was quite a marvel of taste in that department; just above it hung an immensely large chandelier, with quite a forest of pendant brilliants; its light fell and was flashed back from a sheet mirror laid upon the center of a table, and surrounded by a wreath of box-vines and violets, like a fairy lake within its banks of flowers; on the outer edge of this ring was a circle of grapes with their leaves and tendrils; while filling up the other space were exotic flowers and tropical fruits, and every variety of delicate refreshment in the most beautiful designs.

The rooms were filled before the late arrival of Colonel Compton and his party. The ladies paused but a few minutes in the dressing-room to compose their toilets and draw on their gloves, and then they joined their escort at the inner door, went in, and were presented to Governor Wood, and then passed onward to the dancing-saloon, where the music was sounding and the waltz moving with great vivacity.

The entrée of our young ladies made quite a sensation. Both were dressed with exquisite taste.

Miss Compton wore a rich rose-colored satin robe, the short sleeves and low corsage of which were trimmed with fine lace, and the skirt open in front and looped away, with lilies of the valley, from a white sarsenet petticoat; a wreath of lilies crowned her brown hair, and a necklace and bracelet of pearls adorned her fair bosom and arms.

And as for Miss De Lancie, if ever her beauty, elegance and fascination reached a culminating point, it was upon this occasion. Though her dress was always perfect, it was not so much what she wore as her manner of wearing, that made her toilets so generally admired. Upon this evening her costume was as simple as it was elegant—a rich, white brocade robe open over a skirt of embroidered white satin, delicate falls of lace from the low bodice and flowing sleeves, and a light tiara of diamonds spanning like a rainbow the blackness of her hair.

As soon as the young ladies were seated, they were surrounded. Miss Compton accepted an invitation to join the waltzers.

Miss De Lancie, who never waltzed, remained the center of a charmed circle, formed of the most distinguished men present, until the waltzing was over, and the quadrilles were called, where she accepted the hand of Colonel Randolph for the first set, and yielded her seat to the wearied Cornelia, who was led thither by her partner to rest.

It chanced that Miss De Lancie was conducted to the head of the set, then forming, and that she stood at some little distance, immediately in front of, and facing the spot where Cornelia sat, so that the latter, while resting, could witness Marguerite. Now Cornelia very much admired Miss De Lancie, and thought it appeared graceful and disinterested to laud the excellencies of her friend, at she would not have done those of her sister, had she possessed one. So now she tapped her partner’s hand with her fan, and said:

“Oh, do but look at Miss De Lancie! Is she not the most beautiful woman in the room?”

The gentleman followed the direction of her glance, where Marguerite was moving like a queen through the dance, and said:

“Miss De Lancie is certainly the most beautiful woman in the world—except one,” with a glance, that the vanity of Nellie readily interpreted.

The eyes of both turned again upon Marguerite, who was now standing still in her place waiting for the next quadrille to be called. While they thus contemplated her in all her splendid beauty, set off by a toilet the most elegant in the room, Marguerite suddenly gave a violent start, shivered through all her frame and bent anxiously to listen to something that was passing between two gentlemen, who were conversing in a low tone, near her. She grew paler and paler as she listened, and then with a stifled shriek, she fell to the floor, ere any one could spring to save her.

Cornelia flew to her friend’s relief. She was already raised in the arms of Colonel Randolph, and surrounded by ladies anxiously proffering vinaigrettes and fans, while their partners rushed after glasses of water.

“Bring her into the dressing-room, at once, Randolph,” said Colonel Compton, as he joined the group.

Accordingly Miss De Lancie was conveyed thither, and laid upon a lounge, where every restorative at hand was used in succession, and in vain. More than an hour passed, while she lay in that deathlike swoon; and when at last the efforts of an experienced physician were crowned with thus much success, that she opened her dimmed eyes and unclosed her blanched lips, it was only to utter one word—“Lost”—and to relapse into insensibility.

She was put into the carriage and conveyed home, accompanied by her wondering friends and attended by the perplexed physician. She was immediately undressed and placed in bed, where she lay all night, vibrating between stupor and a low muttering delirium, in which some irreparable misfortune was indicated without being revealed—was it all delirium?

Next, a low, nervous fever supervened, and for six weeks Marguerite De Lancie swayed with a slow, pendulous uncertainty between life and death. The cause of her sudden indisposition remained a mystery. The few cautious inquiries made by Colonel Compton resulted in nothing satisfactory. The two gentlemen whose conversation was supposed by Miss Compton to have occasioned Miss De Lancie’s swoon could not be identified—among the crowd then assembled at the governor’s reception, and now dispersed all over the city—without urging investigation to an indiscreet extent.

“This is an inquiry that we cannot with propriety push, Nellie. We must await the issue of Miss De Lancie’s illness. If she recovers she will doubtless explain,” said Colonel Compton.

With the opening of the spring, Marguerite De Lancie’s life-powers rallied and convalescence declared itself. In the first stages of her recovery, while yet body and mind were in that feeble state which sometimes leaves the spiritual vision so clear, she lay one day, contemplating her friend, who sat by her pillow, when suddenly she threw her arms around Cornelia’s neck, lifted her eyes in an agony of supplication to her face, and cried:

“Oh, Nellie! do you truly love me? Oh, Nellie! love me! love me! lest I go mad!”

In reply, Cornelia half smothered the invalid with caresses and kisses, and assurances of unchanging affection.

“Oh, Nellie, Nellie! there was one who on the eve of the bitterest trial, said to his chosen friends, ‘All ye shall be offended because of me.’ And his chief friend said, ‘Although all should be offended yet will not I,’ and furthermore declared, ‘if I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise.’ Oh! failing human strength! Oh! feeble human love! Nellie! you know how it ended. ‘They all forsook him and fled.’”

“But I will be truer to my friend than Peter to his master,” replied Cornelia.

Marguerite drew the girl’s face down closer to her own, gazed wistfully, not into but upon those brilliant, superficial brown eyes, that because they had no depth repelled her confidence, and then with a deep groan and a mournful shake of the head, she released Nellie, and turned her own face to the wall. Did she deem Miss Compton’s friendship less profound than pretentious? I do not know; but from that time Miss De Lancie maintained, upon one subject at least, a stern reserve. And when, at last, directly, though most kindly and respectfully, questioned as to the origin of her agitation and swoon in the ball-room, she declared it to have been a symptom of approaching illness, and discouraged further interrogation.

Slowly Marguerite De Lancie regained her strength. It was the middle of March before she left her bed, and the first of April before she went out of the house.

One day about this time, as the two friends were sitting together in Marguerite’s chamber, Cornelia said:

“There is a circumstance that I think I ought to have told you before now, Marguerite. But we read of it only a few days after you were taken ill, and when you were not in a condition to be told of it.”

“Well, what circumstance was that?” asked Miss De Lancie, indifferently.

“It was a fatal accident that happened to one of our friends. No, now! don’t get alarmed—it was to no particular friend,” said Cornelia, interrupting herself upon seeing Marguerite’s very lips grow white.

“Well! what was it?” questioned the latter.

“Why, then, you must know that the Venture, in which Lord William Daw sailed, was wrecked off the coast of Cornwall, and Lord William and Mr. Murray were among the lost. We read the whole account of it, copied from an English paper into the Richmond Standard. Lord William’s body was washed ashore, the same night of the wreck.”

“Poor young man, he deserved a better fate,” said Marguerite.

Miss De Lancie went no more into society that season; indeed, the season was well over before she was able to go out. She announced her intention, as soon as the state of her health should permit her to travel, to terminate her visit to Richmond, and go down to her plantation on the banks of the Potomac. Cornelia would gladly have attended her friend, and only waited permission to do so; but the waited invitation was not extended, and Marguerite prepared to set out alone.

“We shall meet you at Berkeley or at Saratoga, this summer?” said Cornelia.

“Perhaps—I do not yet know—my plans for the summer are not arranged,” said Marguerite.

“But you will write as soon as you reach home?”

“Yes—certainly,” pressing her parting kiss upon the lips of her friend.

The promised letter, announcing Marguerite’s safe arrival at Plover’s Point, was received; but it was the last that came thence; for though Cornelia promptly replied to it, she received no second one. And though Cornelia wrote again and again, her letters remained unanswered. Weeks passed into months and brought midsummer. Colonel Compton with his family went to Saratoga, but without meeting Miss De Lancie. About the middle of August they came to Berkeley; but failed to see, or to hear any tidings of their friend.

“Indeed, I am very much afraid that Marguerite may be lying ill at Plover’s Point, surrounded only by ignorant servants who cannot write to inform us,” said Cornelia, advancing a probability so striking and so alarming, that Colonel Compton, immediately after taking his family back to Richmond, set out for Plover’s Point to ascertain the state of the case in question. But when he arrived at the plantation, great was his surprise to learn that Miss De Lancie had left home for New York, as early as the middle of April, and had not since been heard from. And this was the last of September. With this information, Colonel Compton returned to Richmond. Extreme was the astonishment of the family upon hearing this; and when month after month passed, and no tidings of the missing one arrived, and no clew to her retreat, or to her fate was gained, the grief and dismay of her friends could only be equaled by the wonder and conjecture of society at large, upon the strange subject of Marguerite De Lancie’s disappearance.

CHAPTER III.
THE FUGITIVE BELLE.

“What’s become of ‘Marguerite’

Since she gave us all the slip—

Chose land travel, or sea faring,

Box and trunk, or staff and scrip,

Rather than pace up and down

Any longer this old town?

Who’d have guessed it from her lip,

Or her brow’s accustomed bearing,

On the night she thus took ship,

Or started landward, little caring?”

—Browning.

Christmas approached, and the gay belles of Richmond were preparing for the festivities of that season.

Colonel Compton with his family and a few chosen friends went down to Compton Lodge to spend the holidays in country hospitalities, hunting, etc.

The party had been there but a few days, when, on Christmas morning, while the family and their guests were assembled in the old, oak-paneled, front parlor, before breakfast, and Colonel Compton was standing at a side table, presiding over an immense old family punch bowl, from which he ladled out goblets of frothy eggnog to the company, the door was quietly opened, and without announcement Marguerite De Lancie entered, saying, “A merry Christmas! friends.”

“Marguerite! Marguerite!” exclaimed—first Cornelia, and then all the young ladies that were present, pressing forward to meet her, while the matrons and the gentlemen of the party, with less vehemence but equal cordiality, waited to welcome her.

“My lost sweetheart, by all that’s amazing!” cried Colonel Compton, who, in his engrossment, was the very last to discover the arrival.

“Why, where upon the face of the earth did you come from?” inquired Cornelia, scarcely restrained by the presence of others from seizing and covering her friend with caresses.

“From Loudoun street,” answered Miss De Lancie gayly, as she shook hands right and left.

“From Loudoun street? that will do! How long have you been in Loudoun street, sweetheart? You were not there when we passed through the town in coming hither.” said Colonel Compton.

“I arrived only the day before yesterday, rested a day, and hearing that you were at the Lodge, came hither, this morning, to breakfast with you.”

“Enchanted to see you, my dear! truly so! But—you arrived the day before yesterday—whence?”

“I may be mistaken, yet it seems to me that Colonel Compton’s asking questions,” said Marguerite, with good-humored sarcasm.

“Oh! ah! I beg pardon, ten thousand pardons, as the French say,” replied Colonel Compton, bowing with much deprecation, and then raising a bumper of eggnog. “To our reconciliation, Miss De Lancie,” he continued, offering to her the first, and filling for himself a second goblet.

“Paix à vous,” said Marguerite, pledging him.

“And now to breakfast—sortez, sortez!” exclaimed the Colonel, leading the way to the dining-room.

Cornelia was, to use her own expression, “dying” to be alone with Marguerite, to hear the history of the last seven months absence. Never before was she more impatient over the progress of a meal, never before seemed the epicureanism of old folks so tedious, or the appetites of young people so unbecoming; notwithstanding which the coffee, tea and chocolate, the waffles, rolls and corn pone, the fresh venison, ham, and partridges were enjoyed by the company with equal gusto and deliberation.

“At last!” exclaimed Cornelia, as rising from the table, she took Marguerite’s hand and drew her stealthily away through the crowd, and up the back stairs to her own little bedchamber, where a cheerful fire was burning.

“Now, then, tell me all about it, Marguerite,” she said, putting her friend into her easy-chair of state before the fire, and seating herself on a stool at her feet. “Where have you been?”

“Gypsying,” answered Miss De Lancie.

“Gypsying; oh, nonsense, that is no answer. What have you been about?”

“Gypsying,” repeated Marguerite.

“Gypsying!” exclaimed Cornelia, now in wonder.

“Aye! Did you never—or have you too little life ever to feel like spreading your wings and flying away, away from all human ken—to feel the perfect liberty of loneliness, as only an irresponsible stranger in a strange place can feel it!”

“No, no! I never did,” said Cornelia, amazed; “but, tell me then where did you go from Plover’s Point.”

“To Tierra-del-Fuego, or the Land of Fire,” said Marguerite, with a deep flush.

“Fiddlesticks! Where did you come from last to Winchester?”

“From Iceland,” said Marguerite, with a shiver.

“Oh, pshaw! you are making fun of me, Marguerite!”

“My dear, if I felt obliged to give an account of my wanderings, their wild liberty would not seem half so sweet. Even my property agent shall not always know where to find me; it is enough that I know where to find him when he is wanted,” said Miss De Lancie, with such a dash of hauteur that Cornelia dropped the subject. And then Marguerite, to compensate for her passing severity, tenderly embraced Nellie.

The Christmas party at Compton Lodge lasted until after New Year, and then the family and their friends returned to Richmond.

Miss De Lancie, yielding to a pressing invitation, accompanied them. And in town, Marguerite had again to run the gantlet of questions from her acquaintances, such as:

“Where have you been so long, Marguerite?” To which she would answer:

“To Obdorskoi on the sea of Obe,” or some such absurdity, until at last all inquiry ceased.

Miss De Lancie resumed her high position in society, and was once more the bright, particular star of every saloon. Those who envied, or disliked her, thought the dazzling Marguerite somewhat changed; that the fine, oval face was thinned and sharpened; the brilliant and changeful complexion fixed and deepened with a flush that looked like fever; and the ever-varying graceful, glowing vivacity rather fitful and eccentric. However, envious criticism did not prevent the most desirable partis in the city becoming suitors for the hand of the belle, muse and heiress, as she was still called. But Marguerite, in her old spirit of sarcasm, laughed all these overtures to scorn, and remained faithful to her sole attachment, her inexplicable love for Cornelia.

“I am twenty-four, I shall never marry, Nellie. I wish I were sure that you would never do so either, that we might be sisters for life, and that when your dear parents are gathered to their fathers, you might come and live with me, and we might be all in all to each other, forever,” said Marguerite, one day, to her friend.

“Oh, Marguerite, if that will make you happy, I will promise you faithfully never, never to marry, but to be your own dear, little Nellie forever and ever; for indeed why should I not? I love no one in the world but my parents and you!”

Will it be credited (even although we know that such compacts are sometimes made and always broken) that these two girls entered into a solemn engagement never to marry; but to live for each other only?

From the day of this singular treaty, Marguerite De Lancie grew fonder than ever of her friend, lavished endearments upon her, calling Cornelia her Consolation, her Hope, her Star, and many other pet or poetic names besides. Nevertheless, when the fashionable season was over, Miss De Lancie left town without taking her “Consolation” with her. And again for a few months Marguerite was among the missing. She was not one to disappear with impunity or without inquiry. Where was she? Not at either of her own seats, nor at either of the watering places, not, as far as her most intimate friends and acquaintances knew, at New York, Philadelphia or Richmond, for her arrival at either of these places would have been chronicled by some one interested. Where was she, then? No one could answer; even her bosom friend, Cornelia Compton, could only reply, “Gone gypsying, I suppose.”

Again seven months rolled by, while the brightest star of fashion remained in eclipse.

Again a Christmas party was assembled at Compton Lodge, when the news of Miss De Lancie’s arrival at her house on Loudoun street reached them.

Colonel and Mrs. Compton waited some days for her call, and then not having received it, they went to visit her at her home. They found Marguerite, as ever, gay, witty and sarcastic. She told them in answer to their friendly inquiries that she had been “at Seringapatam,” and gave them no further satisfaction. She accepted the invitation to join the Christmas party at Compton Lodge, went thither the same day, and as always before, distinguished herself as the most brilliant conversationalist, the most accomplished musician, the most graceful dancer, and the most fearless rider of the set. At the breaking up of the company, however, though invited and pressed to return with the Comptons to Richmond, she steadily declined doing so, alleging the necessity of visiting her plantation.

Therefore the Comptons returned to Richmond without their usual guest, and Cornelia, for the first time in many years, spent the whole winter in town without Marguerite. But if Miss Compton was bereaved of her friend, she was also freed from her mistress, and entered with much more levity into all the gayeties of the season than she ever had done in the restraining companionship of Marguerite De Lancie.

Meantime Marguerite, in her wild and lonely home on the wooded banks of the great Potomac, lived a strange and dreamy life, taking long, solitary rides through the deep forests, and among the rocky hills and glens that rolled ruggedly westward of the river; or taking long walks up and down the lonely beach; wiled away to double some distant headland, or explore some unfrequented creek—or pausing lazily, dreamily to watch the flash and dip of the fish in the river, the dusky flight of the water fowl, or the course of a distant sail; getting home late in the afternoon to meet a respectful remonstrance from the elderly gentlewoman who officiated as her housekeeper, and a downright motherly scolding from her old black nurse, aunt Hapzibah, who never saw in the world’s magnificent Marguerite any other than the beautiful, wayward child she had tended from babyhood; or giving audience to the overseer, who, spreading the farm book before her, would enter into long details of the purchase or sale of stock, crops, etc., not one word of which Marguerite heard or understood, yet which she would at the close of the interview indorse by saying, “All right, Mr. Hayhurst, you are an admirable manager”—leaving her friends only to hope that he might be an honest man.

But one circumstance seemed to have power to arouse Miss De Lancie’s interest—the arrival of the weekly mail at Seaview, the nearest village. All day, from the moment the messenger departed in the morning until he came back at night, Marguerite lingered in the house, or mounted her horse and rode in the direction from which the messenger was expected—or returned if it were dark, and waited with ill-concealed anxiety for his arrival. Upon one occasion, the mail seemed to have brought her news as terrible as it was mysterious. Upon opening a certain letter she grew deathly pale, struggled visibly to sustain herself against an inclination to swoon, read the contents to the close, threw the letter into the fire, rang and ordered horses and a servant to attend her, and the same night set out from home, and never drew rein until she reached Bellevue, when sending her horses back by her servant, she took a packet for New York.

She was absent six weeks, at the end of which time she returned home, looking worn and exhausted, yet relieved and cheerful. She found two letters from Cornelia awaiting her; the first one, after much preface, apology and explanation, announced the fact that a suitor, Colonel Houston, of Northumberland, in all respects very acceptable to her parents, had presented himself to Cornelia, and that, but for the mutual pledge existing between herself and Marguerite, she might be induced to please her parents by listening to his addresses. Marguerite De Lancie pondered long and gravely over this letter; re-read it, and looked graver than before. Then she opened the second letter, which was dated three weeks later, and seemed to have been written under the impression that the first one, remaining unanswered, had been received, and had given offense to Marguerite. This last was a long, sentimental epistle, declaring firstly, that she, Cornelia, would not break her “rash” promise to Marguerite, but pleading the wishes of her parents, the approbation of her friends, the merits of her suitor, and in short everything except the true and governing motive, her own inclinations.

Miss De Lancie read this second letter with impatience; at the close threw it into the fire; drew her writing-desk toward her, took pen and paper, and answered both long epistles in one—a miracle of brevity—thus, “dear Nellie—tut—Marguerite,” and sealed and sent it off.

Apparently, Cornelia did not find this answer as clear as it was brief. She wrote in reply a long, heroic epistle of eight pages, announcing her willingness to sacrifice her parents’ wishes, her friends’ approval, her lover’s happiness, and her own peace of mind, all to fidelity and Marguerite, if the latter required the offering!

