Mrs. Henry Wood

“ Apart from more sacred feelings that were outraged, it brought to her the most bitter humiliation. She seemed to have sunk down to a level she scarcely knew with what. It was not the broad and bare infidelity: at that a gentlewoman scarcely likes to glance; but it was the fading away of all the purity and romance which had enshrined them round, as with a halo, they alone, apart from the world. In one unexpected moment, as a flash of lightning will blast a forest tree and strip it of its foliage, leaving it bare—withered—helpless—so had that blow rent the heart’s life of Maria Godolphin. ”

“ A stronger, a purer, a more enduring love never made glad the heart of woman, than this one that filled Georgina Beauclerc's for Frederick St. John. To hear his step was rapture; to touch his hand was as a ray of that unforgiven fire "filched for us from heaven;" to see him thus unexpectedly was as if the whole earth had become suddenly flooded with a brilliant, rose-coloured light. But, even as she watched that other meeting with her cousin, the sharp pain--often enough felt there before--seized her heart, the loving light faded from her face, and her lips paled with anguish. ”

“ Chandos was very far from Heneage Grange, and we had taken the journey easily, travelling post.
I saw it as we turned round from the avenue; and did not know it: so different was it now in its light and gay appearance from the gloomy place of the previous autumn. The trees, some of them cut down, were budding into the fresh green of spring; the flowers were opening in their parterres; the birds sang joyously; the once closed and barred windows were open cheerily to the warm sun. All things spoke of hope for us, as if nature had arrayed herself expressly in her brightest colours. ”

“ Lionel Verner grew better. His naturally good constitution triumphed over the disease, and his sick soreness of mind lost somewhat of its sharpness. So long as he brooded in silence over his pain and his wrongs, there was little chance of the sting becoming much lighter; it was like the vulture preying upon its own vitals; but that season of silence was past. When once a deep grief can be spoken of, its great agony is gone. ”

“ He saw in vivid colours the hazard Adam was running--and must ever run, until either death or recapture should overtake him; he saw as if portrayed in a mirror the miserable future that lay before him, the lonely fugitive he must be.
To Karl Andinnian's mind, no fate in this world could be so miserable. Even death on the scaffold would to himself have been preferable to this lifetime of living dread. ”

“ Anna Whitney! What child’s play had the joking about her been to this! Anna might have been his sister, for all the regard he had for her of a certain sort; and he knew it now.
A looker-on sees more than a player, and I did not like one thing—she drew him on to love her. If ever a girl spread a net to entangle a man’s feet, that girl was Sophie Chalk. She went about it artistically, too; in the sweetest, most natural way imaginable; and Tod did not see or suspect an atom of it. No fellow in a similar case ever does. If their heart’s not engaged, their vanity is; and it utterly blinds them. ”

“ I have trifled away life—hated it at times; but now I will begin to live. You are going home, Miss Neville, let this tale of my love be as if it had never been. I will be content to take my chance with others; let us be friends again, as hitherto. I promise no word of love shall ever pass my lips. When you know me better, and, perhaps, judge me better than you do now, then once again I will ask you to be my wife; and then, if you reject me—well. Then we must never meet again; but while your heart is free I must hope. ”

“ He arrived at Port Natal, all youth and joy and buoyancy. Seen from the deck of the vessel, when she anchored in the beautiful harbour, calm as a lake, Natal looked a very paradise. Ranges of hills on the west of the fair town were dotted with charming houses and pleasure grounds; and Roland landed fresh and full of hope as a summer's morning: just as too many an emigrant from the dear old mother-country does land, at other parts besides Natal. ”

“ In the dining-room when it grew too dark for Dr. Rane to pursue his writing; in the drawing-room, into which Bessy would wile him, and sing to him one of her simple songs; walking together, arm within arm, in the garden paths, the stars in the summer sky above them, the waving trees round about them, the subject of the tontine would be taken up: the tontine; nothing but the tontine. No wonder that they grew to form plans of what they would do if the money were theirs: we all know how apt we are to let imagination run away with us, and to indulge visions that seem to become almost realities. ”

