  In the clear, cold analytical light which the "Juventui Mundi" pours upon the nebulous realm of Hellenic lore and Heroic legend, we learn that Homer knew "no destiny fighting with the gods, or unless in the shape of death, defying them,"—and that the "Nemesis often inaccurately rendered as revenge, was after all but self-judgment, or sense of moral law." Even in the dim Homeric dawn, Conscience found personification. Aroused suddenly to a realization of the wrongs and wretchedness to which his inordinate pride and ambition had chiefly contributed, the Nemesis of self-judgment had opened its grim assize in General Laurance's soul, and he cowered before the phantoms that stood forth to testify. No father of ordinary prudence and affection could have failed to oppose the reckless folly of his son's ill-starred marriage, or hesitated to save him, if compatible with God's law and human statutes, from the misery and humiliation it threatened to entail. But when he made a football of marriage vows, and became auxiliary to a second nuptial ceremony, striving by legal quibbles to cancel what only Death annuls, the hounds of Retribution leaped from their leash. The deepest, strongest love of his life had bloomed in the sunset light, wearing the mellow glory of the aftermath; and his heart clung to the beautiful dream of his old age, with a fierce tenacity that destroyed it, when rudely torn away by the awful revelations of "Infelice." To lose at once not only his lovely idol, but that darling fetich—Laurance prestige; to behold the total eclipse of his proud reputation and family name; to witness the ploughshare of social degradation and financial ruin driven by avenging hands over all he held dearest, was a doom which the vanquished old man could not survive. Perhaps the vital forces had already begun to yield to the disease that so suddenly prostrated him at Naples, dashing the cup of joy from his thirsty lips; and perchance the grim Kata-clothes had handed the worn tangled threads of existence to their faithful minister Paralysis, even before the severe shock that numbed him while sitting in the theatre loge. When his eyes closed upon the spectacle of his son, folding in his arms his firstborn, they shut out for ever the things of time and sense, and consciousness that forsook him then never reoccupied its throne. He was carried from the brilliant salon of the popular actress to the home of his son; medical skill exhausted its ingenuity, and though forty-eight hours elapsed before the weary heart ceased its slow feeble pulsations, General Laurance's soul passed to its final assize, without even a shadowy farewell recognition of the son, for whom he had hoped, suffered, dared so much. "Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after." During the week that succeeded his temporary entombment in the sacred repose of PÈre La Chaise, Mrs. Orme completed her brief engagement at the theatre where she had so dearly earned her freshest laurels; and though her tragic career closed in undimmed splendour, when she voluntarily abdicated the throne she had justly won, bidding adieu for ever to the scene of former triumphs, she heard above the plaudits of the multitude the stern whisper, "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay." The man whom she most intensely hated, and most ardently longed to humiliate and abase in public estimation, had escaped the punishment; housed from reproach by the stony walls of the tomb, mocking her efforts to requite the suffering he had inflicted; and the keenest anticipations of her vindictive purpose were foiled, vanquished. One morning, ten days after the presentation of "Infelice," Mrs. Orme sat listening to her daughter, who, observing her restless, dissatisfied manner, proposed to read aloud. Between the two had fallen an utter silence with reference to the past, and not an allusion had been made to Cuthbert Laurance since the night he had first held his daughter to his heart. Death had dropped like a sacred seal upon its memorable incidents, which all avoided; but mother and child seemed hourly to cling more closely to each other. To-day sitting on a low ottoman, with her arm thrown across her mother's knee, while the white hand wearing the black agate wandered now and then over her drooping head, Regina read the "Madonna Mia." She had not concluded the perusal, when a card was brought in, and a glance at her mother's countenance left her no room to doubt the name it bore. "After five minutes, show him in." Mrs. Orme closed her eyes, and her lips trembled. "My daughter, do you desire to be present at this last earthly interview?" "No, mother. My wrongs I freely forgive, I told him so, but yours I can never forget; and I would prefer in future not to meet him. God