Marguerite read this letter with more impatience than the others, and drawing a sheet of paper before her, wrote, “Nellie! Do as you like, else I’ll make you—Marguerite.”

In two weeks back came the answer, a pleading, crying letter, of twelve pages, the pith of which was that Nellie would do only as Marguerite liked, and that she wanted more explicit directions.

“Pish! tush! pshaw!” exclaimed Miss De Lancie, tapping her foot with impatience, as she read page after page of all this twaddle, and finally casting the whole into the fire, she took her pen and wrote, “Cornelia! marry Colonel Houston forthwith before I compel you—Marguerite.”

A few days from the dispatch of this letter arrived the answer, brought by an express-mounted messenger in advance of the mail. It was a thick packet of many closely-written pages, the concentrated essence of which was that Nellie would follow the advice of Marguerite, whom she loved and honored more than any one else in the world, yes, more than mother and father and lover together; that Marguerite must never wrong her by doubting this, or above all, by being jealous of the colonel, for indeed, after all, Nellie did not like him inordinately; how could she when he was a widower past thirty with two children? And finally, that she would not venture to ask Miss De Lancie to be her bridesmaid, for that would be like requesting a queen to attend her maid of honor in such a capacity; but would Marguerite, her dear Lady Marguerite, come and preside over the marriage of her poor little Nellie?

Miss De Lancie sat, for a long time, holding this letter open in her hand, moralizing upon its contents. “The little simpleton—is she only timid, or is she insincere? which after all means—is she weak or wicked? foolish or knavish? And above all, why am I fond of her? why have her brown eyes and her cut of countenance such power to draw and knit my heart to hers?—for indeed though to superficial eyes, hers may be a countenance resplendent with feeling, strong in thought, yet it is a cheat, without depth, without earnestness—let it be said!—without soul. Ay, truly! seeing all this, why do I love her? Because of the ‘strong necessity of loving’ somebody, or something, I suppose,” thought Marguerite, sinking deeper into reverie. These sparks of light elicited by the strokes of Cornelia’s steel-like policy upon the flint of Marguerite’s sound integrity, thus revealed, by flashes, the true character of the former to the latter; but the effect was always transient, passing away with the cause.

Miss De Lancie took up the letter and re-read it, with comments as—“I jealous of her lover! truly! I preside over her marriage! Come, I must answer that!” And drawing writing materials before her, she wrote, briefly as before.

“I would see you in Gehenna first, you little imbecile. Marguerite.”

And sealed and dispatched the letter.

This brought Nellie down in person to Plover’s Point, where by dint of caressing, and coaxing, and weeping, she prevailed with Marguerite, who at last exclaimed:

“Well, well! go home and prepare for your wedding, Nellie! I’ll come and assist at the farce.”

CHAPTER IV.
LOVE.

“——The soul that moment caught

A something it through life had sought.”

—Moore.

“Forbear that dream! My lips are sworn apart

From tender words; mine ears from lover’s vows;

Mine eyes from sights God made so beautiful;

My very heart from feelings which move soft.”

—E. B. Browning.

The bridal of the only daughter of the Comptons was naturally an event of great importance, and consequently of much parade. The bride-elect was in favor of being married in the most approved modern style, having the ceremony performed at ten in the morning, and starting immediately upon a wedding tour. But Colonel and Mrs. Compton had some strong, old-fashioned predilections, and decided to have the time-honored, old style of marriage party in the evening. And accordingly preparations were made upon the grandest scale to do honor to the nuptials of their only child.

Marguerite De Lancie arrived upon the evening previous to the wedding, and was most cordially welcomed by the family. She was carried off immediately by Cornelia to her chamber for a tête-à-tête.

“Well, my little incapable!” Marguerite said, as soon as she was seated, “now tell me about your bridegroom! Long ago, you know, we divided the present generation of men into two classes—monsters and imbeciles; to which does your fiancé belong?”

“You shall see and judge for yourself, Marguerite! To neither, I think!”

“Oh! of course, you think! Well! who are to be your bridesmaids?”

“The Misses Davidge and—yourself, dear Marguerite, since you were so kind as to promise.”

“So weak, you mean! And who are to be groomsmen?”

“Steve and Peyton Rutlidge are to lead out the Davidges.”

“And who is to be my cavalier for the occasion?”

“There! that’s just what I wanted to talk to you about, Marguerite! because you have the privilege of rejecting him as your proposed escort, and I hope you will. I am afraid of him; I always was! I cannot endure him; I never could! I hate him, and I always did! But the colonel proposed him, and papa and mamma would not permit me to object.”

“But you have not yet told me who he is.”

“Oh, you would not know if I were to tell you! though if you ever see him, you will never fail to know him thenceforth!”

“His name? You’ve raised my curiosity.”

“Philip Helmstedt, my cousin! He is of those fierce and haughty Helmstedts of the Eastern Shore, whose forefathers, you know, claimed a prior right to the coast and the Isles of the Bay, from having made the place a sort of freebooting depot, long before the king’s patent endowed Lord Baltimore with it, and who headed so many rebellions and caused so much bloodshed among the early colonists.”

“Well, nearly two hundred years have rolled by. This fierce, arrogant nature must have been greatly modified by time and intermarriage.”

“Must it. Well, now, it is my opinion that no one who knows the history can look upon Philip Helmstedt’s bird-of-prey profile without remembering the fierce fights by sea and land of his freebooting forefathers.”

“It is doubtless true that a strong and powerful race of men may have so impressed upon their descendants as to leave their own peculiar traits unmodified and predominant to the latest generations,” said Marguerite, musing; and then, suddenly recollecting herself, she exclaimed: “Philip Helmstedt! surely I have heard that name in honorable association before, though I have never met the owner. Oh! by the way, is he not that gallant nephew, of whom I have heard your father speak, and who, though but thirteen years of age, followed him in the battle of Yorktown and performed such prodigies of youthful valor?”

“Oh, yes! he’s fire-eater enough, and a terror in general, at least to me.”

“But where has he been that I have never met him in society?”

“Oh! he has been for a number of years studying at Heidelburg, and traveling all over the Eastern Continent. I was sufficiently afraid of him before he went away, and I am twice as much in awe of him since he came back; so I want you to veto him, Marguerite; for you may do so, and then the colonel will get somebody else to stand up in his stead. Will you?”

“Certainly not. It would be a very great rudeness to all concerned,” said Miss De Lancie.

The preparations for the marriage were, as I said, upon a magnificent scale. The élite of the city and county were invited to be present. Upon the important evening the house was illuminated and thrown open. At a comparatively early hour the company began to assemble.

At a quarter to eight o’clock precisely, the bride and her maids were ready to go down.

Nellie looked, as all brides are expected to look, “never before so lovely.” A robe of embroidered white crape over white satin, a point lace veil, and a light wreath of orange blossoms, were the principal items of her costume.

The two younger bridesmaids were attired in harmony in white gauze over white silk, with wreaths of snowdrops around their hair.

The queenly form of Marguerite De Lancie was arrayed in a robe of the richest lace over white brocade; her superb black hair was crowned with a wreath of lilies, deep falls of the finest lace veiled her noble bust and arms, and the purest Oriental pearls adorned her neck and wrists; she looked as ever, a royal beauty.

Scarcely was the last fold of Cornelia’s veil gracefully arranged by Marguerite, before the little bride, with a mixture of childish petulance and envy and genuine admiration, raised her eyes to the beautiful brow of her patroness, and said:

“Ah! how stately, how radiant you are, Marguerite! But how shall I look, poor, insignificant, little, fady pigmy! my very bridegroom will be ashamed of his choice, seen by the side of the magnificent Miss De Lancie!”

“Be silent! How dare you humble yourself, or flatter me so shamefully!” exclaimed Marguerite, flushing with indignation. “As for the ‘magnificent,’ that can be easily transferred; ‘fine feathers make fine birds,’ and queenly jewels go very far toward making queenly women,” she continued, proceeding to unclasp the pearls from her own neck and arms, and to fasten them upon those of Cornelia.

“No, no, dear Marguerite, desist! I cannot, indeed. I cannot consent to shine in borrowed jewels,” said Miss Compton, opposing this ornamental addition to her costume.

“They are your own; wear them for my sake, sweet Nellie,” replied Miss De Lancie; clasping the necklace and kissing the bride with renewed tenderness.

“But your matchless set of pearls! a dower, a fortune in themselves! I cannot, Marguerite! Indeed, indeed, I dare not! Such a transfer would look as if you were not quite sane, nor myself quite honest,” said Cornelia, with sincere earnestness.

“Ridiculous! I care not for them, or, I assure you, I should not give them away. Hush! don’t put me to the trouble of pressing them upon you, for really I do not consider them worth the expenditure of so much breath. Stop! don’t thank me, either, for I have no patience to listen. We are all ready, I believe? What are we waiting for?”

While she spoke, there came a gentle rap at the connecting door between Cornelia’s and her parents’ bedchambers. It was Colonel and Mrs. Compton, who were waiting there to embrace and bless their child before giving her up to the possession of another. Cornelia went in to them, and after a stay of five minutes, returned with her eyes suffused with tears, evanescent tears that quickly evaporated. And in another moment Colonel Compton came to the passage door and announced to the bevy of bridesmaids that the bishop had arrived, and that the bridegroom and his attendants were waiting downstairs.

“We are ready. But remember, colonel, that I have never met Mr. Helmstedt.”

“I shall not fail to present him, Marguerite,” replied the old gentleman, turning to go downstairs. The bride’s party followed in due order; the third bridesmaid, leading the way, received the arm of her appointed escort, and advanced toward the saloon; the second did likewise; then Marguerite, in her turn, descended. She had never before seen the distinguished-looking personage, then waiting at the foot of the stairs to offer his arm and lead her on; but Colonel Compton stood ready to present him and all was well. Marguerite reached the last step, paused, and raised her eyes to look at the stranger, whom Cornelia’s description had invested with a certain interest.

A tall, thin, muscular form, large, clearly cut aquiline features, raven-black hair, strongly marked black eyebrows, deep and piercing dark grey eyes, a stern and somewhat melancholy countenance, a stately, not to say haughty, carriage, a style of dress careful even to nicety, a tout ensemble indicating a forcible, fiery, high-toned, somewhat arrogant character, were the features impressed by first sight upon Marguerite’s perceptions. She had scarcely made these observations and withdrawn her glance, when Colonel Compton, taking the stranger’s hand and turning to her, said:

“Miss De Lancie, permit me to present to you Mr. Helmstedt, of Northumberland County.”

Again Marguerite lifted her eyes.

A stately bow, a gracious smile, a mellifluous voice in addressing her, threw a charm, a warm, bright glow, like a sudden sunburst over those stern, dark features, clothing them with an indescribable beauty as fascinating as it was unexpected.

“I esteem myself most happy in meeting Miss De Lancie,” he said.

Marguerite dropped her eyes, and blushed deeply beneath his fixed, though deferential gaze, curtseyed in silence, received his offered arm and followed the others, who were waiting at the door. The bride and groom brought up the rear. And the party entered the saloon.

The rooms were superbly adorned, brilliantly illuminated, and densely crowded by a splendid company.

The white-gowned bishop stood upon the rug in front of the fireplace, facing the assembly. A space had been left clear before him, upon which the bridal party formed. A hushed silence filled the room; the book was opened; the rites commenced, and in ten minutes after little Nellie Compton was transmogrified into Mrs. Colonel Houston.

When the congratulations were all over, and the bridal party seated, and the little embarrassments attendant upon all these movements well over, the programme for the remainder of the evening proceeded according to all the “rules and regulations in such cases made and provided”—with one memorable exception.

When the bride’s cake (which was quite a miraculous chef-d’œuvre of the confectioner’s art, being made in the form of the temple of Hymen, highly ornate, and containing besides a costly diamond ring, which it was supposed, according to the popular superstition, would indicate the happy finder as the next to be wedded of the party), was cut and served to all the single ladies present, it was soon discovered that none of them had drawn the token. Colonel Compton then declared that the unmarried gentlemen should try their fortune. And when they were all served, Mr. Helmstedt proved to be the fortunate possessor of the costly talisman.

When, with a courtly dignity, he had arrested the storm of badinage that was ready to burst upon him, he deliberately crossed the room to the quarter where the bride and her attendants remained seated, and pausing before Marguerite, said:

“Miss De Lancie, permit me,” and offered the ring.

“Yes, yes, Marguerite! relieve him of it! He cannot wear it himself, you know, and to whom here could he properly offer it but to yourself,” hastily whispered Cornelia.

Miss De Lancie hesitated, but unwilling to draw attention by making a scene out of such an apparent trifle, she smiled, drew off her glove, and held up her hand, saying,

“If Mr. Helmstedt will put it on.”

Philip Helmstedt slipped the ring on her finger, turned and adjusted it with a slight pressure, when Marguerite, with a half-suppressed cry, snatched away her hand and applied her handkerchief to it.

“Have I been so awkward and unhappy as to hurt you, Miss De Lancie?” inquired Mr. Helmstedt.

“Oh, no, not at all! it is nothing to speak of; a sharp flaw in the setting of the stones pierced my finger; I think that is all,” answered Marguerite, drawing off the ring that was stained with blood.

Mr. Helmstedt took the jewel, walked up to the fireplace, and threw it into the glowing coals.

“Well! if that is not the most wanton piece of destructiveness I ever saw in my life,” said Cornelia, indignantly; “you know, Marguerite, when I saw Mr. Helmstedt draw the ring and come and put it on your finger, I thought it was a happy sign; but now see how it is? everything that man touches, turns—not to gold, but to blood or tears, that he thinks only can be dried in the fire!”

“Don’t use such fearful words here on your bridal evening, dear Nellie, they are ill-omened. You are, besides, unjust to Mr. Helmstedt, I think,” said Marguerite, who had now quite recovered her composure.

“They were false diamonds after all, Miss De Lancie,” said Mr. Helmstedt, rejoining the ladies.

The bishop had retired from the room; the musicians had entered and taken their places, and were now playing a lively prelude to the quadrilles; partners were engaged, and were only waiting for the bride and groom to open the ball, as was then the custom. Nellie gave her hand to her colonel, and suffered herself to be led to the head of the set.

“Miss De Lancie, will you honor me?” inquired Mr. Helmstedt, and receiving a gracious inclination of the head in acquiescence, he conducted Marguerite to a position vis-à-vis with the bridal pair. Other couples immediately followed their example, and the dancing commenced in earnest. The lively quadrille was succeeded by the stately minuet, and that by the graceful waltz, and the time-honored and social Virginia reel. Then came an interval of repose, preceding the sumptuous supper. Then the outpouring of the whole company into the dining-room; and the eating, drinking, toasting, and jesting; then they adjourned to the saloon, when again quadrilles, minuets, reels and waltzes alternated with short-lived rest, refreshment, gossip, and flirtations, until a late hour, when the discovered disappearance of the bride and her attendants gave the usual warning for the company to break up. At the covert invitation of Colonel Compton, some of the gentlemen, who were without ladies, lingered after the departure of the other guests, and adjourned with himself and his son-in-law, to the dining-room, where, after drinking the health of the newly married pair, they took leave.

The next day Judge Houston, the uncle of the bridegroom, entertained the wedding party and a large company at dinner. And this was the signal for the commencement of a series of dinners, tea and card parties, and balls, given in honor of the bride, and which kept her and her coterie in a whirl of social dissipation for several weeks.

But from this brilliant entanglement let us draw out clearly the sombre thread of our own narrative.

Everywhere the resplendent beauty of Marguerite De Lancie was felt and celebrated. Every one declared that the star of fashion had emerged from her late eclipse with new and dazzling brilliancy. And ever, whether in repose or action; whether reclined upon some divan, she was the inspiration of a circle of conversationalists; or whether she led the dance, or, seated at the harpsichord, poured forth her soul in glorious song—she was ever the queen of all hearts and minds, who recognized in her magnificent personality a sovereignty no crown or sceptre could confer. All, in proportion to their depth and strength of capacity for appreciation, felt this. But none so much as one whose duty brought him ever to her side in zealous service, or deferential waiting.

Philip Helmstedt, almost from the first hour of his meeting with this imperial beauty, had felt her power. He watched her with the most reserved and respectful vigilance; he saw her ever the magnet of all hearts and eyes, the life of all social intercourse, the inspiration of poets, the model of painters, the worship of youth and love; shining for, warming, lighting, and enlivening all who approached her, yet with such impartiality that none ventured to aspire to especial notice. There was one exception, and not a favored one to his equanimity and that was Mr. Helmstedt himself; her manner toward him, at first affable, soon grew reserved, then distant, and at length repelling. Colonel Compton, who had taken it into his head that this haughty pair were well adapted to each other, watched with interest the progress of their acquaintance, noticed this, and despaired.

“It is useless,” he said, “and I warn you, Philip Helmstedt, not to consume your heart in the blaze of Marguerite De Lancie’s beauty! She is the invincible Diana of modern times. For seven years has Marguerite reigned in our saloons, with the absolute dominion of a beauty and genius that ‘age cannot wither nor custom stale,’ and her power remains undiminished as her beauty is undimmed. Year after year the most distinguished men of their time, men celebrated in the battles and in the councils of their country, men of history, have been suitors in her train, and have received their congé from her imperial nod. Can you hope for more than an Armstrong, a Bainbridge, a Cavendish?”

“I beseech you, sir, spare me the alphabetical list of Miss De Lancie’s conquests! I can well believe their name is legion,” interrupted Philip Helmstedt, with an air of scorn and arrogance that seemed to add, “and if it were so, I should enter the lists with full confidence against them all.”

“I assure you it is sheer madness, Philip! A man may as well hope to monopolize the sun to light his own home as to win Marguerite De Lancie to his hearth! She belongs to society, I think, also, to history. She requires a nation for her field of action. I have known her from childhood and watched with wonder her development. It is the friction of marvelous and undirected energies that causes her to glow and radiate in society as you see her. It is sheer frenzy, your pursuit of her! I tell you, I have seen a love chase worth ten of yours—Lord William Daw——”

“Lord—William—Daw!” interrupted Philip Helmstedt, curling his lip with ineffable scorn.

“Well, now, I assure you, Philip, the heir presumptive of a marquisate is not to be sneered at. He was besides a good-looking and well-behaved young fellow, except that he followed Miss De Lancie up and down the country like a demented man, in direct opposition, both to the clucking of an old hen of a tutor, and the coldness of his Diana. He was drowned, poor youth! but I always suspected that he threw himself overboard in desperation!”

“Lord—William—Daw,” said Mr. Helmstedt, with the same deliberate and scornful intonation, “may not have been personally the equal of the lady to whom he aspired. Very young men frequently raise their hopes to women ‘who are, or ought to be, unattainable’ by them. Miss De Lancie is not one to permit herself to be dazzled by the glitter of mere rank and title.”

Yes. Philip Helmstedt hoped, believed, in more success for himself than had attended any among his predecessors or temporary rivals. True, indeed, his recommendations, personal as well as circumstantial, to the favor of this “fourth Grace and tenth Muse,” were of the first order. The last male representative of an ancient, haughty, and wealthy family, their vast estates centered in his possession—he chose to devote many years to study and to travel. An accomplished scholar, he had read, observed and reflected, and was prepared, at his own pleasure, to confer the result upon the world. A tried and proved soldier, he might claim military rank and rapid promotion. Lastly, a pre-eminently fine looking person, he might aspire to the hand of almost any beauty in the city, with every probability of success. But Philip Helmstedt was fastidious and proud to a degree of scornful arrogance—that was his one great, yes, terrible sin. It was the bitter upas of his soul that poisoned every one of the many virtues of his character. But for scorn, truth, justice, prudence, temperance, generosity, fortitude, would have flourished in his nature. It was this trenchant arrogance that made him indifferent to accessory honors—that made him as a profound student, regardless of scholastic fame—as a brave soldier, careless of military glory—as an accomplished gentleman, negligent of beauty’s allurements. It was this arrogance in fine, that entered very largely into his passion for the magnificent Marguerite. For here at last, in her, he found a princess quite worthy of his high devotion, and he resolved to win her.

God have mercy on any soul self-cursed with scorn.

