Augusta J. Evans

“ My soul is full of bitterness which would move you, if one trait of your girlish nature remained. But you are not my Irene! The world's queen, the dazzling idol of the ball-room, is not my blue-eyed, angelic Irene of old! I will intrude upon you no longer. Try at least not to despise me for my folly; I will crush it; and if you deign to remember me at all in future, think of a man who laughs at his own idiocy, and strives to forget that he ever believed there lived one woman who would be true to her own heart, even though the heavens fell and the world passed away! ”

“ You have my forgiveness, my daughter—though I must tell you that your treatment of poor Hugh has been a continual source of sorrow and keen disappointment to me. I never can forget your disobedience in that matter. I do not believe you will ever be happy, you have such a strange disposition; but since you took matters so completely in your own hands, you have only yourself to reproach. Irene, I very often wonder whether you have any heart—for it seems to me that if you have, it would have been won by the devotion which has been lavished on you more than once. ”

“ Consider me no longer your friend, look at me as I am, a jealous and selfishly exacting man, who stands before you to-day and tells you he loves you. Oh, Electra! From the morning when you first showed me your sketches, you have been more than my life to me. Every hope I have centred in you. I have not deceived myself; I knew that you loved Russell. When he came here, I saw that the old fascination still kept its hold upon you, but I saw, too, what you saw quite as plainly—that in Russell Aubrey's heart there is room for nothing but ambition. ”

“ Electra Grey was the orphan child of Mr. Aubrey's only sister, who, dying in poverty, bequeathed the infant to her brother. He had loved her as well as his own Russell, and his wife, who cradled her in her arms and taught her to walk by clinging to her finger, would almost as soon have parted with her son as the little Electra. For five years the widow had toiled by midnight lamps to feed these two; now oppressed nature rebelled, the long over-taxed eyes refused to perform their office; filmy cataracts stole over them, veiling their sadness and their unshed tears—blindness was creeping on. ”

“ But I can't realize that this is, indeed, you, my pet—the Irene I parted with rather more than four years ago. Oh, child! what a marvellous, what a glorious beauty you have grown to be!"
"Take care; you will spoil her, Arnold. Don't you know, you old cynic, that women can't stand such flattery as yours?" laughed Mr. Huntingdon.
"I am glad you like me, Doctor; I am glad you think I have improved; and since you think so, I am obliged to you for expressing your opinion of me so kindly. I wish I could return your compliments, but my conscience vetoes any such proceeding. You look jaded—overworked. ”

“ Russell knelt down and rested the haughty head against his shoulder, wiping off the cold drops that beaded the pallid brow. After a little while, lifting his eyes to the face bending over him, Major Huntingdon gazed into the melancholy black eyes, and said, almost in a whisper—
"I little thought I should ever owe you thanks. Aubrey, forgive me all my hate; you can afford to do so now. I am not a brute; I know magnanimity when I see it. Perhaps I was wrong to visit Amy's sins on you; but I could not forgive her. Aubrey, it was natural that I should hate Amy's son." ”

“ But thought was too busy to admit of sleep. He turned restlessly on his pillow, rose, and smoked a second cigar, and returned, to find himself more wakeful than ever. The clock downstairs in the library struck one; his door opened softly, and, by the dim moonlight struggling through the window, he saw Irene glide to his bedside.
"Why don't you go to sleep, Irene?"
"Because I can't. I am too miserable."
Her voice was dry, but broken, faltering.
"Father, the future is dark and uncertain; and I feel that I want an assurance of your entire reconciliation and affection before you go. ”

“ You will give me the privilege of writing to you?"
"Impossible, Russell; do not ask that of me."
"Oh, Irene! you are cruel! Why withhold that melancholy comfort from me?"
"Simply for the reason that it would unavoidably prove a source of pain to both. I judge you by myself. I want neither your usefulness in life nor mine impaired by continual weak repining. If your life is spared I shall anxiously watch your career, rejoicing in all your honours, and your noble use of the talents which God gave you for the benefit of your race and the advancement of truth." ”

“ He sat there, staring out into the starry night, and seeing by the shimmer of the setting moon only the graceful form and lovely face of Amy Aubrey, as she had appeared to him in other days. Could he forget the hour when she wrenched her cold fingers from his clasp, and, in defiance of her father's wishes, vowed she would never be his wife? No; revenge was sweet, very sweet; his heart had swelled with exultation when the verdict of death upon the gallows was pronounced upon the husband of her choice; and now, her poverty, her humiliation, her blindness gave him deep, unutterable joy. ”

“ Irene, you loved me once—nay, don't deny it! You need not blush for the early folly, which, it seems, you have interred so deeply; and though you scorn to meet me even as an equal, I know, I feel, that I am worthy of your love—that I comprehend your strange nature as no one else ever will—that, had such a privilege been accorded me, I could have kindled your heart, and made you supremely happy. Cursed barriers have divided us always ”

