Duchess

“ Luttrell's pulses are throbbing wildly, while his heart has almost ceased to beat. Half a minute—that is a long hour—passes thus; a few more words from Philip, an answer from Molly. Oh, that he could hear! And then Shadwell stoops until, from where Luttrell stands, his face seems to grow to hers.
Tedcastle's teeth meet in his lip as he gazes spell-bound. A cold shiver runs through him, as when one learns that all one's dearest, most cherished hopes are trampled in the dust. A faint moisture stands on his brow. It is the bitterness of death! ”

“ I admit that Philip placed his arm around me (but not unrebuked, as you would have it) ; I admit he stooped to kiss me; but," cries Molly, with sudden passion that leaves her pale as an early snow-drop, "I do not admit he kissed me. Deceitful, worthless, flirt, coquette, as you think me, I have not yet fallen so low as to let one man kiss me while professing to keep faith with another."
"You say this—after——"
"I do. And who is there shall dare give me the lie? Beware, Tedcastle; you have gone far enough already. Do not go too far. You have chosen to insult me. Be it so. ”

“ From the moment Sir Penthony Stafford came face to face with his wife in the corridor at Herst he lost his heart to her.
There only rested one thing more to make the catastrophe complete, and that also came to pass: Cecil was fully and entirely aware of his sentiments with regard to her.
What woman but knows when a man loves her? What woman but knows (in spite of all the lies she may utter to her own heart) when a man has ceased to love her? In dark moments, in the cruel quiet of midnight, has not the terrible certainty of her loss made her youth grow dead within her? ”

“ We feel a sort of relationship, a clanship among us; and, indeed, for the most part, we are related, as Mr. Amherst prefers entertaining his family to any others,—it is so much easier to be unpleasant to them than to strangers. I am connected with him very distantly through my mother; so is Cecil Stafford; so is Potts in some undefined way."
"Now, don't tell me you are my cousin," says Molly, "because I wouldn't like it."
"I am not proud; if you will let me be your husband, I won't ask anything more. Oh, Molly, how I wish this year was at an end!" ”

“ Their hands are clasped, his arm is round her; her head drooping, dejected (unlike the gay capricious Molly of a few months back) , is leaning on his breast.
Large tears are falling silently, without a sob, down her white cheeks, because to-night they say their last farewell. It is one of those bitter partings, such as "press the life from out young hearts" and makes them doubt the good that this world conceals even in the very core of its disappointments.
"I feel as though I were losing all," says Molly, in a despairing tone. "First John, and now—you. Oh, how difficult a thing is life! ”

“ And Molly, hearing him, raises her head, and without a word or cry runs to him, and flings herself into the fond shelter of his arms.
As he holds her closely in his young, strong, ardent embrace, a great peace—a joy that is almost pain—comes to her. Had she still any lingering doubts of her love for him, this moment, in which he stands by her as a guardian, a protector, a true lover, would forever dispel them.
"You here," says Luttrell, addressing Philip with a frown, while his face flames, and then grows white as Shadwell's own, "and Miss Massereene in tears! ”

“ She is one of those who grow slight quickly under affliction. Her rounded cheeks have fallen in and show sad hollows; her eyes are larger, darker, and show beneath them great purple lines born of many tears.
She has not seen Luttrell since her return home,—although Letitia has,—and rarely asks for him. Her absorbing grief appears to have swallowed up all other emotions. She has not once left the house. She works little, she does not read at all; she is fast falling into a settled melancholy.
"Molly," says Letitia, "Tedcastle is in the drawing-room. He particularly asks to see you. ”

“ Marcia, in crape and silk of elaborate design, is looking calm but full of decorous grief. Philip—who has grown almost emaciated during these past months—is the only one who wears successfully an impression of the most stolid indifference. He is leaning against one of the windows, gazing out upon the rich lands and wooded fields which so soon will be either all his or nothing to him. After the first swift glance of recognition he has taken no notice of Molly, nor she of him. A shuddering aversion fills her toward him, a distaste bordering on horror. ”

“ Miss Massereene, throwing her hat with reckless extravagance into the bottom of the punt, bares her white arm to the elbow and essays to catch the grasses as she sweeps by them.
"Look at those lilies," she says, eagerly; "how exquisite, in their broad green frames! Water-sprites! how they elude one!" as she makes a vigorous but unsuccessful grab at some on her right hand.
"Very beautiful," says Luttrell, dreamily, with his eyes on Molly, not on the lilies.
"I want some," says Molly, revengefully; "I always do want what don't want me, and vice versa. Oh! look at those beauties near you. ”