And Marguerite? Almost from the first moment of their meeting, her eyes, her soul, had been strangely and irresistibly magnetized. I do not know that this was caused by the distinguished personal appearance of Philip Helmstedt. After all, it is not the beauty, but the peculiarity, individuality, uniqueness, in the beauty that attracts its destined mate. And Philip Helmstedt’s presence was pre-eminently characteristic, individual, unique. At first Marguerite’s eyes were attracted by a certain occult resemblance to his young cousin, her own beloved friend, Cornelia Compton. It was not only such a family likeness as might exist between brother and sister. It was something deeper than a similitude of features, complexion and expression. The same peculiar conformation of brow and eye, the same proud lines in the aquiline profile, the same disdainful curves in the expressive lips, the same distinctly individualized characteristics, that had long charmed and cheated her in Nellie’s superficial face, was present, only more strongly marked and deeply toned, and truly representative of great force of character, in Philip Helmstedt’s imposing countenance. But there was something more than this—there was identity in the uniqueness of each—faint and uncertain in the delicate face of Nellie, intense and ineffaceable in the sculptured features of Philip. As Marguerite studied this remarkable physiognomy, she felt that her strange attraction to Nellie had been but a faint prelude, though a prophecy of this wondrous magnetism.

Alarmed at the spell that was growing around her heart, she withdrew her eyes and thoughts, opposed to the attentions of her lover a cold, repellant manner, and treated his devotion with supreme disdain, which must have banished any man less strong in confidence than Philip Helmstedt, but which in his case only warded off the day of fate. Perseveringly he attended her, earnestly he sought an opportunity of explaining himself. In vain; for neither at home nor abroad, in parlor, saloon, thoroughfare or theatre, could he manage to secure a tête-à-tête. Whether sitting or standing, Miss De Lancie was always the brilliant center of a circle; and if she walked, like any other queen, she was attended by her suite. Only when he mingled with this train, could he speak to her. But then—the quick averting of that regal hand, the swift fall of the sweeping, dark eyelashes, the sudden, deep flush of the bright cheeks, the suppressed heave of the beautiful bosom, the subdued tremor of the thrilling voice, betrayed hidden emotions, that only he had power to arouse, or insight to detect, and read therein the confirmation of his dearest hopes. The castle walls might show a forbidding aspect, but the citadel was all his own, hence his determination, despite her icy coldness of manner, to pass all false shows, and come to an understanding with his Diana. Still Miss De Lancie successfully evaded his pursuit and defeated his object. What was the cause of her course of conduct, he could not satisfactorily decide. Was pride struggling with love in her bosom? If so, that pride should succumb.

Having failed in every delicate endeavor to effect a tête-à-tête, and the day of Marguerite’s departure being near at hand, Mr. Helmstedt went one morning directly to the house of Colonel Compton, sent up his card to Miss De Lancie, and requested the favor of an interview. He received an answer that Miss De Lancie was particularly engaged and begged to be excused. Again and again he tried the same plan with the same ill-success. Miss De Lancie was never at leisure to receive Mr. Helmstedt. At length this determined suitor sent a note, requesting the lady to name some hour when she should be sufficiently disengaged to see him. The reply to this was that Miss De Lancie regretted to say that at no hour of her short remaining time should she be at liberty to entertain Mr. Helmstedt. This flattering message was delivered in the parlor, and in the presence of Colonel Compton. As soon as the servant had retired, the old gentleman raised his eyes to the darkened brow of Philip Helmstedt, and said: “I see how it is, Philip. Marguerite is a magnanimous creature. She would spare you the humiliation of a refusal. But you—you are resolved upon mortification. You will not be content without a decided rejection. Very well. You shall have an opportunity of receiving one. Listen. Houston and Nellie are dining with the judge to-day. Mrs. Compton is superintending the making of calf’s-foot jelly; don’t huff and sneer, Philip. I cannot help sometimes knowing the progress of such culinary mysteries; but I am not going to assist at them or to ask you to do so. I am going to ride. Thus, if you will remain here to-day, you will have the house to yourself, and Marguerite, who for some unaccountable reason, fate perhaps, chooses to stay home. Go into the library and wait. Miss De Lancie, according to her usual custom, will probably visit that or the adjoining music-room in the course of the forenoon, and there you have her. Make the best use of your opportunity, and the Lord speed you; for I, for my part, heartily wish this lioness fairly mated. Come; let me install you.”

“There appears to be no other chance, and I must have an interview with her to-day,” said Mr. Helmstedt, rising to accompany his host who led the way to the library. It was on the opposite side of the hall.

“Now be patient,” said the colonel, as he took leave; “you may have to wait one or more hours, but you can find something here to read.”

“Read!” ejaculated Philip Helmstedt, with the tone and energy of an oath; but the old gentleman was already gone, and the younger one threw himself into a chair to wait.

“‘Be patient!’ with the prospect of waiting here several hours, and the possibility of disappointment at the end,” exclaimed Philip, rising, and walking in measured steps up and down the room, trying to control the eagerness of expectation that made moments seem like hours, while he would have compressed hours into moments.

How long he waited ought scarcely to be computed by the common measure of time. It might not have been; an hour—to him it seemed an indefinite duration—a considerable portion of eternity, when at length, while almost despairing of the presence of Marguerite, he heard from the adjoining music-room the notes of a harp.

He paused, for the harpist might be—must be Miss De Lancie.

He listened.

Soon the chords of the lyre were swept by a magic hand that belonged only to one enchantress, and the instrument responded in a low, deep moan, that presently swelled in a wild and thrilling strain. And then the voice of the improvvisatrice stole upon the ear—that wondrous voice, that ever, while it sounded, held captive all ears, silent and breathless all lips, spellbound all hearts!—it arose, first tremulous, melodious, liquid, as from a sea of tears, then took wing in a wild, mournful, despairing wail. It was a song of renunciation, in which some consecrated maiden bids adieu to her lover, renouncing happiness, bewailing fate, invoking death. Philip Helmstedt listened, magnetized by the voice of the sorceress, with its moans of sorrow, its sudden gushes of passion or tenderness, and its wails of anguish and despair. And when at last, like the receding waves of the heart’s life tide, the thrilling notes ebbed away into silence and death, he remained standing like a statue. Then, with self-reflection and the returning faculty of combination, came the question:

“What did this song of renunciation mean?” And the next more practical inquiry, should he remain in the library, awaiting the doubtful event of her coming, or should he enter the music-room? A single moment of reflection decided his course.

He advanced softly, and opened the listed and silently-turning doors, and paused an instant to gaze upon a beautiful tableau!

Directly opposite to him, at the extremity of the thickly carpeted room, was a deep bay window, richly curtained with purple and gold, through which the noon-day sun shone with a subdued glory. Within the glowing shadows of this recess sat Marguerite beside the harp. A morning robe of amber-hued India silk fell in classic folds around her form. Her arms were still upon the harp, her inspired face was pale and half averted. Her rich, purplish tresses pushed off from her temples, revealed the breadth of brow between them in a new and royal aspect of beauty. Her eyes were raised and fixed upon the distance, as if following in spirit the muse that had just died from lips of fire. She was so completely absorbed, that she did not heed the soft and measured step of Philip Helmstedt, until he paused before her, bowed and spoke.

Then she started to her feet with a brow crimsoned by a sudden rush of emotion, and thrown completely off her guard, for the moment, she confronted him with a home question.

“Philip Helmstedt! what has brought you here?”

“My deep, my unconquerable, consuming love! It has broken down all the barriers of etiquette, and given me thus to your presence, Marguerite De Lancie,” he replied, with a profound and deprecating inclination of the head.

She had recovered a degree of self-possession; but the tide of blood receding had left her brow cold and clammy, and her frame tremulous and faint; she leaned upon her harp for support, pushed the falling tresses from her pale, damp forehead, and said, in faltering tones:

“I would have saved you this! Why, in the name of all that is manly, delicate, honorable!—why have you in defiance of all opposition, ventured this?”

“Because I love you, Marguerite. Because I love you for time and for eternity with a love that must speak or slay.”

“Ungenerous! unjust!”

“Be it so, Marguerite. I do not ask you to forgive me, for that must presuppose repentance, and I do not repent standing here, Miss De Lancie.”

“Still I must ask you, sir,” said Marguerite, who was gradually recovering the full measure of her natural dignity and self-possession, “what feature in all my conduct that has come under your observation has given you the courage to obtrude upon me a presence and a suit that you must know to be unwelcome and repulsive?”

“Shall I tell you? I will, with the truthfulness of spirit answering to spirit. I come because, despite all your apparent hauteur, disdain, coldness, such a love as this which burns within my heart for you, bears within itself the evidence of reciprocity,” replied Philip Helmstedt, laying his hand upon his heart, and atoning by a profound reverence for the presumption of his words. “And I appeal to your own soul, Marguerite De Lancie, for the indorsement of my avowal.”

“You are mad!” said Marguerite, trembling.

“No—not mad, lady, because loving you as never man loved woman yet, I also feel and know, with the deepest respect be it said, that I do not love in vain,” he replied, sinking for an instant upon his knee, and bowing deeply over her hand that he pressed to his lips.

“In vain! in vain! you do! you do!” she exclaimed, almost distractedly, while trembling more than ever.

“Marguerite,” he said, rising, yet retaining his hold upon her hand, “it may be that I love in vain, but I do not love alone. This hand that I clasp within my own throbs like a palpitating heart. I read, on your brow, in your eyes, in your trembling lip and heaving bosom, that my great love is not lost; that it is returned; that you are mine, as I am yours. Marguerite De Lancie, by a claim rooted in the deepest nature, you are my wife for time and for eternity!”

“Never! never! you know not what you say or seek!” she exclaimed, snatching her hand away and shuddering through every nerve.

“Miss De Lancie, your words and manner are inexplicable, are alarming! Tell me, for the love of Heaven, Marguerite, does any insurmountable obstacle stand in the way of our union?”

“Obstacle!” repeated Miss De Lancie, starting violently, and gazing with wild, dilated eyes upon the questioner, while every vestige of color fled from her face.

“Yes, that was the word I used, dearest Marguerite! Oh, if there be——”

“What obstacle should exist, except my own will? A very sufficient one, I should say,” interrupted Marguerite, struggling hard for self-control.

“Say your decision against your will.”

“What right have you to think so, sir?”

“Look in your own heart and read my right, Marguerite.”

“I never look into that abyss!”

“Marguerite, you fill me with a terrible anxiety. Marguerite, for seven years you have reigned a queen over society; your hand has been sought by the most distinguished men of the country; you are as full of tenderness and enthusiasm as a harp is of music; it seems incredible that you have never married or betrothed yourself, or even loved, or fancied that you loved! Tell me, Marguerite, in the name of Heaven, tell me, have any of these events occurred to you?” He waited for an answer.

She remained silent, while a frightful pallor overspread her face.

“Tell me! Oh! tell me, Marguerite, have you ever before loved? Ah, pardon the question and answer it.”

She made a supreme effort, recovered her self-possession and replied:

“No, not as you understand it.”

“How?—not as I understand it? Ah! forgive me again, but your words increase my suffering.”

“Oh! I have loved Nellie as a sister, her father and mother as parents, some acquaintances as friends, that is all.”

She was answering these close questions! she was yielding to the fascination. Amid all her agony of conflicting emotions she was yielding.

“Marguerite! Marguerite! And this is true! You have never loved before!”

“It is true—yet what of that? for I know not even why I admit this! Oh! leave me, I am not myself. Hope nothing from what I have told you. I can never, never be your wife!” exclaimed Marguerite, with the half-suppressed and wild affright of one yielding to a terrible spell.

“But one word more. Is your hand free also, dearest Marguerite?”

“Yes, it is free; but what then? I have told you——”

“Then it is free no longer; for by the splendor of the heavens, it is mine. Marguerite, it is mine!” he exclaimed as he caught and pressed that white hand in his own.

Marguerite De Lancie’s previsions had been prophetic. She had foreseen that an interview would be fatal to her resolution, and it proved fatal. Philip Helmstedt urged his suit with all the eloquence of passionate love, seconded by the dangerous advocate in Marguerite’s heart, and he won it; and in an hour after, the pair that had met so inauspiciously, parted as betrothed lovers. Mr. Helmstedt went away in deep joy, and with a sense of triumph only held in check by his habitual dignity and self-control. And Marguerite remained in that scene of the betrothal, looking, not like a loving and happy affianced bride, but rather like a demented woman, with pale face and wild, affrighted eyes, strained upward as for help, and cold hands wrung together as in an appeal, and exclaiming under her breath:

“What have I done! Lord forgive me! Oh, Lord have pity on me!” And yet Marguerite De Lancie loved her betrothed with all her fiery soul. That love in a little while brought her some comfort in her strange distress.

“What’s done is done,” she said, in the tone of one who would nerve her soul to some endurance, and then she went to her room, smoothed her hair, dressed for the afternoon, and through all the remainder of the day moved about, the same brilliant, sparkling Marguerite as before.

In the evening the accepted suitor presented himself. And though he only mingled as before, in the train of Miss De Lancie, and acted in all respects with the greatest discretion, yet those particularly interested could read the subdued joy of his soul, and draw the proper inference.

That night, when Marguerite retired to her chamber, Nellie followed her, and casting herself at once into an armchair, she broke the subject by suddenly exclaiming: “Marguerite, I do believe you have been encouraging Ironsides!”

“Why do you think so—if I understand what you mean?”

“Oh, from his looks! He looks as bright as a candle in a dark lantern, and as happy as if he had just slain his enemy. I do fear you have given him hopes, Marguerite.”

“And why fear it?”

“Oh, because, Marguerite, dear, I don’t want you to have him!” said Nellie, with a show of great tenderness.

“Nonsense!”

“I do not believe you will, you see, but still I fear. Oh, Marguerite, he may be high-toned, magnanimous, and all that, but he is not tender, not gentle, not loving!”

“In a word—not a good nurse.”

“No.”

“Good! I do not want a nurse!”

“Ah! Marguerite, I am afraid of Philip Helmstedt. If you only knew how he treated his sister.”

“His sister! I did not even know he had one.”

“I dare say not; but he has. She is in the madhouse.”

“In the madhouse!”

“Yes; I’ll tell you all about it. It was before he went away the last time. His sister Agnes was then eighteen; they lived together. She was engaged to poor Hertford, the son of the notorious defaulter, who was no defaulter when that engagement was made. Agnes and Hertford were within a few days of their marriage when the father’s embezzlements were discovered. Now poor young Hertford was not in the least implicated, yet as soon as his father’s disgrace was made manifest, Philip Helmstedt, as the guardian of his sister, broke off the marriage.”

“He could have done no otherwise,” said Marguerite.

“In spite of her pledged word? In spite of her prayers and tears, and distracted grief?”

“He could have done no otherwise,” repeated Marguerite, though her face grew very pale.

“That was not all. The lovers met, arranged a flight, and were about to escape, when Philip Helmstedt discovered them. He insulted the young man, struck him with his riding whip across the face, and bore his fainting sister home. The next day the two men met in a duel.”

“They could have done no otherwise. It was the bloody code of honor!” reiterated Marguerite, yet her very lips were white, as she leaned forward against the top of Nellie’s chair.

“Hertford lost his right arm, and Agnes lost—her reason!”

“My God!”

“Yes; ‘a plague o’ honor,’ I say.”

“Dear Nellie, leave me now; my head aches, and I am tired.”

Nellie, accustomed to such abrupt dismissions, kissed her friend and retired.

“Honor, honor, honor,” repeated Marguerite, when left alone. “Oh, Moloch of civilization, when will you be surfeited?”

The next morning Philip Helmstedt called, sent up his card to Miss De Lancie, and was not denied her presence.

“Show the gentleman into the music-room, and say that I will see him there, John,” was the direction given by Miss De Lancie, who soon descended thither.

Mr. Helmstedt arose to meet her, and wondered at her pale, worn look.

“I hope you are in good health this morning, dear Marguerite,” he said, offering to salute her. But she waved him off, saying:

“No! I am ill! And I come to you, this morning, Philip Helmstedt, to implore you to restore the promise wrenched from me yesterday,” she said, and sunk, pallid and exhausted, upon the nearest chair.

A start and an attitude of astounded amazement was his only reply. A pause of a moment ensued, and Marguerite repeated:

“Will you be so generous as to give me back my plighted faith, Philip Helmstedt?”

“Marguerite! has nature balanced her glorious gift to you with a measure of insanity?” he inquired, at length, but without abatement of his astonishment.

“I sometimes think so. I do mad things occasionally. And the maddest thing I ever did, save one, was to give you that pledge yesterday.”

“Thank you, fairest lady.”

“And I ask you now to give it back to me.”

“For what reason?”

“I can give you none!”

“No reason for your strange request?”

“None!”

“Then I assure you, my dearest Marguerite, that I am not mad.”

“Indeed, you are upon one subject, if you did but know it. Once more, will you enfranchise my hand?”

“Do I look as if I would, lady of mine?”

“No! no! you do not! You never will! very well! be the consequences on your own head.”

“Amen. I pray for no better.”

“Heaven pity me!”

“My dearest, most capricious love! I do not know the motive of your strangest conduct; it may be that you only try the strength of my affection—try it, Marguerite! you will find it bear the test—but I do know, that if I doubted the truth of yours, I should disengage your hand at once.”

There followed words of passionate entreaty on her part, met by earnest deprecation and unshaken firmness on his; but the spell was over her, and the scene ended as it had done the day previous; Philip was the victor, and the engagement was riveted, if possible, more firmly than before. Again Philip departed rejoicing; Marguerite, almost raving.

Yet Marguerite loved no less strongly and truly than did Philip.

Later in that forenoon, before going out, Nellie went into Marguerite’s chamber, where she found her friend extended on her bed, so still and pale that she drew near in alarm and laid her hand upon her brow; it was beaded with a cold sweat.

“Marguerite! Marguerite! what is the matter? You are really ill.”

“I am blue,” said Marguerite.

“Blue! that you are literally—hands and face, too.”

“Yes, I have got an ague,” said Marguerite, shuddering, “but I will not be coddled! There.”

In vain, Nellie, with a great show of solicitude, urged her services. Marguerite would receive none of them, and ended, as usual, by ordering Nellie out of the room.

In a few days the engagement between Mr. Helmstedt and Miss De Lancie was made known to the intimate friends of the parties. The marriage was appointed to take place early in the ensuing winter. Then the Richmond party dispersed—Colonel and Mrs. Houston went down to their plantation in Northumberland County; Philip Helmstedt proceeded to his island estates on the coast, to prepare his long-deserted home for the reception of his bride. And, lastly, Marguerite, after a hurried visit of inspection to Plover’s Point, went “gypsying,” as she called it, for the whole summer and autumn. Upon this occasion, her mysterious absence was longer than usual. And when at last she rejoined her friends, her beautiful face betrayed the ravages of some strange, deep bitter sorrow.

Upon the following Christmas, once more, and for the last time, a merry party was assembled at Compton Hall. Among the guests were Nellie and her husband, on a visit to their parents. Marguerite De Lancie and Philip were also present. And there, under the auspices of Colonel and Mrs. Compton, they were united in marriage. By Marguerite’s expressed will, the wedding was very quiet, and almost private. And immediately afterward the Christmas party broke up.

And Philip Helmstedt, instead of accompanying the Comptons and Houstons to Richmond, or starting upon a bridal tour, took his idolized wife to himself alone, and conveyed her to his bleak and lonely sea-girt home, where the wild waters lashed the shores both day and night, and the roar of the waves was ever heard.

CHAPTER V.
THE EXCESS OF GLORY OBSCURED.

“Muse, Grace, and Woman—in herself

All moods of mind contrasting—

The tenderest wail of human woe,

The scorn like lightning blasting;

Mirth sparkling like a diamond shower

From lips of lifelong sadness,

Clear picturings of majestic thought

Upon a ground of madness;

And over all romance and song

A magic lustre throwing,

And laureled Celie at her side

Her storied pages showing.”

—Varied From Whittier.

How the wind raves, this bitter night, around that bleak, sea-girt, snow-covered island! how the waters roar as they break upon the beach! Not a star is out. Above, black, scudding clouds sail, like ships, across the dark ocean of ether—below, ships fly, like clouds, before the wind, across the troubled waters; thus sky and ocean seem to mingle in the fierce chaos of night and storm.