pity and comfort you both." She kissed her mother's cheek, lips, even her hands, and hastily retreated. As she vanished, Mrs. Orme threw herself on her knees, and her lips moved rapidly while she wrung her fingers; but the petition was inaudible, known only to the Searcher of hearts. Was it for strength to prosecute to the bitter end, or for grace to forgive? She placed a strong metal box on the ormolu stand near her chair, and had just resumed her seat when Mr. Laurance entered, and approached her. He was in deep mourning, and his intensely pale but composed face bore the chastening lines of a profound and hopeless sorrow; but retained the proud unflinching regard peculiar to his family. Of the two, he was most calm and self-possessed. Bowing in answer to the inclination of her head, he drew a chair in front of her, and when he sat down she saw a package of papers in his hand. "I am glad, Mrs. Laurance, that you grant me this opportunity of saying a few words, which after to-day I shall seek no occasion to repeat; for with this interview ends all intercourse between us, at least in this world. These papers I found in poor father's private desk, and I have read them. They are your notes, and the marriage contract, which only awaited the signature he intended to affix." She held out her hand, and a burning blush dyed her cheek, as she reflected on the loathsome purpose which had framed that carefully worded instrument. "To-day I leave Paris for America, to front, as best I may, the changed aspect of life. I have not yet told Abbie of the cloud of sorrow and humiliation that will soon break over our family circle, for poor little Maud has been quite ill, and I deferred my bitter revelation until her mother's mind is composed and clear enough to grasp the mournful truth. In the suit which I presume you will commence, as soon as I land in America, you need apprehend no effort on my part to elude the consequences of my own criminal folly and rashness. I shall attempt no defence, beyond requiring my counsel to state that no communication ever reached me from you; that I believed you the wife of another; and I shall also insist upon the reading of the two letters in answer to those I wrote, requesting the President and Professor to ascertain where you were. I was assured that a marriage contracted during my minority was invalid, and without due investigation of the statutes of the State in which it was performed and which had unfortunately undergone a change, I believed it. Your right as a wife is clear, indisputable, inalienable, and cannot be withheld; and the divorce you desire will inevitably be granted. I cannot censure your resolution, it is due to yourself, doubly due to your child—our child! My child! Oh! that I had known the truth seventeen years ago! How different your fate and mine!" She leaned back, closing her eyes, against the eloquent pleading of that mesmeric countenance which was slowly robbing her of her stern purposes; renewing the spell she had never been able to fully resist. He saw the spasm of pain that wrinkled her brow, blanched her lips; and gazing into the lovely face so dear to him, he exclaimed: "Minnie! Minnie! Oh, my wife! My own wife!" He sank on his knees before her, and his handsome head fell upon the arm of her chair. She covered her face with her hands, and a smothered sob broke from her tortured heart. "I have sinned, but not intentionally against you. God is my witness had I known all twenty oceans could not have kept me from my wife and my baby. When you lived it all over again that night, when I saw you ill, deserted, in a charity hospital, with the child you say is mine cradled in your arms, oh! then indeed I suffered what all the pangs of perdition cannot surpass. When you and I married we were but children, but I loved you; afterward when I was a man, I madly renewed those vows to one, whom I was urged, persuaded, to wed. I am not a villain, and I know my duties to the mother of my afflicted Maud, to the child of my loveless union, and I intend rigidly to discharge them. But, Minnie, God knows that you are my true, lawful wife, and I want here upon my knees, before we part for ever, to tell you that no other woman ever possessed my heart. I have tried to be a patient, kind, indulgent husband to Abbie, but when I look at you, and think of her, remembering that my own rash blindness shut me from the Eden that now seems so deliciously alluring, when I realize what might have been for you and me, my punishment indeed appears unendurable. Ah, no language can describe my feelings, as I looked at that noble, lovely girl. Oh the fond pride of knowing that she is mine as well as yours! My wife! my wife, let the holy blue eyes and pure lips of our baby, our daughter, plead her