“ She speaks bitterly, and turns from him with an unlovely laugh.
"Molly," cries the young man, in low tones, full of passion, catching her hand, all the violent emotion he has been so painfully striving to suppress since her entrance breaking loose now, "listen to me for one moment. Do not kill me. My whole heart is bound up in you. You are too young to be so cruel. Darling, I was mad when I deemed I could live without you. I have been mad ever since that fatal hour last night. Will you forgive me? Will you?"
"Let my hand go, Mr. Luttrell," says the girl, with a dry sob. ”

“ Any one coming from a hot city, and proving insensible to the charms of the roses that are now creeping into my window, would be unfit to live. Even a hussar must have a soft spot somewhere. I foresee those roses will be the means of reducing him to a lamb-like meekness."
"You are too good, Molly. It seems a shame," says Letitia, patting her sister-in-law's hand, and still hesitating, through a sense of duty; "does it not, John?"
"It is so difficult to know what a woman really means by the word, 'shame,'" replies John, absently, being deep in the morning's paper. ”

“ A straggling house is Brooklyn, larger, at the first glance, than it in reality is, and distinctly comfortable, yet with its comfort, a thing very far apart from luxury, and with none of the sleepiness of an over-rich prosperity about it. In spite of the late June sun, there is a general air of life, a tremulous merriment, everywhere: the voices of the children, a certain laugh that rings like far-off music, the cooing of the pigeons beneath the eaves, the cluck-cluck of the silly fowls in the farm-yard,—all mingle to defy the creeping sense of laziness that the day generates. ”

“ As for Cecil herself, with honest admiration her husband carefully regards her. What a pretty woman she is! full of all the tender graces, the lovable caprices, that wake the heart to fondness.
How charming a person to come to in grief or trouble, or even in one's gladness! How full of gayety, yet immeasurable tenderness, is her speaking face! Verily, there is a depth of sympathy to be found in a pretty woman that a plain one surely lacks.
Her white gown becomes her à merveille, and fits her to perfection. She cannot be called fat, but as certainly she cannot be called thin. ”

“ A man may love as often as he chooses, while a woman must only love once, or he considers himself very badly used. Why not be on an equal footing? Not that I want to love any one," says Molly; "only it is the injustice of the thing I abhor."
"Love any one you choose," says Tedcastle, passionately, springing to his feet, "Shadwell or any other fellow that comes in your way, I shan't interfere. It is hardly necessary for you to say you don't 'want to love one.' Your heart is as cold as ice. It is high time this engagement—this farce—should come to an end." ”

“ In her own small chamber, with all her pretty hair falling loosely round her, stands Molly before her glass, a smile upon her lips. For is not her lover to be with her in two short hours? Already, perhaps, he is on his way to her, as anxious, as eager to fold her in his arms as she will be to fly to them.
A sweet agitation possesses her. Her every thought is fraught with joy; and if at times a misgiving, a suspicion of the hopelessness of it all, comes as a shadow between her and the sun of her content (for is not her marriage with Luttrell a thing as remote now as when they parted?) ”

“ You talk of brutality: what is there in all the earth so cruel as a woman? A lover's pain is her joy."
"You are getting out of your depth,—I cannot follow you," says Molly, coldly. "Why should you and I discuss such a subject as lovers? What have we in common with them? And it is a pity, Philip, you should allow your anger to get so much the better of you. When you look savage, as you do now, you remind me of no one so much as grandpapa. And do recollect what an odious old man he makes." ”

“ That unlucky shadow of a kiss last night has done as much mischief as half a dozen real kisses. It has convinced Marcia of the truth of that which for weeks she has been vainly struggling to disbelieve, namely, Philip's mad infatuation for Molly.
Now all doubt is at an end, and in its place has fallen a despair more terrible than any uncertainty.
All the anguish of a heart rejected, that is still compelled to live on loving its rejector, has been hers for the past two months, and it has told upon her slowly but surely. She is strangely altered. ”