But that massive old stone mansion fronting the sea, and looking so like a fortification on the island, recks little of the storm that howls around it—a square, black block against the sky—a denser, more defined shadow in the midst of shadows, it looks, scarcely relieved by the tall, stately, Lombardy poplars that wave before the blast around it—a steady light, from a lower window the center of the front, streams in a line far out across garden, field, and beach, to the sea. Ay! little recks the strong house, built to brave just such weather, and little recks the beautiful woman, safely sheltered in the warmest, most luxurious room, of the wild wind and waves that rage so near its thick walls.

Let us leave the storm without and enter that nook. Look! this room had been furnished with direct regard to Marguerite’s comfort, and though showing nothing like the splendor of modern parlors, it was comfortable and luxurious, as comfort and luxury were understood at that time and place; a costly French historic paper, representing the story of the Argonaunt sailors, adorned the walls; a rich, deep-wooded, square Turkey carpet covered the floor to within a foot of the chair-boards; heavy, dark crimson damask curtains, upheld by a gilded oar, fell in voluminous folds from the one deep bay window in front of the room; high-backed, richly-carved and crimson cushioned chairs were ranged against the walls; a curiously wrought cabinet stood in the recess on the right of the tall mantelpiece, and a grand piano in that on the left; oddly shaped and highly polished mahogany or black walnut stands and tables stood in corners or at side walls under hanging mirrors and old paintings; a fine sea view hung above the mantelpiece, and a pair of bronze candelabras, in the shape of anchors, adorned each end; choice books, vases, statuettes and bijouterie were scattered about; but the charm of the room was the crimson-curtained bay window, with its semi-circular sofa, and the beautiful harp and the music-stand that was a full-sized statue of St. Cecelia holding a scroll, which served as a rest for the paper. This recess had been fitted up by Philip Helmstedt in fond memory of the draperied bay window in the music-room at Colonel Compton’s town house, where he had first breathed his love to Marguerite’s ear.

The bridal pair, whose honeymoon in three months had not waned, were sitting on a short sofa, drawn up on the right of the fire. They were a very handsome couple and formed a fine picture as they sat—Philip, with his grandly-proportioned and graceful form, perfect Roman profile, stately head and short, curled, black hair and beard and high-bred air—Marguerite, in her superb beauty, which neither negligence nor overdress could mar—Marguerite sometimes so disdainful of the aid of ornament, was very simply clothed in a plain robe of fine, soft, crimson cloth, about the close bodice of which dropped here and there a stray ringlet from the rich mass of her slightly disheveled, but most beautiful hair. Her warm, inspiring face was glowing with life, and her deep, dark eyes were full of light. Some little graceful trifle of embroidery gave her slender, tapering fingers a fair excuse to move, while she listened to the voice of Philip reading “Childe Harold.” But after all there was little sewing and little reading done. Marguerite’s soul-lit eyes were oftener raised to Philip’s face than lowered over her work; and Philip better loved the poetry in Marguerite’s smile than the beauty of the canto before him. They had, in the very lavish redundance of life and consciousness of mutual self-sufficiency, left the gay and multitudinous city to retire to this secluded spot, this outpost of the continent, to be for a while all in all to each other; and three months of total isolation from the world had passed, and as yet they had not begun to be weary of each other’s exclusive society. In truth, with their richly-endowed natures and boundless mutual resources, they could not soon exhaust the novelty of their wedded bliss. No lightest, softest cloud had as yet passed over the face of their honeymoon. If Mr. Helmstedt’s despotic character occasionally betrayed itself, even toward his queenly bride, Marguerite, in her profound, self-abnegating, devoted love, with almost a saintly enthusiasm, quickly availed herself of the opportunity to prove how much deep joy is felt in silently, quietly, even secretly, laying our will at the feet of one we most delight to honor. And if Marguerite’s beautiful face sometimes darkened with a strange gloom and terror, it was always in the few hours of Mr. Helmstedt’s absence, and thus might easily be explained; for be it known to the reader that there was no way of communication between their island and the outside world except by boats, and the waters this windy season were always rough. If Mr. Helmstedt sometimes reflected upon the scenes of their stormy courtship, and wondered at the strange conduct of his beloved, he was half inclined to ascribe it all to a sort of melodramatic coquetry or caprice, or perhaps fanaticism in regard to the foolish pledge of celibacy once made between Miss De Lancie and Miss Compton, of which he had heard; it is true he thought that Marguerite was not a woman to act from either of these motives, but he was too happy in the possession of his bride to consider the matter deeply now, and it could be laid aside for future reference. Marguerite never reviewed the subject. Their life was now as profoundly still as it was deeply satisfied. They had no neighbors and no company whatever. “Buzzard’s Bluff,” Colonel Houston’s place, was situated about five miles from them, up the Northumberland coast, but the colonel and his family were on a visit to the Comptons, in Richmond, and were not expected home for a month to come. Thus their days were very quiet.

How did they occupy their time? In reading, in writing, in music, in walking, riding, sailing, and, most of all, in endless conversations that permeated all other employments. Their island of three hundred acres scarcely afforded space enough for the long rides and drives they liked to take together; but on such few halcyon days as sometimes bless our winters, they would cross with their horses by the ferryboat to the Northumberland coast, and spend a day or half a day exploring the forest; sometimes, while the birding season lasted, a mounted groom; with fowling pieces and ammunition, would be ordered to attend, and upon these occasions a gay emulation as to which should bag the most game would engage their minds; at other times, alone and unattended, they rode long miles into the interior of the country, or down the coast to Buzzard’s Bluff, to take a look at Nellie’s home, or up the coast some twenty miles to spend a night at Marguerite’s maiden home, Plover’s Point. From the latter place Marguerite had brought her old nurse, Aunt Hapzibah, whom she promoted to the post of housekeeper at the island, and the daughter of the latter, Hildreth, who had long been her confidential maid, and the son, Forrest, whom she retained as her own especial messenger. And frequently when

“The air was still and the water still,”

or nearly so, the wedded pair would enter a rowboat and let it drift down the current, or guide it in and out among the scattering clusters of inlets that diversified the coast, where Mr. Helmstedt took a deep interest in pointing out to Marguerite vestiges of the former occupancy or visitings of those fierce buccaneers of the bay isles, that made so hideous the days and nights of the early settlers of Maryland, and from whom scandal said Philip Helmstedt himself had descended. Returning from these expeditions, they would pass the long, winter evenings as they were passing this one when I present them again to the reader, that is, in reading, work, or its semblance, conversation and music, when Marguerite would awaken the sleeping spirit of her harp to accompany her own rich, deep and soul-thrilling voice, in some sacred aria of Handel, or love song of Mozart, or simple, touching ballad of our own mother tongue. But Marguerite’s improvisations were over. Upon this evening in question, Philip Helmstedt threw aside his book, and after gazing long and earnestly at his bride, as though he would absorb into his being the whole beautiful creature at his side, he said:

“Take your guitar, dear Marguerite, and give me some music—invest yourself in music, it is your natural atmosphere,” and rising, he went to a table and brought thence the instrument, a rare and priceless one, imported from Spain, and laid it upon Marguerite’s lap. She received it smilingly, and after tuning its chords, commenced and sung, in the original, one of Camoens’ exquisite Portuguese romaunts. He thanked her with a warm caress when she had finished, and, taking the guitar from her hand, said:

“You never improvise now, my Corinne! You never have done so since our union. Has inspiration fled?”

“I do not know—my gift of song was always an involuntary power—coming suddenly, vanishing unexpectedly. No, I never improvise now—the reason is, I think, that the soul never can set strongly in but one direction at a time.”

“And that direction?”

She turned to him with a glance and a smile that fully answered his question.

“I am too happy to improvise, Philip,” she said, dropping her beautiful head on his bosom, as he passed his arm around her, bent down and buried his face on the rich and fragrant tresses of her hair.

I present them to you in their wedded joy this evening, because it was the very last happy evening of their united lives. Even then a step was fast approaching, destined to bring discord, doubt, suspicion, and all the wretched catalogue of misery that follow in their train. While Marguerite’s head still rested lovingly on Philip’s bosom, and his fingers still threaded the lustrous black ringlets of her hair, while gazing down delightedly upon her perfect face, a sound was heard through the wind, that peculiar, heavy, swashing sound of a ferryboat striking the beach, followed by a quick, crunching step, breaking into the crusted snow and through the brushwood toward the house.

“It is my messenger from the post office—now for news of Nellie!” said Marguerite.

Philip looked slightly vexed.

“‘Nellie!’—how you love Mrs. Houston, Marguerite! I do not understand such intimate female friendships.”

“Doubtless you don’t! It is owing to the slight circumstance of your being a man,” said Marguerite, gayly, compensating for her light words by the passionate kiss she left on his brow as she went from his side to meet the messenger—ah! the ill-omened messenger that had entered the house and was hastening toward the parlor.

“Any letters, Forrest?” she eagerly inquired, as the boy came in.

“Only one, madam, for you,” replied the man, delivering the missive.

“From Nellie, I judge!” she exclaimed, confidently, as she took it; but on seeing the postmark and superscription, she suddenly caught her breath, suppressing a sharp cry, and sank upon a chair.

Mr. Helmstedt, who had just turned and walked to the window to look out upon the wild weather, did not see this agitation.

Marguerite broke the seal and read; fear, grief and cruel remorse storming in her darkened and convulsed countenance.

Philip Helmstedt, having satisfied himself that the wind was increasing in force, and that vessels would be lost before morning, now turned and walked toward his wife.

She heard his step, oh! what a supreme effort of the soul was that—an effort in which years of life are lost—with which she commanded her grief and terror to retire, her heart to be still, her face to be calm, her tones to be steady, and her whole aspect to be cheerful and disengaged as her husband joined her.

“Your letter was not from Mrs. Houston, love? I am almost sorry—that is, I am sorry for your disappointment as a man half jealous of ‘Nellie’s’ share in your heart can be,” he said.

Marguerite smiled archly at this badinage, but did not otherwise reply.

“Well, then, if not from Nellie, I hope you heard good news from some other dear friend.”

“As if I had scores of other dear friends!—but be at ease, thou jealous Spaniard, for Nellie is almost your only rival.”

“I would not have even one,” replied Mr. Helmstedt; but his eyes were fixed while he spoke upon the letter, held lightly, carelessly in Marguerite’s hand, and that interested him as everything connected with her always did; and yet concerning which, that chivalrous regard to courtesy that ever distinguished him, except in moments of ungovernable passion, restrained him from inquiring.

Marguerite saw this, and, lightly wringing the paper in her fingers, said:

“It is from an acquaintance—I have so many—perhaps it would amuse you to look it over.”

“Thank you, dear Marguerite,” replied Mr. Helmstedt, extending his hand to take it.

She had not expected this—she had offered believing he would decline it, as he certainly would have done had he been less deeply interested in all that concerned her.

“By the way, no! I fear I ought not to let you see it, Philip! It is from an acquaintance who has made me the depository of her confidence—I must not abuse it even to you. You would not ask it, Philip?”

“Assuredly not, except, inasmuch as I wish to share every thought and feeling of yours, my beloved! Do you know that this desire makes me jealous even of your silence and your reveries? And I would enter even into them! Nothing less would content me.”

“Then be contented, Philip, for you are the soul of all my reveries; you fill my heart, as I am sure I do yours.” Then casting the letter into the fire, lightly, as a thing of no account, she went and took up her guitar and began strumming its strings and humming another Portuguese song; then, laying that aside again, she rang the bell and ordered tea.

“We will have it served here, Philip,” she said; “it is so bleak in the dining-room.”

Forrest, who had meanwhile doffed his overcoat and warmed himself, answered the summons and received the necessary directions. He drew out a table, then went and presently returned with Hildreth, bringing the service of delicate white china, thin and transparent as the finest shells, and richly-chased silver, more costly from its rare workmanship than for its precious metal; and then the light bread and tea cakes, chef-d’œuvres of Aunt Hapsy’s culinary skill; and the rich, West India sweetmeats with which Philip, for want of a housekeeper to prepare domestic ones before Marguerite’s arrival, had stocked the closets. When the “hissing urn” was placed upon the table, Forrest and Hildreth retired, leaving their mistress and master alone; for Mr. Helmstedt loved with Marguerite to linger over his elegant and luxurious little tea table, toasting, idling, and conversing at ease with her, free from the presence of others. And seldom had Marguerite been more beautiful, brilliant, witty, and fascinating than upon this evening, when she had but him to please; and his occasional ringing laughter testified her happy power to move to healthful mirth even that grave, saturnine nature.

An hour of trifling with the delicate viands on the table, amid jest and low-toned silvery laughter, and then the bell was rung and the service removed.

“And now—the spirit comes, and I will give you a song—an improvisation! Quick, give me the guitar—for I must seize the fancy as it flies—for it is fading even now like a vanishing sail on the horizon.”

“The guitar? The harp is your instrument of improvisation.”

“No! the guitar; I know what I am saying,” and, receiving it from the hands of her husband, she sat down, and while an arch smile hovered under the black fringes of her half-closed eyelids, and about the corners of her slightly parted lips, she began strumming a queer prelude, and then, like a demented minstrel, struck up one of the oddest inventions in the shape of a ballad that was ever sung out of Bedlam.

Philip listened with undisguised astonishment and irrepressible mirth, which presently broke bounds in a ringing peal of laughter. Marguerite paused and waited until his cachinnations should be over, with a gravity that almost provoked him to a fresh peal, but he restrained himself, as he wished the ballad to go on, and Marguerite recommenced and continued uninterrupted through about twenty stanzas, each more extravagant than the other, until the last one set Philip off again in a convulsion of laughter.

“Thalia,” he said; “Thalia as well as Melpomene.”

“This is the very first comic piece I have ever attempted—the first time that the laughing muse has visited me,” said Marguerite, laying down her guitar, and approaching the side of her husband.

“And I alone have heard it! So I would have it, Marguerite. I almost detest that any other should enjoy your gifts and accomplishments.”

“Egotist!” she exclaimed, but with the fond, worshiping tone and manner, wherewith she might have said, “Idol!”

“So you like my music, Philip?”

“How can you ask, my love? Your music delights me, as all you ever say and do always must.”

“I have heard that ever when the lute and voice of an improvvisatrice has chained her master, she has the dear privilege of asking a boon that he may not deny her,” said Marguerite, in the same light, jesting tone, under which it was impossible to detect a substratum of deep, terrible earnestness.

“How? What do you say, my love?”

“My voice and stringed instrument have pleased my master, and I would crave of him a boon.”

“Dearest love! do not use such a phrase, even in the wantonness of your sport.”

“What is, then, Mr. Helmstedt but Marguerite’s master?”

“Her own faithful lover, husband, servant, all in one; and my lady knows she has but to speak and her will is law,” said Philip, gallantly.

“Away with such tinsel flattery. In ‘grand gravity,’ as my dear father used to say, I am no longer my own, but yours—I cannot come or go, change my residence, sell or purchase property, make a contract or prosecute an offender, or do anything else that a free woman would do, without your sanction. You are my master—my owner.”

Was this possible? her master? the master of this proud and gifted woman, who ever before had looked and stepped, and spoken like a sovereign queen? Yes, it is true; he knew it before, but now from her own glowing lips it came, bringing a new, strong, thrilling, and most delicious sense of possession and realization, and his eye traveled delightedly over the enchanting face and form of his beautiful wife, as his heart repeated, “She speaks but truth—she, with all her wondrous dower of beauty and genius and learning is solely mine—my own, own! I wish the prerogative were even greater. I would have the power of life and death over this glorious creature, that were I about myself to die, I could slay her lest another should ever possess her;” but his lips spoke otherwise.

“Dear love,” he said, drawing her up to him, “we all know that the one-sided statute, a barbarous remnant of the dark ages, invests a husband with certain very harsh powers; but it is almost a dead letter. Who in this enlightened age thinks of acting upon it? Never reproach me with a bad law I had no hand in making, sweet love.”

“‘Reproach’ you, Philip!” she whispered, yielding herself to his caress; “no! if the law were a hundredfold stricter, investing you with power over your Marguerite a hundredfold greater, she would not complain of it; for it cannot give so much as her heart gives you ever and ever! Should it clothe you with the power of life and death over her, it would be no more than your power now, for the sword could not kill more surely, Philip, than your possible unkindness would. No! were the statutes a thousand times more arbitrary, and your own nature more despotic, they nor you could exact never so much as my heart pours freely out to you, ever and ever.”

He answered only by folding her closer to his bosom, and then said:

“But the boon, Marguerite; or rather the command, my lady, what is it?”

“Philip,” she said, raising her head from his bosom, and fixing her eyes on his face, “Philip, I want—heavens! how the storm raves!—do you hear it, Philip?”

“Yes, love, do not mind it; it cannot enter.”

“But the ships, the ships at sea.”

“Do not think of them, love; we cannot help them; what is beyond remedy is beyond regret.”

“True, that is very true! what is beyond remedy is beyond regret,” said Marguerite, meditatively.

“But the ‘boon,’ as you call it, the command, as I regard it—what is it, Marguerite?”

“Philip, I am about to ask from you a great proof of your confidence in me,” she said, fixing her eyes earnestly, pleadingly upon his face.

“A proof of my confidence in you, Marguerite?” he repeated, slowly, and then, after a thoughtful pause, he added, “Does it need proof then? Marguerite, I know not how much the humbling sense of dishonor would crush me, could I cease for one single hour to confide in you—in you, the sacred depository of my family honor, and all my best and purest interests—you, whom it were desecration, in any respect, to doubt. Lady, for the love of heaven, consult your own dignity and mine before demanding a proof of that which should be above proof and immeasurably beyond the possibility of question.”

“You take this matter very seriously, Philip,” said Marguerite, with a troubled brow.

“Because it is a very serious matter, love—but the boon; what is it, lady? I am almost ready to promise beforehand that it is granted, though I might suffer the fate of Ninus for my rashness. Come, the boon, name it! only for heaven’s sake ask it not as proof of confidence.”

“And yet it must necessarily be such, nor can you help it, my lord,” said Marguerite, smiling with assumed gayety.

“Well, well! let’s hear and judge of that.”

Marguerite still hesitated, then she spoke to the point.

“I beg you will permit me to leave you for a month.”

“To leave me for a month!” exclaimed Philip Helmstedt, astonishment, vexation, and wonder struggling in his face, “that is asking a boon with a bitter vengeance. In the name of heaven where do you wish to go? To your friend Nellie, perchance?”

“I wish to go away unquestioned, unattended and unfollowed.”

“But, Marguerite,” he stammered, “but this is the maddest proposition.”

“For one month—only for one month, Philip, of unfettered action and unquestioned motives. I wish the door of my delightsome cage opened, that I may fly abroad and feel myself once more a free agent in God’s boundless creation. One month of irresponsible liberty, and then I render myself back to my sweet bondage and my dear master. I love both too well, too well, to remain away long,” said Marguerite, caressing him with a fascinating blending of passion with playfulness, that at another time must have wiled the will from his heart, and the heart from his bosom. Now, to this proposition, he was adamant.

“And when do you propose to start?” he asked.

“To-morrow, if you will permit me.”

“Had you not better defer it a week, or ten days—until the first of April, for instance: all-fools’-day would be a ‘marvellous proper’ one for you to go, and me to speed you on such an expedition.”

Marguerite laughed strangely.

“Will you allow me to ask you one question, my love? Where do you wish to go?”

“Gipsying.”

“Gipsying?”

“‘Aye, my good lord.’”

“Oh, yes; I remember! Marguerite, let me tell you seriously that I cannot consent to your wish.”

“You do not mean to say that you refuse to let me go?” exclaimed Marguerite, all her assumed lightness vanishing in fear.

“Let us understand each other. You desire my consent that you shall leave home for one month, without explaining whither or wherefore you go?”

“Yes.”

“Then most assuredly I cannot sanction any thing of the sort.”

“Philip, I implore you.”

“Marguerite, you reduce me to the alternative of doubting your sincerity or your sanity!”