“ She knew now the cause of his absenting himself; and she knew that they were lost to each other for ever. It is the worst pain that a woman can be called upon to endure; no subsequent tribulation in life can equal its keen anguish.
Ten times in the night she prayed for help--for strength to support, and live, through her mind's trouble. She did not pray that it might be taken from her; that was hopeless; she knew that weeks and months must elapse before even the first brunt would lose its force; that years must roll on before tranquillity could come.
She did not blame Oswald Cray. ”

“ What kind of a mood was Sir Adam in this morning? Karl's grave eyes questioned it. One of real, light, careless mockery?--or was it an underlying current of sadness and regret making itself too uneasily felt in his heart?
"Don't, Adam. It jars on every chord and pulse. You and I have cause to be at least more sober than other men."
"What have I said?" cried Sir Adam, half laughing. "That you may have to put on mourning for me. It is in the nature of things that the elder should go before the younger. You look well in black, too, Karl; men with such faces as yours always do." ”

“ The fault was Mildred's. Not quite all at once could they understand it; not until later.
"I shall never marry; indeed I shall never marry," murmured Lucy, as she yielded for the moment to the passionate embrace in which Travice clasped her, and kissed away her tears of anguish. "My lot in life must be like my aunt's now, unloving and unloved."
"Oh, is there no escape for us!" exclaimed Travice, wildly, as all the painful embarrassment of his position rushed over his mind. "Can we not fly together, Lucy—fly to some remote desert place, and leave care and sorrow behind us? ”

“ It was verily a puzzle to Arthur. A light, sunny nature was Hamish Channing’s. This sobering blow which had fallen on it had probably not come before it was needed. Had his bark been sailing for ever in smooth waters, he might have wasted his life, indolently basking on the calm, seductive waves. But the storm rose, the waves ran high, threatening to engulf him, and Hamish knew that his best energies must be put forth to surmount them. Never, never talk of troubles as great, unmitigated evils: to the God-fearing, the God-trusting, they are fraught with hidden love. ”

“ I tell you, child, that my whole heart aches for your husband: it ached long before you left him; while—I must say it—it was full of resentment against you. I am very sorry for you, Adela; you are my god-daughter, and I will try my best, whilst you stay with me, to soothe your wounds and reconcile you to this inevitable change. It has tried you: I see that, in spite of your pretended carelessness; you appear to me to be anything but strong."
"I am not strong, Aunt Margery. And if I fade away into the grave, I don't suppose any one will miss me or regret me." ”

“ It was by no means a frequented road, and belonged of right to Lord Hartledon only; but it was open to all. Few chose it when they could traverse the more ordinary way. The narrow path on the green plain, sheltered by trees, wound in and out, now on the banks of the river, now hidden amidst a portion of the wood. Altogether it was a wild and lonely pathway; not one that a timid nature would choose on a dark night. You might sit in the wood, which lay to the left, a whole day through, and never see a soul. ”

“ People did not dig up gardens at midnight. Slipping out of bed, she drew the blind aside and peeped out.
The night was light as day, with a bright, clear, beautiful moon: the hunters’ moon. Underneath the summer-apple tree, close at this end of the garden, bent Mr. Barbary, digging away with all his might, his large iron spade turning up the earth swiftly and silently. Katrine’s eyes grew wide with amazement. ”

“ Meta, in her black frock, dressed as she had been in the day, is lying on the bed by her mother’s side: one weak arm is thrown round the child, as if she could not part with her greatest earthly treasure; and George is sitting in a chair on the other side the bed, his elbow on the pillow, his face turned to catch every shade that may appear on that fading one, so soon to be lost to him for ever. ”

“ And where was Frances all this time? Had she forgotten her determination—her newly-born hatred of Amy? Had she thought better of her secret machinations? No. Time only increased her dislike; more deeply rooted her jealousy, while molehills became mountains in her eyes.
Should she see herself supplanted by a governess, one so inferior to her in wealth and station, one whom he had known but a few hours. ”