“ As her glorious voice floats through the dimly-lighted room and out into the more brilliant night beyond, Luttrell, and Letitia, and John sit entranced and wonder secretly at the great gift that has been given her.
"If ever words are sweet, what, what is song
When lips we love the melody prolong!"
Molly in every-day life is one thing; Molly singing divinely is another. One wonders curiously, when hearing her, how anything so gay, so debonnaire as she, can throw such passion into words, such thrilling tenderness, such wild and mournful longing. ”

“ Nonsense!" says Molly. "I always think that the most absurd phrase in the world. Who does not act a part? The thing is to act a good one."
"Is yours a good part?" Bitterly.
"You are the best judge of that," returns she, haughtily. "If you do not think so, why keep to our engagement? If you wish to break it, you need fear no opposition from me." So saying, she sweeps past him and enters the house.
Yet in spite of her anger and offended pride, her eyes are wet and her hands trembling as she reaches Cecil's room and lays the snow-white flowers upon her table. ”

“ Speak, Molly, and encourage me."
"You know you are lovely," says Molly, in such good faith that Cecil kisses her on the spot. "But what if you should fall in love with him?"
"Perhaps I have done so long ago," her ladyship replies, in a tone impossible to translate, being still intent on the contemplation of her many charms. Then, quickly, "No, no, Molly, I am fire-proof."
"Yet any day you may meet some one to whom you must give your love."
"Not a bit of it. I should despise myself forever if I once found myself letting my pulse beat half a second faster for one man than for another." ”

“ Outside, the flowers droop and hang their pretty heads in sad wonder at this undeserved Nemesis that has overtaken them. Along the sides of the graveled paths small rivulets run frightened. There is no song of birds in all the air. Only the young short grass uprears itself, and, drinking in with eager greediness the welcome but angry shower, refuses to bend its neck beneath the yoke.
"How I hate a wet day!" says Luttrell, moodily, for the twentieth time, staring blankly out of the deserted school-room window, where he and Molly have been yawning, moping for the last half-hour. ”

“ They have even sat out an incomprehensible sermon with polite gravity and many a weary yawn.
The day is dull. So is the rector. So is the curate,—unutterably so.
Service over, they file out again into the open air in solemn silence, though at heart glad as children who break school, and wend their way back to Herst through the dismantled wood.
The trees are nearly naked: a short, sad, consumptive wind is soughing through them. The grass—what remains of it—is brown, of an unpleasant hue. No flowers smile up at them as they pass quietly along. The sky is leaden. ”

“ Yet, were I to question this faithful lover upon the same subject, I fear me that I should receive a widely different answer."
"I hope not, dear," says Marcia, gently, speaking in her usual soft, low tone. Yet a small cold finger has been laid upon her heart. A dim foreboding crushes her. Only a little pallor, so slight as to be imperceptible to her tormentor, falls across the upper part of her face and tells how blood has been drawn. Yet it is hardly the mere piercing of the skin that hurts us most; it is in the dark night hours when the wound rankles that our agony comes home to us. ”

“ Twenty thousand pounds a year! It will not fall to your lot every day."
"You strangely forget yourself," says Molly, with chilling hauteur, drawing herself up to her full height. "Has all your vaunted Amherst blood failed to teach you what honor means? You bribe me with your gold to sell myself, my better feelings, all that is good in me! Oh, shame! Although I am but a Massereene, and poor, I would scorn to offer any one money to forego their principles and betray those who loved and trusted in them!"
"You refuse me?" asks he, in tones that tremble with rage and disappointment. ”

“ Luttrell and Philip are enraged; Stafford and the others are in roars.
"Wouldn't she, Potts?" says Stafford, with a fine show of sympathy. "Who knows? Cheer up, old boy, and remember women never know their own minds at first. She may yet become alive to your many perfections, and know her heart to be all yours. Think of that. And why should she not?" says Sir Penthony, with free encouragement. "Where could she get a better fellow? 'Faint heart,' you know, Potts. Take my advice and pluck up spirit, and go in for her boldly. Throw yourself at her feet." ”

“ When you first came to Herst for your own amusement, to pass away the hours that perhaps hung a little heavily upon your hands, or to rouse a feeling of jealousy in the heart of Luttrell, or to prove the power you have over all men by the right of your fatal beauty, you played off upon me all the pretty airs and graces, all the sweet looks and tender words, that come so easy to you, never caring what torment I might have to endure when your dainty pastime had palled upon you. ”