“Philip, I am sane, and I am deeply in earnest! Ah! Philip, by our love, I do entreat you grant me this boon—to leave your house for a month’s absence, unquestioned by you! Extend the aegis of your sanction over my absence that none other may dare to question it.”

“Assuredly none shall dare to question the conduct of Mrs. Helmstedt, because I shall take care that her acts are above criticism. As to my sanction of your absence, Marguerite, you have had my answer,” said Mr. Helmstedt, walking away in severe displeasure and throwing himself into a chair.

There was silence in the room for a few minutes, during which the howling of the storm without rose fearfully on the ear. Then Marguerite, the proud and beautiful, went and sank down at his feet, clasped his knees and bowed her stately head upon them, crying:

“Philip, I pray you, look at me here!”

“Mrs. Helmstedt, for your own dignity, leave this attitude,” he said, taking her hands and trying to force her to rise.

“No, no, no, not until you listen to me, Philip! Oh, Philip, look down and see who it is that kneels here! petitioning for a span of freedom. One who three short months ago was mistress of much land and many slaves, ‘queen o’er herself,’ could go unchecked and come unquestioned, was accustomed to granting, not to asking boons, until her marriage.”

“Do you regret the sacrifice?”

“Regret it! How can you ask the question? If my possessions and privileges had been multiplied a thousand fold, they should have been, as I am now, all your own, to do your will with! No! I only referred to it to move you to generosity!”

“Marguerite! I cannot tolerate to see you in that attitude one instant longer,” said Mr. Helmstedt, taking her hands and forcing her to rise and sit by his side, “Now let us talk reasonably about this matter. Tell me, your husband, who has the right to know, why and where you wish to go, and I promise you that you shall go unquestioned and unblamed of all.”

“Oh, God, if I might!” escaped the lips of Marguerite, but she speedily controlled herself and said, “Philip, if you had secret business that concerned others, and that peremptorily called you from home to attend to it, would you not feel justified in leaving without even satisfying your wife’s curiosity as to why and where you went, if you could not do it without disclosing to her the affairs of others!”

“No—decidedly no! from my wife I have no secrets. I, who trusted her with my peace and honor, trust her also with all lesser matters; and to leave home for a month’s absence without informing her whither and wherefore I should go—Why, Marguerite, I hope you never really deemed me capable of offering you such an offence.”

“Oh, God!—and yet you could do so, unquestioned and unblamed, as many men do!”

“I could, but would not.”

“While I—would but cannot. Well, that is the difference between us.”

“Certainly, Marguerite, there is a difference between what would be fitting to—a profane man to a sacred woman—there is a ‘divinity that hedges’ the latter, through which she cannot break but to lose her glory.”

“But in my girlhood I had unmeasured, irresponsible liberty. None dared to cavil at my actions.”

“Perhaps so, for maidens are all Dianas. Besides, she who went ‘gypsying,’ year after year, could compromise only herself; now her eccentricities, charming as they are, might involve the honor of a most honorable family.”

“Descendants of a pirate at best,” said Marguerite’s memory; but her heart rejected the change of her mind, and replied instead, “My husband, my dear, dear husband, my lord, idolized even now in his implacability;” her lips spoke nothing.

“Much was permissible and even graceful in Miss De Lancie, that could not be tolerated in Mrs. Helmstedt,” continued Philip.

“A great accession of dignity and importance certainly,” sneered Marguerite’s sarcastic intellect. “Away! I am his wife! his loving wife,” replied her worshiping heart; but her lips spoke not.

“You do not answer me, Marguerite.”

“I was listening, beloved.”

“And you see this subject as I do?”

“Certainly, certainly, and the way you put it leaves me no hope but in your generosity. Ah, Philip, be more generous than ever man was before. Ask me no questions, but let me go forth upon my errand, and cover my absence with the shield of your authority that none may venture to cavil.”

“Confide in me and I will do it. I promise you, in advance, not knowing of what nature that confidence may be.”

“Oh, Heaven, if—I cannot. Alas! Philip, I cannot!”

“Why?”

“The affair concerns others.”

“There are no others whose interest and claims can conflict with those of your husband.”

“I—have a—friend—in deadly peril—I would go to—the assistance of my friend.”

“How confused—nay, great Heaven, how guilty you look! Marguerite, who is that friend? Where is he, or she? What is the nature of the peril? What connection have you with her or him? Why must you go secretly? Answer these questions before asking my consent.”

“Ah, if I dared! if I dared!” she exclaimed, thrown partly off her guard by agitation, and looking, gazing intently in his face; “but no, I cannot—oh! I cannot!—that sarcastic incredulity, that fierce, blazing scorn—I cannot dare it! Guilty? You even now said I looked, Philip! I am not guilty! The Lord knoweth it well—not guilty, but most unfortunate—most wretched! Philip, your unhappy wife is an honorable woman!”

“She thinks it necessary, however, to assure me of that which should be above question. Unhappy? Why are you unhappy? Marguerite, how you torture me.”

“Philip, for the last time I pray you, I beseech you, grant my wish. Do not deny me, Philip; do not! Life, more than life, sanity hangs upon your answer! Philip, will you sanction my going?”

“Most assuredly not, Marguerite.”

“Oh, Heaven! how can you be so inflexible, Philip? I asked for a month—a fortnight might do—Philip; let me go for a fortnight!”

“No.”

“For a week then, Philip; for a week! Oh, I do implore you—I, who never asked a favor before! Let me go but for a week!”

“Not for a week—not for a day! under the circumstances in which you wish to go,” said Mr. Helmstedt, with stern inflexibility.

Again Marguerite threw herself at her husband’s feet, clasping his knees, and lifting a deathly brow bedewed with the sweat of a great agony, and eyes strained outward in mortal prayer, she pleaded as a mother might plead for a child’s life. In vain, for Mr. Helmstedt grew obdurate in proportion to the earnestness of her prayers, and at last arose and strode away, and stood with folded arms at the window, looking out upon the stormy weather, while she remained writhing on the spot where late she had kneeled.

So passed half an hour, during which no sound was heard but the fierce moaning, wailing, and howling of the wind, and the detonating roar and thunder of the waves as they broke upon the beach; during which Marguerite remained upon the carpet, with her face buried in the cushions of the sofa, writhing silently, or occasionally uttering a low moan like one in great pain; and Philip Helmstedt stood reflecting bitterly upon what had just passed. To have seen that proud, beautiful and gifted creature, that regal woman, one of nature’s and society’s queens, “le Marguerite des Marguerites!” His wife, so bowed down, crushed, humiliated, was a bitter experience to a man of his haughty, scornful, sarcastic nature; passionately as he had loved her, proud as he had been to possess her, now that she was discrowned and fallen, her value was greatly lessened in his estimation. For not her glorious beauty had fascinated his senses, or her wonderful genius had charmed his mind, or her high social position tempted his ambition, so much as her native queenliness had flattered the inordinate pride of his character. He did not care to possess a woman who was only beautiful, amiable or intellectual, or even all these combined; but to conquer and possess this grand creature with the signet of royalty impressed upon brow and breast—this was a triumph of which Lucifer himself might have been proud. But now this queen was discrowned, fallen, fallen into a miserable, weeping, pleading woman, no longer worthy of his rule, for it could bring no delight to his arrogant temper to subjugate weakness and humility, but only strength and pride equal to his own. And what was it that had suddenly stricken Marguerite down from her pride of place and cast her quivering at his feet? What was it that she concealed from him? While vexing himself with these thoughts, he heard through all the roar of the storm a low, shuddering sigh, a muffled rustling of drapery and a soft step, and turned to see that his wife had risen to leave the room.

“One moment, if you please, Marguerite,” he said, approaching her. She looked around, still so beautiful, but oh! how changed within a few hours. Was this Richmond’s magnificent Marguerite, queen of beauty and of song, whom he had proudly carried off from all competitors? She, looking so subdued, so pale, with a pallor heightened by the contrast of the crimson dress she wore, and the lustrous purplish hair that fell, uncurled and waving in disheveled locks, down each side her white cheeks and over her bosom.

“I wish to talk with you, if you please, Marguerite.”

She bent her head and silently gave him her hand, and suffered him to lead her back toward the fire, where he placed her on the sofa, and then, standing at the opposite corner of the hearth, and resting his elbow on the mantelpiece, he spoke.

“Marguerite, there is much that must be cleared up before there can ever more be peace between us.”

“Question me; it is your right, Philip,” she said, in a subdued tone, steadying her trembling frame in a sitting posture on the sofa.

“Recline, Marguerite; repose yourself while we converse,” he said, for deeply displeased as he was, it moved his heart to see her sitting there so white and gaunt.

She took him at his word and sank down with her elbow on the piled-up cushions, and her fingers run up through her lustrous tresses supporting her head, and repeated.

“Question me, Philip, it is your right!”

“I must go far back. The scene of this evening has awakened other recollections, not important by themselves, but foreboding, threatening, in connection with what has occurred to-night. I allude in the first place to those yearly migrations of yours that so puzzled your friends; will you now explain them to me?”

“Philip, ask to take the living, beating heart from my bosom and you shall do it—but I cannot give you the explanation you desire,” she answered, in a mournful tone.

“You cannot!” he repeated, growing white and speaking through his closed teeth.

“I cannot, alas! Philip, it concerns another.”

“Another! Man or woman?”

“Neith—oh, Heaven, Philip, I cannot tell you!”

“Very well,” he said, but there was that in his tone and manner that made his simple exclamation more alarming than the bitterest reproaches and threats could have been.

“Philip! Philip! these things occurred before our engagement, and you heard of them. Forgive me for reminding you that you might have requested an explanation of them, and if refused, you might have withdrawn.”

“No, Marguerite! I am amazed to hear you say so. I had no right then to question your course of conduct; it would have been an unpardonable insult to you to have done so; moreover, I thoroughly confided in the honor of a woman whom I found at the head of the best society, respected, flattered, followed, courted, as you were. I never could have foreseen that such a woman would bring into our married life an embarrassing mystery, which I beg her now to elucidate.”

“Yet it is a pity, oh! what a pity that you had not asked this elucidation a year since!” exclaimed Marguerite, in a voice of anguish.

“Why? Would you then have given it to me?”

“Alas! no, for my power to do so was no greater then than now. But then, at least, on my refusal to confide this affair (that concerns others, Philip) to you, you might have withdrawn from me—now, alas! it is too late.”

“Perhaps not,” remarked Mr. Helmstedt, in a calm, but significant tone.

“My God! what mean you, Philip?” exclaimed his wife, starting up from her recumbent position.

“To question you farther—that is all for the present.”

She sank down again and covered her face with her hands. He continued.

“Recall, Marguerite, the day of our betrothal. There was a fierce anguish, a terrible conflict in your mind before you consented to become my wife; that scene has recurred to me again and again. Taken as a link in this chain of inexplicable circumstances connected with you, it becomes of serious importance. Will you explain the cause of your distress upon the occasion referred to?”

A groan was her only answer, while her head remained buried in the cushions of the sofa.

“So! you will not even clear up that matter?”

“Not ‘will not,’ but cannot, Philip, cannot!”

“Very well,” he said, again, in a tone that entered her heart like a sword, and made her start up once more and gaze upon him, exclaiming:

“Oh, Philip, be merciful! I mean be just! Remember, on the day to which you allude, I warned you, warned you faithfully of much misery that might result from our union; and even before that—oh! remember, Philip, how sedulously I avoided you—how I persevered in trying to keep off the—I had nearly said—catastrophe of our engagement.”

“Say it then! nay, you have said it! add that I followed and persecuted you with my suit until I wrested from you a reluctant consent, and that I must now bear the consequences!”

“No, no, no, I say not that, nor anything like it. No, Philip, my beloved, my idolized, I am not charging you; Heaven forbid! I am put upon my defense, you know, and earnestly desire to be clear before my judge. Listen then, Philip, to this much of a confession. When I first met you I felt your influence over me. Take this to your heart, Philip, as a shield against doubt of me—you are the first and last and only man I ever loved, if love be the word for that all-pervading power that gives me over body, soul and spirit to your possession. As I said when I first met you, I felt your influence. Day by day this spell increased, and I knew that you were my fate! Yet I tried to battle it off, but even at the great distance I kept I still felt your power growing, Philip, and I knew, I knew that that power would be irresistible! I had resolved never to marry, because, yes! I confess I had a secret (concerning others, you know, Philip), that I could not confide to any other, even to you; therefore I fled your presence—therefore when you overtook and confronted me I warned you faithfully, you know with how little effect! heart and soul I was yours, Philip! you knew it and took possession. And now we are united, Philip, God be thanked, for with all the misery it may bring me, Philip, I am still less wretched than I should be apart from you. And such, I believe, is the case with you. You are happier now, even with the cloud between us, than you would be if severed from me! Ah, Philip, is there any misfortune so great as separation to those whose lives are bound up in each other? Is not the cloudiest union more endurable than dreary severance?”

“That depends, Marguerite!—there is another link in this dark chain that I would have explained—the letter you received this evening.”

“The letter—oh, God! have mercy on me,” she cried, in a half smothered voice.

“Yes, the letter!” repeated Mr. Helmstedt, coolly, with his eyes still fixed steadily upon her pallid countenance that could scarcely bear his gaze.

“Oh! I told you—that it—was from an acquaintance—who—confided to me some of her troubles—which—was intended for no other eye but mine. Yes! that was what I told you, Philip,” said Marguerite, confused, yet struggling almost successfully for self-control.

“Yes, I know you did, and doubtless told me truly so far as you spoke; but your manner was not truthful, Marguerite. You affected to treat that letter lightly, yet you took care to destroy it; you talked, jested, laughed with unprecedented gayety; your manner completely deceived me, though as I look at it from my present view it was a little overdone. You sang and played, and became Thalia, Allegra, ‘for this night only,’ and when the point toward which all this acting tended, came, and you made your desire known to me, you affected to put it as a playful test of my confidence, a caprice; but when you found your bagatelle treated seriously, and your desire steadily and gravely refused, Marguerite, your acting all was over. And now I demand an explanation of your conduct, for, Marguerite, deception will be henceforth fruitless forever!”

“Deception!”

“Yes, madam, that was the word I used, purposely and with a full appreciation of the meaning,” said Mr. Helmstedt, sternly.

“Deception! Heaven and earth! deception charged by you upon me!” she exclaimed, and then sank down, covering her face with her hands and whispering to her own heart, “I am right—I am right, he must never be told—he would never be just.”

“I know that the charge I have made is a dishonoring one, madam, but its dishonor consists in its truth. I requested you to explain that letter; and I await your reply.”

“Thus far, Philip, I will explain: that—yes!—that letter was—a connecting link in the chain of circumstances you spoke of—it brought me news of—that one’s peril of which I told you, and made me, still leaves me, how anxious to go to—that one’s help. Could you but trust me?”

“Which I cannot now do, which I can never again entirely do. The woman who could practice upon me as you have done this evening, can never more be fully trusted! Still, if you can satisfactorily account for your strange conduct, we may yet go on together with some measure of mutual regard and comfort; which is, I suppose, all that, after the novelty of the honeymoon is past, ordinarily falls to the lot of married people. The glamour, dotage, infatuation, that deceived us into believing that our wedded love was something richer, rarer, diviner than that of other mortals like us, is forever gone! And the utmost that I venture to hope now, Mrs. Helmstedt, is that your speedy explanation may prove that, with this mystery, you have not brought dishonor on the family you have entered.”

“Dishonor!” cried Marguerite, dropping her hands, that until now had covered her face, and gazing wildly at her husband.

“Aye, madam, dishonor!”

“Great Heaven! had another but yourself made that charge!” she exclaimed, in a voice deep and smothered with intense emotion.

“The deception of which you stand convicted is in itself dishonor, and no very great way from deeper dishonor! You need not look so shocked, madam, (though that may be acting also.) Come, exculpate yourself!” he said, fiercely, giving vent to the storm of jealous fury that had been gathering for hours in his breast.

But his wife gazed upon him with the look of one thunder-stricken, as she replied:

“Oh, doubtless, Mr. Helmstedt, you have the right to do what you will with your own, even to the extremity of thus degrading her.”

“No sarcasms, if you please, madam; they ill become your present ambiguous position. Rather clear yourself. Come, do it; for if I find that you have brought shame——”

“Philip!”

Without regarding her indignant interruption, he went on:

“Upon the honorable name you bear—by the living Lord that hears me! I will take justice in my own hands and—kill you!”

She had continued to gaze upon him with her great, dark eyes, standing forth like burning stars until the last terrible words fell from his lips—when, dropping her eyelids, her face relaxed into a most dubious and mournful smile, as she said:

“That were an easier feat than you imagine, Philip. The heart burns too fiercely in this breast to burn long. Your words add fuel to the flame. But in this implied charge upon your wife, the injustice that you do her, is nothing compared to the great wrong you inflict upon your own honor.”

“Once more—will you clear yourself before me?”

“No.”

“What! ‘No?’”

“No! Alas! why multiply words, when all is contained in that monosyllable?”

“What is the meaning of this, madam?”

“That your three-months wife, even while acknowledging your right to command her, disobeys you, because she must, Philip! she must! but even in so doing, she submits herself to you to meet uncomplainingly all consequences—yes, to say short, they are natural and just! Philip, you have my final answer. Do your will! I am yours!”

And saying this, she arose, and with a manner full of loving submission, went to his side, laid her hand lightly upon his arm and looked up into his face.

But he shook that hand off as if it had been a viper; and when she replaced it, and again looked pleadingly up into his face, he took her by the arm and whirled her off toward the sofa, where she dropped amid the cushions, and then with a fierce, half-arrested oath, he flung himself out of the room.

“I cannot blame him: no one could. Oh, God,” she cried, sinking down and burying her head amid the cushions. Quickly with sudden energy she arose, and went to the window and looked out; the sky was still darker with clouds than with night; but the wind had ceased and the sea was quiet. She returned toward the fireplace and rang the bell, which was speedily answered by Forrest.

Forrest, the son of her old nurse, Aunt Hapsy, was a tall, stalwart, jet-black negro of some fifty years of age, faithfully and devotedly attached to his mistress, and whose favorite vanity it was to boast that—Laws! niggers! he had toted Miss Marget about in his arms, of’en an’ of’en when she was no more’n so high, holding his broad black palm about two feet from the ground.

“How is the weather, Forrest?” inquired Mrs. Helmstedt, who was now at the cabinet, that I have mentioned as standing to the right of the fireplace, and writing rapidly.

“Bad ’nough, Miss Marget, ma’am, I ’sures you.”

“The wind has stopped.”

“O’ny to catch his breaf, Miss Marget, ma’am. He’ll ’mence ’gain strong’n ever—you’ll hear—’cause ef he didn’t stop at de tide comin’ in, dis ebenen, he ain’t gwine stop till it do go out to-morrow morn’n.”

Mrs. Helmstedt had finished writing, folded, closed and directed a letter, which she now brought to her messenger.

“Forrest, I don’t wish you to endanger your life by venturing to cross to the shore in a gale, but I wish this letter posted in time to go out in the mail at six o’clock to-morrow morning, and so you may take charge of it now; and if the wind should go down at any time to-night, you can carry it to the post office.”

“Miss Marget, ma’am, it goes. I ain’t gwine to ask no win’ no leave to take your letter to de pos’—when you wants it go it goes,” said the faithful creature, putting the letter carefully into his breast pocket.

“Any oder orders, Miss Marget, ma’am?”

“No, only take care of yourself.”

Forrest bowed reverently and went out, softly closing the door behind him.

Marguerite went and sat down on the sofa, and drew a little workstand toward her, on which she rested both elbows, while she dropped her forehead upon the palms of her hands. She had scarcely sat down, when Philip Helmstedt, as from second thought, re-entered the room, from which, indeed, he had scarcely been absent ten minutes. Marguerite dropped her hands and looked up with an expression of welcome in her face; Mr. Helmstedt did not glance toward her, but went to the cabinet—the upper portion of which was a bookcase—selected a volume, and came and drew a chair to the corner of the fireplace opposite to Marguerite’s sofa, sat down and seemed to read, but really studied Marguerite’s countenance; and she felt that influence, though now, while her head rested upon one arm leaned on the stand, her eyes were never lifted from the floor. So passed some twenty minutes.