“ This alone would have taken Edina's heart by storm. She believed there lived not another man in the world who was so true a gentleman, so estimable and admirable in all respects as George Atkinson. Indeed he was very much so, as young men go; and neither Edina nor any other girl need feel anything but pride at being chosen by him.
Poor Edina! It was the one great mistake of her life. Whilst George Atkinson had no ulterior thought of her, hope was whispering to her heart the possibility that they might pass their future lives together. And oh, what an Eden it would have been for Edina! ”

“ Adeline placed her hands on his, as if imploring mercy, and would have knelt before him; but he held her up, not tenderly.
"If I thought you did not know your words are untrue, it would kill me," she faltered. "Had we been married, as, until this day, I thought and prayed we should be, you would have known how entirely I love you; how the love will endure unto death. I can tell you this, now, because we are about to separate, and it is the last time we must ever be together in this world. Oh, Frederick! mercy! mercy!--do not profess to think I have loved another." ”

“ Every pulse of her heart beating with its sense of terrible wrong; every chord of love for Rupert strung to its utmost tension; every fear that an excitable imagination can depict within her, Mrs. Chattaway leaned against the palings in utter faintness of spirit. ”

“ Linchmore judged Robert Vavasour's character more justly than his wife, although neither quite understood it. The mystery of his birth was the shadow continually haunting Vavasour's path, and making him thoughtless and trifling towards women. If his mother, as he believed, still lived, where was her gentle, tender love? Why had he never felt it? Why had she so cruelly deserted him, and left him to fight his own way in the world, with no name but a false one? His heart hardened against womankind. If a mother could be false to her child, what woman could be true? ”

“ In the old spot, hovering about the entrance to the pine-walk, was a man's shadowy figure; the one I had been told to believe was looked upon as the ghost of Sir Thomas Chandos.
These things can be laughed at in the open day in the broad sunshine. We are ready then to brave ghosts, to acknowledge them to be myths of the fancy, as indisputably as we know the bogies of children to be puppets dressed up to frighten them; but all alone in the darkness the case is different. I was by myself on that vast floor; Lizzy Dene had gone down, the wing-doors were shut, silence reigned. ”

“ This afternoon, when they were pacing the beach, unobservant of the little clouds rising in the west, was the marriage eve. It is the last day they need thus walk together as mere formal acquaintances: for at that little church whose spire is not a stone's-throw away, they will tomorrow be made man and wife. A strange light sits on Arthur Bohun's cheek; the light of intense happiness. The day and the hour are drawing near to its realization: and not so much as a thought has crossed his mind that any untoward fate can arise to mar it. ”

“ Archer's days glided peacefully on, calmly, happy at last in her son's love, in witnessing his and his wife's happiness; and when another little Bertie, almost rivalling the first in beauty and spirits—in all save his mother's heart—played about in the old house at Somerton, the frown had faded away more visibly still, though the remembrance of the anguish of mind and miserable days she had passed, consequent upon her deceit and one false step, could never be forgotten, or cease to be regretted. ”

“ Standing before the fire, her young, slender form habited in its black robes, was Sibylla. No one, looking at her, would have believed her to be a widow; partly from her youth, partly that she did not wear the widow's dress. Her head was uncovered, and her fair curls fell, shading her brilliant cheeks. It has been mentioned that her chief beauty lay in her complexion: seen by candle-light, flushed as she was now, she was inexpressibly beautiful. A dangerous hour, a perilous situation for the yet unhealed heart of Lionel Verner. ”

“ A distant nightingale was singing its love-song.
"Lucy," began Karl, then, "I would ask you--now that we seem to be for the moment alone with the world and each other--whether there is any sense in living in the way we do? Is there any happiness for either of us? I want you to forgive all, and be reconciled: I want you to see the matter in its proper light, apart from prejudice. The past is past and cannot be recalled: but it leaves no just reason in the sight of God or man for our living in estrangement." ”