“ He closed the door, hung up his hat, and looked into the studio; no fire in the grate, no light in the gas-globes—everything cold and dark save the reflection on that front window.
"Electra!"
"I am here."
"No letter."
She stood motionless a moment; but the brick walls opposite, the trees, the lamp-posts spun around, like maple leaves in an autumn gale.
"My owlet! why don't you have a light and some fire?"
He stumbled toward her, and put his hand on her shoulder; but she shrank away, and, lighting the gas, rang for coal.
"There is something terrible the matter; Russell is either ill or dead. ”

“ Irene, you are young, and singularly beautiful, and I am a grey-haired man, much, much older than yourself; but, if you live a thousand years, you will never find such affection as I offer you now. There is nothing on earth which would make me so happy as the possession of your love. You are the only woman I have ever seen whom I even wish to call my wife—the only woman who, I felt, could lend new charm to life, and make my quiet hearth happier by her presence. ”

“ Standing at the back of Electra's chair, with one hand resting on her shoulder, Irene raised her holy violet eyes, and looked through the window toward the cemetery, where glittered a tall marble shaft which the citizens of W—— had erected over the last quiet resting-place of Russell Aubrey. Sands of Time were drifting stealthily around the crumbling idols of the morning of life, levelling and tenderly shrouding the Past, but sorrow left its softening shadow on the orphan's countenance, and laid its chastening finger about the lips which meekly murmured: "Thy will be done." ”

“ The master of the house thrust back his chair violently, crushing one of Paragon's innocent paws as he crouched on the carpet, and overturning a glass which shivered into a dozen fragments at his feet.
Looking at his watch, he said, as if wishing to cut the conversation short: "Irene, if you intend to go to church to-day, it is time that you had your bonnet on. Hugh, what will you do with yourself? Go with Eric and your cousin!"
"No, I rather think I shall stay at home with you. After European cathedrals, our American churches seem excessively plain." ”

“ You do not believe your own words; you are obliged to know better. I love you as my cousin, love you somewhat as I love Uncle Eric, love you as the sole young relative left to me, as the only companion of my lonely childhood; but other love than this I never had, never can have for you. Hugh, my cousin, look fearlessly at the unvarnished truth; neither you nor I have one spark of that affection which alone can sanction marriage. ”

“ Good-bye, Russell. Do your duty nobly; win deathless glory on the battlefield in defence of our sacred cause; and remember that your laurels will be very precious to my lonely heart."
He watched the wonderful loveliness of face and form, till his pride was utterly melted, and, sinking on his knees, he threw one arm around her waist exclaiming—
"O Irene, you have conquered! With God's grace I will so spend the residue of my life as to merit your love, and the hope of reunion beyond the grave." ”

“ Oh, Irene! Irene! why have you locked that rigid cold face of yours against me? In the hallowed days of old you nestled your dear hands into mine, and pressed your curls against my cheek, and gave me comfort in your pure, warm, girlish [Pg 178] affection; how can you snatch your frozen fingers from mine now, as though my touch were contamination? Be yourself once more—give me one drop from the old overflowing fountain. I am a lonely man; and my proud, bitter heart hungers for one of your gentle words, one of your sweet, priceless smiles. Irene, look at me! ”

“ How is Electra?"
"Partially delirious still, but the doctor thinks she will recover. What shall I tell her for you?"
"That I loved and remembered her in my dying hour. [Pg 249] Kiss her for me, and tell her I fell where the dead lay thickest, in a desperate charge on the enemy's batteries—that none can claim a nobler, prouder death than mine—that the name of Aubrey is once more glorified—baptized with my blood upon the battlefield. Irene, she is alone in the world; watch over her and love her, for my sake. Doctor, give me some water." ”

“ Clifton was represented by an exquisite Œnone, and on the same wall, in a massive oval frame, hung the first finished production of his pupil. For months after Russell's departure she sat before her easel, slowly filling up the outline sketched while his eyes watched her. Application sometimes trenches so closely upon genius as to be mistaken for it in its results, and where both are happily blended, the bud of Art expands in immortal perfection. Electra spared no toil, and so it came to pass that the faultless head of her idol excited intense and universal admiration. ”

“ Russell, do not urge me; it is useless. Spare me the pain of repeated refusals, and be satisfied with what I have given you. Believe that my heart is, and ever will be, yours entirely, though my hand you can never claim. I know what I owe my father, and I will pay to the last iota; and I know as well what I owe myself, and, therefore, I shall live true to my first and only love, and die Irene Huntingdon. More than this you have no right to ask—I no right to grant. Be patient, Russell ”

“ He waited a moment, and his low mellow voice rose to a stormy key.
"Irene, you are kind and merciful to the poor wretches in the Row. Poverty—nay, crime, does not frighten away your compassion for them! Why are you hard and cruelly haughty only to me?"
"You do not need my sympathy, Mr. Aubrey, and congratulations on your great success would not come gracefully from my lips. Most unfortunate obstacles long since rendered all intercourse between us impossible still; my feeling for you has undergone no change. I am, I assure you, still your friend." ”