Eleven o’clock struck. They were in the habit of taking some light refreshments at this hour, before retiring for the night. And now the door opened and Hildreth entered, bringing a waiter, upon which stood two silver baskets, containing oranges and Malaga grapes, which she brought and placed upon the stand before her mistress, and then retired.

Mr. Helmstedt threw down his book, drew his chair to the stand, and took up and peeled an orange, which he placed upon a plate with a bunch of grapes, and offered to Marguerite.

She looked up to see what promise there might be in this act, ready, anxious to meet any advance half-way; but she saw in his stern brow and averted eyes, no hope of present reconciliation, and understood that this form of courtesy sprang only from the habitual good breeding, that ever, save when passion threw him off his guard, governed all his actions. She received the plate with a faint smile and a “thank you,” and made a pretense of eating by shredding the orange and picking to pieces the bunch of grapes; while Mr. Helmstedt, on his part, made no pretense whatever, but having served Marguerite, retired to his chair and book. She looked after him, her heart full to breaking, and presently rising she rang for her maid, and retired.

Hildreth, the confidential maid of Mrs. Helmstedt, was a good-looking, comfortable, matronly woman, over forty years of age, very much like her brother Forrest in the largeness of her form, and the shining darkness of her skin, as well as in her devoted attachment to her mistress. She was a widow, and the mother of four stalwart boys, who were engaged upon the fisheries belonging to the island. For the rest, Hildreth was an uncharitable moralist, and a strict disciplinarian, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children in her bitter intolerance of mulattoes. Hildreth affected grave Quaker colors for her gowns, and snow-white, cotton cloth for her turbans, neck-handkerchiefs, and aprons. Can you see her now? her large form clad in gray linsey, a white handkerchief folded across her bosom and tied down under the white apron, and her jet-black, self-satisfied face surmounted by the white turban? Hildreth was not the most refined and delicate of natures, and consequently her faithful affection for her mistress was sometimes troublesome from its intrusiveness. This evening, in attending Mrs. Helmstedt to her room, she saw at once the signs of misery on her face, and became exacting in her sympathy.

Was her mistress sick? had she a headache? would she bathe her feet? would she have a cup of tea? what could she do for her? And when Mrs. Helmstedt gave her to understand that silence and darkness, solitude and rest were all she required, Hildreth so conscientiously interpreted her wishes that she closed every shutter, drew down every blind, and lowered every curtain of the windows, to keep out the sound of the wind and sea; turned the damper to keep the stove from “roaring,” stopped the clock to keep it from “ticking,” ejected a pet kitten to keep it from “purring,” closed the curtains around her lady’s bed, and having thus, as far as human power could, secured profound silence and deep darkness, she quietly withdrew, without even moving the air with a “good-night.”

There is no fanaticism like the fanaticism of love, whether it exists in the bosom of a cloistered nun, wrapped in visions of her Divine Bridegroom, or in that of a devoted wife, a faithful slave, or a poor dog who stretches himself across the grave of his master and dies. That love, that self-abnegating love, that even in this busy, struggling, proud, sensual world, where a cool heart, with a clear head and elastic conscience, are the elements of success, still lives in obscure places and humble bosoms; that love that, often misunderstood, neglected, scorned, martyred, still burns till death, burns beyond—to what does it tend? To that spirit world where all good affections, all beautiful dreams, and divine aspirations shall be proved to have been prophecies, shall be abundantly realized.

Such thoughts as these did not pass through the simple mind of Hildreth, any more than they would have passed through the brain of poor Tray, looking wistfully in his master’s thoughtful face, as she went down to the parlor, and, curtseying respectfully, told her master that she feared Mrs. Helmstedt was very ill. That gentleman gave Hildreth to understand that she might release herself of responsibility, as he should attend to the matter.

No sleep visited the eyes of Marguerite that night. It was after midnight when Philip entered her chamber, and went to rest without speaking to her.

And from this evening, for many days, this pair, occupying the same chamber, meeting at the same table, scarcely exchanged a glance or word. Yet in every possible manner, Marguerite studied the comfort and anticipated the wishes of her husband, who, on his part, now that the first frenzy of his anger was over, did not fail in courtesy toward her, cold, freezing, as that courtesy might be. Often Marguerite’s heart yearned to break through this cold reserve; but it was impossible to do so. Not the black armor of the Black Prince was blacker, harder, colder, more impassable and repellent, than the atmosphere of frozen self-retention in which Mr. Helmstedt encased himself.

By her conduct, on that fatal evening, his love and pride had been deeply, almost mortally wounded. A storm of contending astonishment, indignation, wonder, and conjecture had been raised in his bosom. The East, West, North and South, as it were, of opposite passions and emotions had been brought together in fierce conflict. His glory in Marguerite’s queenly nature had been met by humiliating doubt of her, and his passionate love by anger that might settle into hate. And now that the first chaotic violence of this tempest of warring thoughts and feelings had subsided, he resumed his habitual self-control and dignified courtesy, and determined to seek light upon the dark subject that had occasioned the first estrangement between himself and his beloved wife. He felt fully justified, even by his own nice code of honor, in watching Marguerite closely. Alas! all he discovered in her was a deeply-seated sorrow, not to be consoled, an intense anxiety difficult to conceal, an extreme restlessness impossible to govern; and through all a tender solicitude and affectionate deference toward himself, that was perhaps the greatest trial to his dignity and firmness. For, notwithstanding her fault, and his just anger, even he, with his stern, uncompromising temper, found it difficult to live side by side with that beautiful, impassioned, and fascinating woman, whom he ardently loved, without becoming unconditionally reconciled to her.

She, with the fine instinct of her nature, saw this, and knew that but for the pride and scorn that forbade him to make the first advance, they might become reconciled. She, proud as Juno toward all else, had no pride toward those she loved, least of all toward him. Therefore, one morning, when they had breakfasted as usual, without exchanging a word, and Mr. Helmstedt had risen and taken his hat to leave the room, Marguerite got up and slowly, hesitatingly, even bashfully, followed him into the passageway, and, stealing to his side, softly and meekly laid her hand and dropped her face upon his arm, and murmured:

“Philip! I cannot bear this longer, dearest! my heart feels cold, and lone, and houseless; take me back to my home in your heart, Philip.”

There could have been nothing more alluring to him than this submission of that proud, beautiful woman, and her whole action was so full of grace, tenderness, and passion that his firmness gave way before it. His arms glided around her waist, and his lips sought hers silently, ere they murmured:

“Come, then to your home in this bosom, beloved, where there is an aching void, until you fill it.”

And so a sweet, but superficial peace was sealed between the husband and wife—so sweet that it was like a new bridal, so superficial that the slightest friction might break it. No more for them on earth would life be what it had been. A secret lay between them that Marguerite was determined to conceal, and Philip had resolved to discover; and though he would not again compromise his position toward her by demanding an explanation sure to be refused, he did not for an hour relax his vigilance and his endeavors to find a clew to her mystery. He attended the post office, and left orders that letters for his family should be delivered into no other hands but his own. He watched Marguerite’s deportment, noting her fits of deep and mournful abstraction, her sudden starts, her sleepless nights and cheerless days, and failing health, and more than all, her distracting, maddening manner toward himself, alternating like sunshine and darkness, passionate love, and deep and fearful remorse as inexplicable as it was irradicable.

Not another week of quiet domestic happiness, such as other people have, was it henceforth their fate to know. Yet why should this have been? Mutually loving and loved as devotedly as ever was a wedded pair, blessed with the full possession of every good that nature and fortune can combine to bestow, with youth, health, beauty, genius, riches, honor—why should their wedded life be thus clouded? Why should she be moody, silent, fitful often, all but wretched and despairing? Often even emitting the wild gleam, like heat-lightning from her dark and splendid eyes, of what might be incipient insanity?

One evening, like the night described in the beginning of this chapter (for stormy nights were now frequent), when the wind howled around the island and the waves lashed its shores, Marguerite reclined upon the semi-circular sofa within the recess of the bay window, and looked out upon the night as she had often looked before. No light gleamed from the window where the lady sat alone, gazing out upon the dark and angry waste of waters; that stormy scene without was in unison with the fierce, tempestuous emotions within her own heart—that friendly veil of darkness was a rest to her, who, weary of her ill-worn mask of smiles, would lay it aside for a while. Twice had Forrest entered to bring lights, and twice had been directed to withdraw, the last dismissal being accompanied with an injunction not to come again until he should hear the bell. And so Marguerite sat alone in darkness, her eyes and her soul roving out into the wild night over the troubled bosom of the ever-complaining sea. She sat until the sound of a boat pushed up upon the sand, accompanied by the hearty tones and outspringing steps of the oarsmen, and followed by one resonant, commanding voice, and firm, authoritative tread, caused her heart to leap, her cheek to flush, her eye to glow and her whole dark countenance to light up as she recognized the approach of her husband. She sprang up and rang.

“Lamps and wood, Forrest,” she said. But before the servant could obey the order, Philip Helmstedt’s eager step crossed the threshold, and the next instant his arms were around her and her head on his bosom. They had been separated only for a day, and yet, notwithstanding all that had passed and all that yet remained unexplained between them, theirs was a lover’s meeting. Is any one surprised at this, or inclined to take it as a sign of returning confidence and harmony, and a prognostic of future happiness to this pair? Let them not be deceived! It was but the warmth of a passion more uncertain than the sunshine of an April day.

“Sitting in darkness again, my own Marguerite? Why do you do so?” said Philip, with tender reproach.

“Why should I not?” returned Marguerite, smilingly.

“Because it will make you melancholy, this bleak and dreary scene.”

“No, indeed, it will not. It is a grand scene. Come, look out and see.”

“Thank you, love; I have had enough of it for one evening; and I rather wonder at your taste for it.”

“Ah! it suits me—it suits me, this savage coast and weather! Rave on, winds! thunder on, sea! my heart beats time to the fierce music of your voices. ‘Deep calleth unto deep’—deep soul to deep sea!”

“Marguerite!”

“Well?”

“What is the matter with you?”

“Nothing: only I like this howling chaos of wind and water!”

“You are in one of your dark moods.”

“Could I be bright and you away?”

“Flatterer! I am here now. And here are the lights. And now I have a letter for you.”

“A letter! Oh! give it quickly,” cried Marguerite, thrown off her guard.

“Why, how hasty you are.”

“True; I am daily expecting a letter from Nellie, and I do begin to think that I have nerves. And now, to discipline these excitable nerves, I will not look at the letter until after tea.”

“Pooh, my love, I should much rather you would read it now and get it off your mind,” said Philip Helmstedt, placing her in a chair beside the little stand, and setting a lamp upon it, before he put the letter in her hand.

He watched her narrowly, and saw her lips grow white as she read the postmark and superscription, saw the trembling of her fingers as she broke the seal, and heard the half-smothered exclamation of joy as she glanced at the contents; and then she quickly folded the letter, and was about to put it into her pocket when he spoke.

“Stay!”

“Well!”

“That letter was not from Mrs. Houston.”

“No; you were aware of that; you saw the postmark.”

“Yes, Marguerite; and I could have seen the contents had I chosen it, and would, under all the circumstances, have been justified in so doing; but I would not break your seal, Marguerite. Now, however, that I have delivered the letter, and you have read it, I claim the right to know its contents.”

Marguerite held the letter close against her bosom, while she gazed upon him in astonishment and expectation, not to say dread.

“With your leave, my lady,” he said, approaching her; and, throwing one arm around her shoulders, held her fast, while he drew the letter from her relaxing fingers. She watched him while he looked again at the postmark “New York,” which told next to nothing, and then opened and read the contents—three words, without either date or signature, “All is well!” that was all.

He looked up at her. And her low, deep, melodious laughter—that delicious laughter that charmed like music all who heard it, but that now sounded wild and strange, answered his look.

“Your correspondent has been well tutored, madam.”

“Why, of course,” she said, still laughing; but presently growing serious, she added: “Philip, would to God I could confide to you this matter. It is the one pain of my life that I cannot. The time may come, Philip, when I may be able to do so—but not now.”

“Marguerite, it is but fair to tell you that I shall take every possible means to discover your secret; and if I find that it reflects discredit on you, by Heaven——”

“Hush! for the sake of mercy, no rash vows. Why should it reflect discredit upon any? Why should mystery be always in thought linked with guilt? Philip, I am free from reproach!”

“But, great Heavens! that it should be necessary to assure me of this! I wonder that your brow is not crimsoned with the thought that it is so.”

“Ah, Philip Helmstedt, it is your own suspicious nature, your want of charity and faith that makes it so,” said Marguerite.

“Life has—the world has—deprived me of charity and faith, and taught me suspicion—a lesson that I have not unlearned in your company, Mrs. Helmstedt.”

“Philip, dear Philip, still hope and trust in me; it may be that I shall not wholly disappoint you,” she replied.

But Mr. Helmstedt answered only by a scornful smile; and, having too much pride to continue a controversy, that for the present, at least, must only end in defeat, fell into silent and resentful gloom and sullenness.

The harmony and happiness of their island home was broken up; the seclusion once so delightful was now insufferable; his presence on the estate was not essentially necessary; and, therefore, after some reflection, Philip Helmstedt determined to go to Richmond for a month or six weeks.

When he announced this intention to his wife, requesting her to be ready to accompany him in a week, Marguerite received the news with indifference and promised to comply.

It was near the first of April when they reached Richmond. They had secured apartments at the —— House, where they were quickly sought by Colonel Compton and Mrs. Houston, who came to press upon them, for the term of their stay in Richmond, the hospitalities of the colonel’s mansion.

Marguerite would willingly have left the hotel for the more genial atmosphere of her friend’s house; but she waited the will of Mr. Helmstedt, who had an especial aversion to become the recipient of private entertainment for any length of time, and, therefore, on the part of himself and wife, courteously declined that friendly invitation, promising at the same time to dine with them at an early day.

The colonel and his daughter finished their call and returned home disappointed; Nellie with her instinctive dislike to Mr. Helmstedt much augmented.

The fashionable season was over, or so nearly so, that, to electrify society into new life, it required just such an event as the reappearance of its late idol as a bride, and Mrs. De Lancie Helmstedt (for by the will of her father, his sole child and heiress was obliged to retain her patronymic with her married name).

Numerous calls were made upon the newly-wedded pair, and many parties were given in their honor.

Marguerite was still the reigning queen of beauty, song, and fashion, with a difference—there was a deeper glow upon her cheeks and lips, a wilder fire in her eyes, and in her songs a dashing recklessness alternating with a depth of pathos that “from rival eyes unwilling tears could summon.” Those who envied her wondrous charms did not hesitate to apply to her such terms as “eccentric,” and even “partially deranged.” While her very best friends, including Nellie Houston, thought that, during her three months’ retirement on Helmstedts Island, Marguerite had

“Suffered a sea change
Into something wild and strange.”

No more of those mysterious letters had come to her, at least among those forwarded from their home post office, and nothing had transpired to revive the memory of the exciting events on the island. But Mr. Helmstedt, although he disdained to renew the topic, had not in the least degree relaxed his vigilant watchfulness and persevering endeavors to gain knowledge of Marguerite’s secret; vainly, for not the slightest event occurred to throw light upon that dark subject. Marguerite was not less tender and devoted in private than brilliant and fascinating in public; and, despite his bounded confidence, he could not choose but passionately love the beautiful and alluring woman, who, with one reservation, so amply satisfied his love and pride.

Their month’s visit drew to a close, when Mr. Helmstedt accepted an invitation to a dinner given to Thomas Jefferson, in honor of his arrival at the capital. Upon the day of the entertainment, he left Marguerite at four o’clock. And as the wine-drinking, toasting, and speech-making continued long after the cloth was removed, it was very late in the evening before the company broke up and he was permitted to return to his hotel.

On entering first his private parlor, which was lighted up, he missed Marguerite, who, with her sleepless temperament, usually kept very late hours, and whom, upon the rare occasions of his absence from her in the evening, he usually, when he returned, found still sitting up reading while she awaited him. Upon glancing round the empty room, a vague anxiety seized him and he hurried into the adjoining chamber, which he found dark, and called in a low, distinct tone:

“Marguerite! Marguerite!”

But instead of her sweet voice in answer, came a silent, dreary sense of vacancy and solitude. He hurried back into the parlor, snatched up one of the two lighted lamps that stood upon the mantelpiece, and hastened into the chamber, to find it indeed void of the presence he sought. An impulse to ring and inquire when Mrs. Helmstedt had gone out was instantly arrested by his habitual caution. A terrible presentiment, that he thought scarcely justified by the circumstances, disturbed him. He remembered that she could not have gone to any place of amusement, for she never entered such scenes unaccompanied by himself; besides, she had distinctly informed him that preparations for departure would keep her busy in her room all the evening. He looked narrowly around the chamber; the bed had not been disturbed, the clothes closets and bureaus were empty, and the trunks packed and strapped; but one, a small trunk belonging to Marguerite, was gone. The same moment that he discovered this fact, his eyes fell upon a note lying on the dressing-bureau. He snatched it up: it was directed in Marguerite’s hand to himself. He tore it open, and with a deadly pale cheek and darkly-lowering brow, read as follows:

Our Private Parlor, —— House, 6 P.M.

My Beloved Husband: A holy duty calls me from you for a few days, but it is with a bleeding heart and foreboding mind that I go. Well do I know, Philip, all that I dare in thus leaving without your sanction. But equally well am I aware, from what has already passed, that that sanction never could have been obtained. I pray you to forgive the manner of my going, an extremity to which your former inflexibility has driven me; and I even venture further to pray that, even now, you will extend the shield of your authority over my absence, as your own excellent judgment must convince you will be best. Philip, dearest, you will make no stir, cause no talk—you will not even pursue me, for, though you might follow me to New York, yet in that great thoroughfare you would lose trace of me. But you will, as I earnestly pray you to do, await, at home, the coming of your most unhappy but devoted

Marguerite.

It would be impossible to describe the storm of outraged love and pride, of rage, grief, and jealousy that warred in Philip Helmstedt’s bosom.

“Yes! by the eternal that hears me, I will wait her coming—and then! then!” he muttered within himself as he cast the letter into the fire. All night long, like a chafed lion in his cell, he paced the narrow limits of his lonely apartments, giving ill vent to the fierceness of his passions in half-muttered threats and curses, the deeper for suppression. But when morning broke, and the world was astir, he realized that he had to meet it, and his course was taken. His emotions were repressed and his brow was cleared; he rang for his servant, made a careful toilet, and at his usual hour, and with his usual appearance and manner, descended to the breakfast table.

“I hope Mrs. Helmstedt is not indisposed this morning,” said a lady opposite, when she observed the vacant chair at his side.

“Thank you, madam; Mrs. Helmstedt is perfectly well. She left for New York last evening,” replied Mr. Helmstedt, with his habitual, dignified courtesy. And this story went the rounds of the table, then of the hotel, and then of the city, and though it excited surprise, proved in the end satisfactory.

Later in the day he took leave of his friends. And by the next morning’s packet he sailed for the island, which he reached at the end of the week. And once in his own little, isolated kingdom, he said:

“Yes, I will await you here, and then, Marguerite! then!”

CHAPTER VI.
THE WIFE’S RETURN.

“She had moved to the echoing sounds of fame—

Silently, silently died her name;

Silently melted her life away

As ye have seen a rich flower decay,

Or a lamp that hath swiftly burned expire,

Or a bright stream shrink from a summer fire.”