father's forgiveness——" His voice faltered. There was a deep silence. Although kneeling so near, he made no attempt to touch her. For fifteen years she had struggled against all tender memories, and every softening recollection had been harshly banished. She had trained herself to despise and hate the man who had so blackened her life at its dewy threshold; but the mysterious workings of a woman's heart baffle experience, analysis, and conjecture. Listening to the low cadence of the beloved voice that first waked her from the magic realm of childhood, and unsealed the fountain of affection, the days of their courtship stole back; the blissful hours of the brief honeymoon. He was her lover, her noble young husband; above all, he was the father of her baby; and yielding to the old irresistible infatuation she suddenly laid her hand upon his head. As yet she had not uttered a syllable since his entrance, but the floodgates were lifted, and he heard the despairing cry of her famished heart: "Oh, my husband! My husband, my own husband!" He threw his arms around her as she leaned toward him, and drew the head to his shoulder. So in silence they rested, and he felt that one arm tightened around him, as he knelt holding her to his heart. "Minnie, your true heart forgives your unworthy husband. Tell me so, and it will enable me to bear all that the future may contain. Say, Cuthbert, I forgive you." She struggled up, gazed into his eyes, and exclaimed: "No; I loved you too well, too insanely ever to forgive, had loved you less, I might have forgiven more. There is no meekness in my soul, but an intolerable bitterness that mocks and maddens me. I ought to despise myself, and I certainly shall, for this unpardonable weakness. But very precious memories unnerved me just then, and I clung, not to you, not to Abbie Ames' husband, but to the phantom of the Cuthbert whom long ago I loved so well, to the vision of the young bridegroom I worshipped so blindly. Let me go. Our interview is ended." She withdrew from his arms, and rose. "Before I go, let me see our child once more. Let me tell her that her father is inexpressibly proud of the daughter who will honour his unworthy name again." "She declines meeting you again." "Minnie, don't teach her to hate me." "I gave her the opportunity, and she made her own choice, saying she freely forgave the wrongs committed against her, but her mother's she could never forget. If I had asked of Heaven the keenest punishment within the range of vengeance, it seems to me none could exceed the wretchedness of the man who, owning my darling for his child, is yet debarred from her love, her reverence, her confidence, and the precious charm of her continual presence. My sweet, tender, perfect daughter! The one true heart in all the wide world that loves and clings to me. You forsook and disowned me, repudiated your vows, offered them elsewhere, making unto yourself strange new gods; profaning the altar, where other images should have stood. The banker's daughter, and the Laurance heiress she bore you, are entitled to what remains of your fickle selfish heart, and I trust that the two who supplanted my baby and me will suffice for your happiness in the future as in the past. Into my own and my darling's life you can enter no more. 'Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?' You deem me relentless and vindictive? Think of all the grey, sunless, woeful existence I showed you behind the footlights not many nights since, and censure me if you can. There is no pious resignation in my proud soul for indeed 'there are chastisements that do not chasten; there are trials that do not purify, and sorrows that do not elevate; there are pains and privations that harden the tender heart, without softening the stubborn will.' Of such are the sombre wrap and woof of my ill-starred life. When you reach New York Mr. Erle Palma, who is my counsel, will acquaint you with the course he deems it best to pursue." She looked calm and stately as the Ludovisian Juno, and quite as lovely, in her pale pride. "Minnie, do not part from me in anger. Oh, my wife, let me fold you in my arms once more! And once, just once, I pray you, let me kiss you! Are you not my own?" She recoiled a step, her brown eyes lightened, and her words fell crisp as icicles: "Since I was a bride, three weeks a wife, since you pressed them last, no man's lips have touched mine. I hold them too sacred to that dear buried past to be submitted to a pressure less holy—to be profaned by those of another woman's husband. Only my daughter kisses my lips. Yours are soiled with perjury, and belong to the wife and child of your choice. Go, pay your vows, be true at last to something. Good-bye." |
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