Nearly maddened between the deeply suppressed, conflicting passions of wounded love, outraged pride, gloomy jealousy, fierce anger, and burning desire of revenge, Philip Helmstedt’s impetuous spirit would have devoured the time between his arrival at the island and Marguerite’s expected return. Now feeling, through the magic power of memory and imagination, the wondrous magnetism of her personality, and praying for her arrival only that all else might be forgotten in the rapture of their meeting—then, with all the force of his excessive pride and scorn, sternly spurning that desire as most unworthy. Now torturing himself with sinister speculations as to where she might be? what doing? with whom tarrying? Then feeling intensely, as resentfully, his indubitable right to know, and longing for her return that he might make her feel the power of the man whose affection and whose authority had been equally slighted and despised. And through all these moods of love and jealousy still invoking, ever invoking, with a breathless, burning impatience that would have consumed and shriveled up the intervening days—the hour of her return; for still he doted on her with a fatuity that neither possession nor time had power to sate, nor pride nor anger force to destroy—nay, that these agencies only goaded into frenzy. Strong man that he was, she possessed him like a fever, a madness, a shrouding fire! he could not deliver himself from the fascination of her individuality. Was she a modern Lamia, a serpent woman who held him, another Lexius, in her fatal toils? So it sometimes seemed to him as he walked moodily up and down the long piazza before the house, looking out upon the sea. At all events she held him! very well, let it be so, since he held her so surely, and she should feel it! Oh! for the hour of her return! All day he paced the long piazza or walked down to the beach, spyglass in hand, to look out for the packet that should bear her to the isle. But packet after packet sailed by, and day succeeded day until a month had passed, and still Marguerite came not. And day by day Philip Helmstedt grew darker, thinner, and gloomier. Sleep forsook his bed, and appetite his board; it often happened that by night his pillow was not pressed, and by day his meals were left untasted.

Speculation was rife among the servants of the household. All understood that something was wrong in the family. The Helmstedt servants took the part of their master, while the De Lancie negroes advocated the cause of their mistress. It was a very great trial to poor old Aunt Hapzibah, the housekeeper, to find her best efforts unavailing to make her master comfortable in the absence of her mistress. Every one likes to be appreciated; and no one more than an old family cook whose glory lies in her art; and so it proved too much for the philosophy of the old woman, who had taken much pride in letting “Marse Fillup see that eberyting went on as riglar as dough Miss Marget was home hersef”—to see her best endeavors unnoticed and her most recherché dishes untasted. And so—partly for her own relief, and partly for the edification of her underlings in the kitchen, she frequently held forth upon the state of affairs in something like the following style:

“De Lord bress de day an’ hour as ever I toted mysef inter dis here house! De Lord men’ it I pray! Wonner what Marse Fillup Hempseed mean a-scornin’ my bes’ cook dishes? Better not keep on a-’spisin’ de Lord’s good wittles—’deed hadn’ he if he is Marse Fillup Hempseed! Come to want bread if he does—’deed will he! Set him up! What he ’spect? Sen’ him young ducks an’ green peas? down dey comes ontotch! Try him wid lily white weal an’ spinnidge? down it come ontaste! Sen’ up spring chicken an’ sparrowgrass? all de same! I gwine stop of it now, I tell you good! ’deed is I. I ain’t gwine be fool long o’ Marse Fillup Hemps’d’s funnelly nonsense no longer! I gwine sen’ him up middlin’ and greens, or mutton an’ turnups—you hear me good, don’t you?”

“I wonder what does ail master?” remarked Hildreth.

“I know what ail him well ’nough! I know de reason why he won’t eat his wittles!”

“What is it, den?”

“He can’t eat anyt’ing else case he’s—eatin’ his own heart! An’ it makes men mad—that sort o’ eatin’ does!”

“My Lors!” ejaculated Hildreth, in real or affected horror.

“Eatin’ his own heart,” continued old Hapzibah—“eatin’ his own heart, wid his black eagle head an’ hook nose poke down in his buzzum a-chawin’ an’ a-chawin’! Always a-chawin’ an’ a-chawin’! Walkin’ up an’ down de peeazzy a-chawin’ an’ a-chawin’. Stan’in’ up to his screwtaw, ’tendin’ to write, but only a-chawin’ an’ a-chawin’. Settin’ down at de table, a-chawin’ an’ a-chawin’—not my good wittles, mine you, but his own heart—always his own heart. He better stop of it, too. It won’t ’gest, nor likewise ’gree wid him, nor udderwise fetch Miss Marget home one minit ’fore she thinks proper for to come.”

“Well, den, ennyways, t’ink it ’pears mon’ous strange your Miss Marget don’t come home ef our Marse Fillup wants her to come,” here put in old Neptune, one of the Helmstedt negroes.

“Set him up wid it,” indignantly broke in Aunt Hapzibah—“set you an’ your marse bofe up wid it. Who de sarpent! he? or you either? I reckon my Miss Marget allers went an’ come when ebber she thought proper, ’fore ebber she saw de hook nose o’ Marse Fillup Hempseed, of any his low-life saut water niggers either. Not as I tends for to hurt your feelin’s, Nep; you can’t help bein’ of an’ antibberous creetur like a lan’ tarrapin or a water dog, as ’longs to nyther to’ther nor which, nor likewise to hit you in de teef wid your marster, who is a right ’spectable, ’sponsible, ’greeable gemplemun, ef he’d leave off a-hookin’ of his crook nose inter his buzzum an’ a-chawin’ his own heart; which he’d better, too, or it’ll run him rampin’ mad!—you see, chillun, you see!”

One afternoon, during the last week in May, Philip Helmstedt, as usual, walked up and down the beach in front of his mansion house. With his arms folded and his head bowed upon his chest, in deep thought, he paced with measured steps up and down the sands. Occasionally he stopped, drew a small spyglass from his pocket, placed it at his eye, and swept the sea to the horizon.

Before him, miles away to the westward, lay the western shore of Maryland and Virginia, cloven and divided by the broad and bay-like mouth of the Potomac—with Point Lookout on the north and Point Rodgers on the south. Beyond this cleft coast the western horizon was black with storm clouds. A freshening gale was rising and rushing over the surface of the water, rippling its waves, and making a deep, low, thrilling murmur, as if Nature, the improvvisatrice, swept the chords of her grand harp in a prelude to some sublime performance. Occasionally flocks of sea fowl, sailing slowly, lighted upon the island or the shores. All signs indicated an approaching storm. Philip Helmstedt stood, telescope in hand, traversing the now dark and angry waste of waters. Far, far away up the distant Potomac, like a white speck upon the black waters, came a vessel driven before the wind, reeling against the tide, yet gallantly holding her course and hugging the Maryland coast. Marguerite might be in that packet (as, indeed, she might have been in any passing packet for the last month), and Philip Helmstedt watched its course with great interest. Nearing the mouth of the river, the packet veered away to avoid the strong current around Point Lookout, and, still struggling between wind and tide, steered for the middle of the channel. Soon she was clear of the eddies and out into the open bay, with her head turned southward. Then it was that Philip observed a boat put out from her side. A convincing presentiment assured him that Marguerite had arrived. The gale was now high and the sea rough; and that little boat, in which he felt sure that she was seated, would have but a doubtful chance between winds and waves. Dread for Marguerite’s safety, with the eagle instinct to swoop upon and seize his coveted prey, combined to instigate Philip Helmstedt to speedy action. He threw down the spyglass and hastened along the beach until he came to the boathouse, where he unfastened a skiff, threw himself into it and pushed off from the shore. A more skillful sailor than Philip Helmstedt never handled an oar—a gift inherited from all his seafaring forefathers and perfected by years of practice. He pushed the boat on amid heaving waves and flashing brine, heedless of the blinding spray dashed into his face, until he drew sufficiently near the other boat to see that it was manned by two oarsmen, and then to recognize Marguerite as its passenger. And in another moment the boats were side by side. Philip Helmstedt was standing resting on his oar, and Marguerite had risen with one low-toned exclamation of joy.

“Oh! Mr. Helmstedt, this is very kind; thank you—thank you.”

He did not reply by word or look.

The wind was so high, the water so rough, and the skiffs so light that they were every instant striking together, rebounding off, and in imminent danger of being whirled in the waves and lost.

“Quick, men; shift Mrs. Helmstedt’s baggage into this boat,” commanded Mr. Helmstedt, as with averted eyes he coldly took Marguerite’s hand and assisted her to enter his skiff. The two men hastily transferred the little traveling trunk that comprised Marguerite’s whole baggage—and then, with a respectful leave-taking, laid to their oars and pulled rapidly to overtake the vessel.

Philip and Marguerite were left alone. Without addressing her, he turned the head of the skiff and rowed for the island. The first flush of pleasure had died from Marguerite’s face, leaving her very pale—with a pallor that was heightened by the nunlike character of her costume, which consisted simply of a gown, mantle and hood, all of black silk. For some moments Marguerite fixed her large, mournful eyes upon the face of her husband, vainly trying to catch his eyes, that remained smoldering under their heavy lids. Then she suddenly spoke to him.

“Philip! will you not forgive me?”

The thrilling, passionate, tearful voice, for once, seemed not to affect him. He made no answer. She gazed imploringly upon his face—and saw, and shuddered to see that an ashen paleness had overspread his cheek, while his eyes remained rooted to the bottom of the boat.

“Philip! oh! Heaven—speak to me, Philip!” she cried, in a voice of anguish, laying her hand and dropping her sobbing face upon his knee.

The effect was terrible. Spurning her from him, he sprang to his feet, nearly capsizing the skiff, that rocked fearfully under them, and exclaimed:

“I do not know where you find courage to lift your eyes to my face, madam, or address me! Where have you been? Come, trifling is over between us! Explain, exculpate yourself from suspicion! or these waters shall engulf at once your sin and my dishonor!”

“Philip! Philip!” she cried, in a voice of thrilling misery.

“Explain! explain! or in another moment God have mercy on your soul!” he exclaimed, drawing in the oar, planting its end heavily on the prow of the skiff, in such a manner that by leaning [his] weight upon it he could capsize the boat—standing there, glaring upon her.

“Philip! Philip! for the Saviour’s sake, sit down,” she cried, wringing her pale fingers in an ecstasy of terror.

“Coward! coward! coward! you fear death, and do not fear me nor shame!” said Philip Helmstedt, his eyes burning upon her with a consuming scorn that seemed to dry up her very heart’s blood. “Once more, and for the last time, madam, will you explain?”

“Philip! mercy!”

“Commend yourself to the mercy of Heaven! I have none!” cried Philip Helmstedt, about to throw his whole weight upon the oar to upset the boat, when Marguerite, with a shriek, sprung up and clasped his knees, exclaiming:

“Mercy! Philip! it is not my life I beg at your hands; it were not worth the prayer! but another innocent life, Philip, spare your child,” and fainted at his feet.

The boat, shaken by this violent scene, was rocking fearfully, and he had much ado to steady it, while Marguerite lay in a dead heap at his feet. The frenzy of his anger was passing for the present. The announcement that she had just made to him, her swoon and her perfect helplessness, as well as that majestic beauty, against the influence of which he had been struggling through all this scene, combined to sway his frantic purpose. He stood like a man awakened from a nightmare, recovered from a fever, come to himself. After cautiously trimming the boat, and letting it drift until it had spent the violence of the impetus, he took up the oar, turned its head, and rowed swiftly toward the island. Pushing the skiff up upon the sand, he got out and fastened it, and then went to lift Marguerite, who, on being raised, sighed and opened her eyes, and said, a little wildly and incoherently:

“You will never be troubled by any more letters, Philip.”

“Ah?”

“No! and I will never leave you again, Philip.”

“I intend that you never shall have the opportunity, my—Marguerite.”

She had, with his assistance, risen to her feet, and, leaning on his arm, she suffered herself to be led up the slope toward the house. The whole sky was now overcast and blackened. The wind so buffeted them that Marguerite could scarcely stand, much less walk against it. Philip had to keep his arm around her shoulders, and busy himself with her veil and mantle, that were continually blown and flapped into her face and around her head. By the time they had reached the house, and dispatched Forrest to put the boat away and bring the trunk home, the storm had burst.

All night the tempest raged. Marguerite, in the midst of all her private trouble, was sleepless with anxiety for the fate of the little vessel she had left. But for Philip, a navy might have been engulfed, and he remained unconcerned by anything aside from his own domestic wrong. The next morning the terrible devastation of the storm was revealed in the torn forests, prostrate fences and ruined crops. Early Marguerite, with her spyglass, was on the lookout at the balcony of her chamber window, that was immediately over the bay window of the parlor, and commanded a magnificent sea view. And soon she had the relief of seeing the poor little bark safely sheltered in Wicomia inlet. With a sigh of gratitude, Marguerite turned from that instance of salvation to face her own doubtful, if not dangerous, prospect. Philip Helmstedt, since bringing her safely to the house, had not noticed her by word or look. He remained silent, reserved, and gloomy—in a mood that she dreaded to interrupt, lest she should again rouse him to some repetition of his fury on the boat; but in every gentle and submissive way she sought to soothe, accepting all his scornful repulses with the patience of one offending where she loved, yet unable to do otherwise, and solicitous to atone. It was difficult to resist the pleading eyes and voice of this magnetic woman, yet they were resisted.

In this constrained and painful manner a week passed, and brought the first of June, when Colonel Houston and his family came down to their seat at Buzzard’s Bluff. Mr. and Mrs. Helmstedt were seated at their cold, tête-à-tête breakfast table when Nellie’s messenger, Lemuel, came in with a note announcing her arrival at home, and begging her dearest Marguerite, as the sky was so beautiful and the water so calm, to come at once and spend the day with her.

The mournful face of Marguerite lighted up with a transient smile; passing the note across the table to Mr. Helmstedt, she said:

“I will go,” and then rang the bell and directed Forrest, who answered it, to conduct the messenger into the kitchen, give him breakfast, and then get the boat Nereide ready to take her to Buzzard’s Bluff. The man bowed and was about to leave the room, when Mr. Helmstedt looked up from his note and said, “Stop!”

Forrest paused, hat in hand, waiting in respectful silence for his master’s speech. After a moment, Mr. Helmstedt said:

“No matter, another time will do; hasten to obey your mistress now.”

The two men then withdrew, and Mr. Helmstedt turned to his wife, and said:

“Upon second thoughts, I would not countermand your order, madam, or humble you in the presence of your servants. But you cannot leave this island, Mrs. Helmstedt.”

“Dear Philip—Mr. Helmstedt! what mean you?”

“That you are a prisoner! That you have been such since your last landing! and that you shall remain such—if it be for fifty years—do you hear?—until you choose to clear up the doubt that rests upon your conduct!”

“Mr. Helmstedt, you do not mean this!” exclaimed the lady, rising excitedly from her seat.

“Not?—look, Marguerite!” he replied, rising, and following her to the window, where she stood with her large, mournful eyes now wildly glancing from the bright, glad waters without to the darkened room and the stern visaged man within. “Look, Marguerite! This island is a mile long, by a quarter of a mile wide—with many thousand acres, with deep, shady woods and pleasant springs and streams and breezy beaches—almost room, variety and pleasure enough for a home. Your house is, besides, comfortable, and your servants capable and attentive. I say your house and servants, for here you shall be a queen if you like——”

“A captive queen—less happy than a free scullion!”

“A captive by your own contumacy, lady. And, mark me, I have shown you the limit of your range—this island—attempt to pass it and your freedom of motion, now bounded only by the sea, shall be contracted within the walls of this house, and so the space shall narrow around you, Marguerite, until——”

“Six feet by two will suffice me!”

“Aye! until then, if need be!”

“Mr. Helmstedt, you cannot mean this—you are a gentleman!”

“Or was; but never a fool, or a tool, lady! God knows—Satan knows how strongly and exclusively I have loved—still love! but you have placed me in a false and humiliating position, where I must take care of your honor and mine as best I may. You cannot imagine that I can permit you to fly off, year after year, whither, with whom, to whom, for what purpose I know not, and you refuse to tell! You left me no other alternative, Marguerite but to repudiate——”

“Oh! no, no! sweet Heaven, not that! You love me, Philip Helmstedt! I know you do. You could kill, but could not banish me! I could die, but could not leave you, Philip!” interrupted his wife, with an outbreak of agony that started cold drops of dew from her forehead.

“Compose yourself. I know that we are tied together (not so much by church and state as by something inherent in the souls of both) for weal or woe, blessing or cursing, heaven or hell—who can say? But assuredly tied together for time and for eternity!”

“God be thanked for that, at worst!” exclaimed Marguerite, fervently. “Anything—anything but the death to live, of absence from you, Philip! Oh, why did you use that murderous word?”

“You left me no other alternative than to repudiate——”

“Ah!” cried Marguerite, as if again the word had pierced her heart.

“Or—I was about to say—restrain you. I cannot repudiate—I must restrain you. You, yourself, must see the propriety of the measure.”

“But, Philip, my husband, do you mean to say that I may not even visit Mrs. Houston?”

“I mean to say that until you satisfactorily explain your late escapade, you shall not leave the island for any purpose whatever.”

“Not even to visit Nellie?”

“Not even to visit Mrs. Houston.”

“Philip, she will expect me; she will come and invite me to her house; what shall I say to my bosom friend in explanation? or, keeping silence, what shall I leave her to think?”

“Say what you please to Mrs. Houston; tell her the truth, or decline to explain the motives of your seclusion to her—even as you have refused to exhibit the purpose of your journeys to me. You can do these things, Mrs. Helmstedt.”

“Oh, Heaven! but the retort is natural. What will Colonel Compton think or say?”

“Refer Colonel Compton to me for an elucidation. I am always ready, Marguerite, to answer for my course of conduct, though I may seldom recognize the right of any man to question it.”

“I could even plead for an exception in favor of my little Nellie but that I know your inflexible will, Philip.”

“It is scarcely more so than your own; but now, do you forget that there is an answer to be written to Mrs. Houston?”

“Ah, yes,” said Marguerite, going to the escritoire that we have already named, and hastily writing a few words.

“Dearest Nellie:—I am not well and cannot go to you; waive ceremony, beloved, and come to your Marguerite.”

Meanwhile Mr. Helmstedt rang for Mrs. Houston’s messenger, who, he was informed, had gone down to the beach to assist Forrest in rigging the Nereide.

“We will walk down to the beach and send him home,” said Mr. Helmstedt, taking his straw hat and turning toward Marguerite. She arose to join him, and they walked out together across the front piazza, down the steps, and down the terraced garden, through the orchard and the timothy field, and, finally, to the sanded beach, where they found the two negroes rigging the boat.

“Mrs. Helmstedt will not go, Forrest, so that you may leave the bark. Lemuel, you will take this note to your mistress, and say that we shall be glad to see the family here.”

Marguerite had not been down on the sands since the stormy evening of her arrival, and now she noticed, with astonishment, that of all the little fleet of some half-dozen boats of all sizes that were usually moored within the boathouse but a single one, the little Nereide, remained; and she saw that drawn into the house, the door of which was chained and locked and the key delivered up to Mr. Helmstedt. When this was done and the men had gone, Marguerite turned to her husband for an explanation.

“Why, where are all the boats, Mr. Helmstedt?”

“Sold, given away, broken up, dispersed—all except this one, which will serve the necessities of myself and men.”

“But why, Philip?”

“Can you not surmise? You are a prisoner—it is no jest, Marguerite—a prisoner! and we do not leave the means of escape near such. I am not playing with you, Marguerite! You fled me once, and maddened me almost to the verge of murder and suicide.”

“I know it. Oh, Heaven forgive me!”

“And you must have no opportunity for repeating that experiment. Your restraint is a real one, as you will find.”

She turned upon him a look so full of love, resignation and devotion, as she held out both her hands and said:

“Well, I accept the restraint, Philip. I accept it. Oh, my dear husband, how much more merciful than that other alternative of separation! for your Marguerite tells you, Philip, that, would it come without sin, she would rather take death from your hands than banishment. The one great terror of her life, Philip, is of losing you by death or separation; she could not survive the loss, Philip, for her very life lives in your bosom. How can a widow live? Your Marguerite could not breathe without you; while with you, from you she could accept anything—anything. Since you do not banish her, do your will with her; you have the right; she is your own.”

A few more words sighed out upon his bosom, to which he at last had drawn her, and then, lifting her head, she murmured:

“And listen, dearest husband; give yourself no care or anxiety for the safe custody of your prisoner, for she will not try to escape. It is your command, dearest Philip, that binds me to the narrow limits of this island, as no other earthly power could do. You know me, Philip; you know that, were I in duress against my will, I would free myself; I would escape, were it only to heaven or to hades! Your bond, Philip, is not on this mortal frame, but on my heart, soul, spirit, and I should feel its restricting power were all nature else beckoning me over the limits you have prescribed, and all opportunities favorable to the transgression.”

“You love me so; you say your life lives within mine, and I believe it does, for you inhabit me, you possess me, nor can I unhouse you, incendiary as you are—and yet you will not give me your confidence—will not justify yourself before me—while I, on my part, may not abate one jot or tittle of your restraint until you do.”

“I do not arraign you even in my thoughts, love; so far from that, I accept you for my judge; I submit to your sentence. There is this dark cloud settled on my bowed head, love (would it rested only on my own), and some day it may be lifted. In the meantime, since you do not exile me, do your royal will unquestioned with your own, my king. Ah, Philip! we are not angels, you and I; and we may never find heaven in this world or the next; but, such as we are, even with this cloud between us, we love each other; on this earth we cannot part; and even in the next we must be saved or lost—together.”

“Marguerite, tell me, is there a hope that, one day, this mystery may be cleared up?”

“Philip, dearest, yes; a faint hope that I scarcely dare to entertain.”

During all this time she had been standing within his circling arm, with her face upon his shoulder, and her soft, fragrant ringlets flowing past his cheek. Now, as she lifted her head, her wild, mournful eyes fell upon a distant sail skimming rapidly over the surface of the sparkling water, from the direction of Buzzard’s Bluff.

“Nellie is coming, dear husband,” she said, “but she shall know that it is my own pleasure to stay home, as it truly is since you will it.”

“No concealment for my sake, Marguerite. I tell you, I will answer for what I do. Kiss me now, thou cleaving madness, before that boat comes.”

On bounded the little sailboat over the flashing water, and presently drew so near that Nellie, in her green hood, could be recognized. And in a few more minutes the little boat touched the beach, and Nellie, with her two boys, as she called her stepsons, jumped ashore and ran to greet Marguerite and Mr. Helmstedt.

“And here are my boys, whom you have never seen before, Marguerite. Ralph, speak to Mrs. Helmstedt. Franky, that’s not the way to make a bow, sir, pulling a lock of your hair; you must have learned that from Black Lem. Ralph does not do so; he’s a gentleman,” said the young stepmother.

Marguerite, who had embraced Nellie with great affection, received her stepsons with kindness. And Mr. Helmstedt, who had welcomed the party with much cordiality, now led the way up to the house.

This was Mrs. Houston’s first visit to Mrs. De Lancie Helmstedt’s new home, and she was full of curiosity and observation.

“How rich the land is, Marguerite! I declare the isle is green down to the very water’s edge in most places—and so well timbered. And the house, too; how substantial and comfortable its strong, gray walls look. I like that bay window with the round balcony over it, to the right of the entrance; such an unusual thing in this part of the country.”

“Yes, my husband had it built just before he brought me home; the bay window abuts from my own parlor, and is arranged in memory of that ‘celebrated’ bay window of your father’s library and music-room. The round balcony above it opens from my chamber, which is just over the parlor; both the window below and the balcony above command a magnificent western view of the bay and the opposite shore of Maryland and Virginia, divided by the mouth of the Potomac; you shall see for yourself to-day.”

“And yet it must be lonesome here for you, Marguerite. I do not understand how one like you, who have led so brilliant a life in the midst of the world, can bear to live here. Why, I can scarcely endure Buzzard’s Bluff, although it is a fine old place, on the mainland, with neighbors all around.”

“‘My mind to me a kingdom is:

Such perfect joy I find therein,’”

murmured Marguerite, with an ambiguous smile.

The day passed agreeably to all. Mrs. Houston had a budget of city news and gossip to open and deliver; and, by the time this was done, dinner was announced; and, when that meal was over, Mrs. Houston reminded her hostess of her promise to show her through the house.

Nellie was unhesitating in her commendations of Marguerite’s chamber.

“Rose-colored window curtains and bed hangings and lounge covers, by all that’s delightful. Why, Marguerite, you have everything in civilized style in this savage part of the world!” Then they passed out of the chamber upon the balcony, and stood admiring the wide expanse of blue water, dotted here and there with islets, and the far distant coast, split just opposite by the river, and varied up and down by frequent headlands and inlets. Marguerite placed a spyglass in her friend’s hand.

“I declare, Marguerite, this island lies along due east of the mouth of the Potomac. Why, I can see the pines on Point Lookout and Point Rogers with the naked eye—and, with the aid of the glass, I do think I can see so far up the river as your place, Plover’s Point.”

“That is fancy, my dear; Plover’s Point is fifteen miles up the river.”

As the air was calm and the water smooth, with the promise of continuing so for the night at least, and as there was a full moon, Mrs. Houston felt safe in remaining to tea.

When she was ready to go home, and before she left the chamber, where she had put on her outer garments, she tried to persuade Marguerite not only to come very soon to Buzzard’s Bluff, but to fix the day when she might expect her.

“You will excuse me for some time yet, dearest Nellie. The truth is that I arrived at home the day of the last storm; in crossing in a boat from the schooner to the island, the wind was high and the water very rough, and I received a terrible fright—was within an inch of being lost, in fact; I have not entered a boat since—have not the least idea that I shall be able to do so for a long time,” said Mrs. Helmstedt, evasively.

“Why, not even when the sea is as calm as it is this beautiful night?”

“I fear not—the sea is proverbially treacherous.”

“Why, you do not mean to say that, rather than venture on the water, you will confine yourself to this island all your life?”

“I know not, indeed; life is uncertain—mine may be very short.”

“Why, Marguerite, how unlike yourself you are at this moment. What! Marguerite—my heroic Marguerite—she who ‘held the blast in scorn,’ growing nervous, fearing storms, doubting still water even, thinking of death? Whew! there must be some noteworthy reason for this metamorphosis! Say, is it so, my dearest Mrs. Helmstedt?” inquired Nellie, with a smile, half archness, half love.

For an answer Marguerite kissed her tenderly, when Nellie said:

“Well, well! I shall visit you frequently, Marguerite, whether you come to see me or not, for no change has come over your little Nellie, whom you know you can treat as you please—slight her, flout her, affront her, and she is still your little Nellie. Now, please to lend me a shawl, for the air on the bay is too cool at night to make my black silk scarf comfortable, and I’ll go.”

Mr. and Mrs. Helmstedt walked down to the beach with Nellie and her boys, saw them enter the boat, which quickly left the beach, and, with the dipping oars raising sparkles of light in its course, glided buoyantly over the moonlit water toward the distant point of Buzzard’s Bluff.

Philip Helmstedt and Marguerite were left alone on the beach.

Philip stood with folded arms and moody brow, gloomily watching the vanishing boat.

But Marguerite was watching him.

He turned and looked at her, saying, in a troubled voice:

“Marguerite, you are the warden of your own liberty. You can speak, if you choose, the words that will free you from restraint. Why will you not do it? You punish me even more than yourself by the obstinate silence that makes you a prisoner.”

“Philip, it is not as you think. I cannot speak those words to which you allude; but, Philip, beloved, I can and do accept your fiat. Let it rest so, dearest, until, perhaps, a day may come when I may be clear before you.”

“The air is too chill for you; come to the house,” said Mr. Helmstedt, and, without making any comment upon her words, he gave Marguerite his arm and led her home.

From that day forward, by tacit consent, they never alluded to the subject that gave both so much uneasiness. And life passed calmly and monotonously at the island.

Mrs. Houston made herself merry in talking to her mother, who was on a visit to Buzzard’s Bluff, of Marguerite’s nervousness and its probable cause. And both mother and daughter waived ceremony and often visited the island, where they were always received with warm welcome both by Mr. and Mrs. Helmstedt. And not the faintest suspicion that there was any cause of disagreement between their friends ever approached the minds of either the Houstons or the Comptons. They saw the deep attachment that existed between Philip and Marguerite, and believed them to be very happy. It is true that Mrs. Helmstedt’s palpable ill-health was a subject of frequent comment on the part of Mrs. Houston, as well as of serious anxiety to Mrs. Compton.

“I fear that Marguerite will not live; I fear that she will die as her mother died,” said the elder lady.

“I can scarcely believe that such a glorious creature should die; nor do I believe it. But she does remind me of that rich, bright, tropical flower that I bought at the conservatory in Richmond and brought down to Buzzard’s Bluff. It did not fade or bleach in our bleak air but dropped its head, wilted and died, as brilliant in death as in life. Marguerite lived out her glorious life in Richmond among worshiping friends—but now! And yet Philip Helmstedt loves her devotedly, loves her almost to death, as my little stepson, Franky, vows he loves me,” said Nellie.

“‘To death!’ there is some love like the blessed vivifying sunshine, such as the colonel’s affection for you, Nellie; and some love like the destroying fire, such as Philip Helmstedt’s passion for Marguerite. And I do not know that she is one whit behind him in the infatuation,” replied her mother.

One morning Mrs. Houston brought a new visitor to see the beautiful recluse of Helmstedt’s Island, the Rev. Mr. Wellworth, the pastor of Rockbridge parish, on the Northumberland shore, a gentleman who, from his elevated moral and intellectual character, was an invaluable acquisition to their limited circle.

Mr. Wellworth expressed a hope that Mrs. Helmstedt would come to church, and also that she would call on Mrs. Wellworth, who would be very happy to see her.

But Marguerite excused herself by saying that her health and spirits were fluctuating and uncertain, and that she never left home, although she would, at all times, be very much pleased to receive Mr. and Mrs. Wellworth, who, she hoped, would do her the signal favor to waive etiquette and come as often as they could make it convenient or agreeable.

Readily admitting the validity of these excuses, the pastor took the lady at her word, and soon brought his wife to visit her.

And, excepting the family at Buzzard’s Bluff, this amiable pair were the only acquaintances Mrs. Helmstedt possessed in the neighborhood.

Thus calmly and monotonously passed life on and around the island; its passage marked that year by only two important events.

The first was the retirement of Colonel Compton from political life (dismissed the public service by the new President, Thomas Jefferson), followed by the breaking up of his establishment at Richmond and the removal to Northumberland County, where the colonel and his wife took up their abode with their daughter and son-in-law at Buzzard’s Bluff. This event broke off the intimate connection between them and the bustling world they had left, though for a few weeks of every winter Nellie went to visit her friends in the city, and for a month or two, every summer, received and entertained them at Buzzard’s Bluff. Nellie declared that without this variety she should go melancholy mad; and at the same time wondered how Marguerite—the beautiful and brilliant Marguerite—would endure the isolation and monotony of her life on the island.

The other important occurrence was the accouchement of Mrs. Helmstedt, that took place early in October, when she became the mother of a lovely little girl. The sex of this child was a serious disappointment to Mr. Helmstedt, who had quite set his heart upon a son and heir, and who could scarcely conceal his vexation from the penetrating, beseeching eyes of his unhappy wife.

Mrs. Compton came and passed six weeks with the invalid, nursing her with the same maternal care that, in like circumstances, she would have bestowed upon her own daughter Nellie, and often repeating, cheerfully:

“When Marguerite gets well we shall have her out among us again,” or other hopeful words to the same effect.

But Marguerite was never again quite well. Brighter and brighter, month after month, burned in her sunken cheeks and mournful eyes the secret fire that was consuming her frame.

CHAPTER VII.
THE VISITOR.

“Speak, speak, thou fearful guest!”

—Longfellow.

“I could a tale unfold whose lightest word

Would harrow up thy blood!”

—Shakespeare.

Spiritually speaking, there is no such thing as time or space, as measured by numbers. For often moments in our experience drag themselves painfully on into indefinitely protracted duration, and sometimes years pass in a dream, “as a tale that is told.”

Life passed monotonously to all on Helmstedt’s Island; but most monotonously to her who might not leave its shores. Every one else among its inhabitants often varied the scene by going upon the mainland on either side of the bay. Mr. Helmstedt went off almost every morning, not infrequently remaining out all day to dine at Colonel Houston’s, Mr. Wellworth’s, or some other friend’s house. The domestic and out-servants relieved each other in turn, that they might go to church on Sundays or visit their friends on the shore. Only Marguerite never upon any account left the island. The Houstons and the Comptons would expostulate with her, and talk to Mr. Helmstedt, alike in vain.

“Indeed I cannot leave the island, dear friends,” would Marguerite say, without assigning any reason why she would not.

“Mrs. Helmstedt does not choose to leave home; it is her will to confine herself to the island, and her will is a very dominant one, as you know,” would be Mr. Helmstedt’s explanation.

“I declare it is a monomania! Marguerite is a riddle. Here some years ago she used to run away from us all, and be absent six or seven months, without deigning to inform us either where or why she went; now she chooses to confine herself within the limits of her island home, without giving us any reason for the eccentricity. But I suppose, indeed, that it is all occasioned by the state of her nerves,” would be Nellie’s comment upon all this.

Meanwhile Mrs. Helmstedt passed her time in superintending her house and servants, all of which was faultlessly managed; in rearing her child; and in attending, as only a devoted wife can attend, to the personal comforts of her husband during the day, and in entertaining him and any chance visitor with her harp or voice or varied conversation in the evening. Those days upon which Mr. Helmstedt was absent were the longest and heaviest of all to the recluse—but her greatest comforts were her child, her occupations and the contemplation of the glorious scenery around her.

She could never weary of the “infinite variety” of the sea. Some days, in fine, weather, when the sky was clear, the air calm and the water smooth, the bay spread out a vast level mirror, framed far away by green shores and reflecting the firmament from a bosom pure and peaceable as heaven. Other days, when the winds were rising and the waves heaving, the whole sky lowered down upon the sea, the wild waters leaped to meet it, and clouds and waves were mingled together in dreadful chaos, like two opposing armies in mortal conflict. Some nights the whole grand expanse of the bay was changed into an ocean of fluid silver, with shores of diamond light, by the shining of the full moon down upon the clear water and glittering, white sandy beach. Other nights, when there was no moon, the dark, transparent waters reflected clearly the deep blue firmament, brilliantly studded with stars. And between these extreme phases, under foul or fair days, or dark or bright nights, there was every variety and shade of change.

When the weather and her engagements permitted, Mrs. Helmstedt, attended only by her faithful Newfoundlander, Fidelle, passed much time in walking up and down the sandy beach, looking far out upon the free waters, or using her spyglass to observe some distant passing ship and its crew. She made the most of the space allotted to her. The isle, a mile long by a quarter broad, was about two miles and a half round. Often, to afford herself the longest walk, she started from some given spot, and, following the beach, made the circuit of the island—a long and varied walk for a stranger, but monotonous to her who had no other, and who from her earliest infancy had been a natural rambler. She who through childhood and youth had delighted to wander out among the wild scenes of nature, and lose herself amid the pathless woods, or to spring upon her favorite steed and fly over hill and vale, miles and miles away; or jump into a boat propelled by her own single hand, and explore the coast, with its frequent points and headlands, creeks and inlets, felt most severely and bitterly this constraint upon her motions. She never complained, in word, or even in look; she accepted the suffering and hid it deep in her heart with her secret sorrow. Both preyed upon her health of mind and body. Daily her form grew thinner and the fire in her cheeks and eye brighter and fiercer.

Philip Helmstedt observed all this with pain and dread. Yet his pride and firmness would not permit him to yield one tittle.

“This is a conflict between our wills, Marguerite,” he said, “and one in which you should at once, as you must sooner or later, yield.”

“I will when I can, Philip.”

“You must, for you are very weary of this island.”

“I have not said so.”

“You are very obstinate, Mrs. Helmstedt.”

“I am very unhappy in offending you—that is a greater sorrow to me than my restraint.”

“They are the same in fact. Remember, Marguerite, that you are your own custodian, and know how to get your liberty. Speak and you are free!”

“Would, indeed, that I might utter the words you wish to hear, Philip Helmstedt. Alas, I cannot!”

“Will not, you mean. Very well, Marguerite, then remember that you choose this confinement to the island.”

She bowed her head in proud though sad acquiescence, saying:

“Be it so! I accept your version of the affair, Philip. I choose this confinement on the island.”

Mrs. Helmstedt’s immense wealth was for the present not only of no use, but of vexation to her; it was troublesome to manage, on account of her various estates being in places distant, or of difficult access, and some four or five times in the course of each year it became necessary for Mr. Helmstedt to make a journey of three or four weeks for the settlement of accounts.

These absences were so trying to the secluded woman, who had no companion but her husband, and could scarcely bear to lose him for a day, that she suggested to Mr. Helmstedt that they should avail themselves of the first favorable opportunity to dispose of Eagle Flight, her mountain farm, and of her house on Loudoun street, in Winchester. Whereupon Mr. Helmstedt, who desired nothing better, immediately advertised the property for sale, and soon found purchasers. When the transfer was made and price paid, Mr. Helmstedt consulted his wife in regard to the disposition of the purchase money.

“Invest it in your own name, and in any way you see fit, dear Philip,” she said.

And he probably took her at her word, for the subject was never renewed between them.

Plover’s Point, her most valuable estate, being but fifteen miles up the river, on the Virginia side, was so readily accessible that it had been permitted to remain under cultivation, in the hands of an overseer, subject to the occasional supervision of the master. But at last an opportunity was presented of selling the place for a very liberal price, and Mr. Helmstedt made known the fact to his wife. But Marguerite declined to dispose of Plover’s Point upon any terms whatever.

“It was my mother’s ancestral home, and my own birthplace, dearest Philip. As my mother left it to me, I wish to leave it to my daughter.”

“As you please,” said her husband, and dropped the subject.

A few days after that he came to her with an inquiry whether she would be willing to give a lease of the property for a term of years, and, glad to be able to meet his wishes at any point, Mrs. Helmstedt at once agreed to the proposition.

The new tenant of Plover’s Point was Dr. Hartley, with his wife, son and daughter. They were a great accession to the neighborhood, for, though fifteen miles up the river, they were, in that spacious district, considered neighbors. The Houstons, Comptons and Wellworths called upon them, as also did Mr. Helmstedt, who apologized for the non-appearance of his wife, saying that Mrs. Helmstedt suffered in health and spirits and never left her home, and expressed a hope that they would dispense with form and visit her there. And this, at last, Dr. and Mrs. Hartley decided to do, and, after having once made the acquaintance of Marguerite, they felt powerfully attracted to pursue it.

About this time, five years from the birth of her daughter, Marguerite became the mother of an infant son, who merely opened his eyes upon this world to close them immediately in death.

The loss of the babe was a severe disappointment to Mr. Helmstedt, and, for that reason, a heavier sorrow to Marguerite. Her health was now so enfeebled that her physician, Dr. Hartley, earnestly advised a change of air and scene, and his advice was warmly seconded by her friends at Buzzard’s Bluff.

This consultation took place in the presence of Marguerite, who smiled proudly and mournfully.

Her husband answered:

“It shall be just as Mrs. Helmstedt decides; but as she has confined herself exclusively to her home, against the wishes and advice of all her friends, for more than five years, I greatly fear that she will not be induced, by anybody, to leave it.”

Mrs. Houston replied:

“Think of it, Dr. Hartley. Mrs. Helmstedt has not set foot off this island for nearly six years! Enough in itself to ruin her health and spirits.”

“Quite enough, indeed,” said the kind-hearted physician, adding, “I hope, Mr. Helmstedt, that you will be able to persuade your wife to leave here for a time.”

“I shall endeavor to do so,” gravely answered that gentleman.

Love's labor won

Transcriber’s Notes:

Love’s Labor Won

CHAPTER I.THE IMPROVVISATRICE.

CHAPTER II.“THE LOVE CHASE.”

CHAPTER III.THE FUGITIVE BELLE.

CHAPTER IV.LOVE.

CHAPTER V.THE EXCESS OF GLORY OBSCURED.

CHAPTER VI.THE WIFE’S RETURN.

CHAPTER VII.THE VISITOR.

CHAPTER I.
THE IMPROVVISATRICE.

CHAPTER II.
“THE LOVE CHASE.”

CHAPTER III.
THE FUGITIVE BELLE.

CHAPTER IV.
LOVE.

CHAPTER V.
THE EXCESS OF GLORY OBSCURED.

CHAPTER VI.
THE WIFE’S RETURN.

CHAPTER VII.
THE VISITOR.