Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

“ And you! oh you! with the beauty and glory of the archangel, and the cruelty and deceit of the arch fiend, I can never look upon your face again—never! The sight would blast me like a flame of fire," raved Salome, throwing back her head, wringing her hands, and gasping as if for breath of life.
"Ah, my dear lady, I know how hard it is! Pardon me, my lady, but I feel a mother's heart in my bosom for you. Try to be patient, sweet lady, and do not despair. You are so young yet, hardly more than a child you seem. You have a long life before you yet. ”

“ And when the princely castle was cleared of its crowds, and once more restored to order, beauty and peace, Sir Lemuel Levison went back to London to bring his daughter home.
Salome, submissive to her father's will, yet disappointed in her wish to take the vail, met every event in life with apathy.
Even when the splendors of Lone broke upon her vision she regarded them with an air of indifference that amused, while it mortified, her father.
"I see how it is, my girl," he said. "You have renounced the world, and are pining for the convent. But you know nothing of the world. ”

“ Salome slowly raised those woeful eyes to the lady's face, and asked:
"Mother, good mother, did you ever know any one in all your life so heavily stricken as I am?"
The abbess put her arms around the young girl and drew her head down upon her own pitying bosom, as she replied:
"Have I ever known one so heavily stricken as you? My child, I cannot tell. 'The heart knoweth its own bitterness,' and one cannot weigh the grief of another. Salome, you have been heavily smitten; but so have many others. Daughter! I never do speak of my own sorrows. ”

“ When dinner was over, Lady Belgrade gave the signal, and arose from the table. Salome followed her, and left the two gentlemen to their wine.
"It afflicts me to have to call you Mr. Scott, my lord," said Sir Lemuel, when he found himself alone with his guest.
"Then call me John, as you used to do when I rode upon your foot in my childhood, and when I used to come to you in all my worst scrapes in boyhood—I shall never resume my title, Sir Lemuel," replied the young man.
"Never!" exclaimed the banker.
"Never, Sir Lemuel. A pauper lord is rather a ridiculous object. I will never be one." ”

“ I have been put on trial for my life. And though the jury could not convict me, it would not acquit me! though I am set at large for the present, I am subject to re-arrest and trial for death, if new evidence, however false, should arise against me. Meanwhile, no one believes me innocent. All believe me guilty. No one will ever speak to me. They made the inn too hot to hold me. My life is ruined—my heart is broken! Is not all that enough, lord duke, to have worn my body to a skeleton and turned my hair gray, without remorse of conscience?" impetuously demanded the man. ”

“ How can I?—I am not a bride. I am not a wife. I am not the Duchess of Hereward. I am just Salome Levison, as I was before that false marriage ceremony was performed over me! But do you be discreet. Say nothing below stairs of what has passed between us here," said Salome, speaking now with such amazing self-control that no one could have guessed the anguish and despair of her soul but for the marble whiteness and rigidity of her face.
"Be sure I shall not say one word, my lady," answered Mrs. Brown. ”

“ So the weeks passed slowly into months, and the winter into spring, yet nothing more was seen or heard of the Duke of Hereward.
Salome lost the habit of looking for him, and gradually recovered her tranquility. In the work to which she had consecrated herself—the care of helpless and destitute infancy—she grew almost happy.
Already she seemed as dead to the world as though the "black vail" had fallen like a pall over her head. No newspapers ever drifted into the asylum, nor did any visitor come to bring intelligence of the good or evil of the life beyond the convent walls. ”

“ It is nothing to be ashamed of. Love is natural. Love is holy. Oh, it is your mother that should be telling you all this, my poor girl, not your awkward, blundering old father," suddenly said the banker, breaking off in his discourse as his daughter hid her crimson face upon his shoulder.
"My dear, gentle father, no mother could be tenderer than you," murmured Salome.
"Tell me all, then, my darling. It is the first wish of my heart to see you happily married. And no trifling obstacle shall stand in the way of its accomplishment. Who is he, Salome?" ”

“ Gayer than all was the gathering of the Clan Scott, in their brilliant tartans, and with their national music to do honor to the nuptials of the heir of their chief.
As Miss Levison looked and listened, the shadows of the night vanished from her mind as clouds before the sun!
How strange the thought that the evil dream should have troubled her at all! But the dream had seemed as real as any waking experience. But then, again, dreams often do seem so! She would think no more of it, except to repent having been so unjust to Lord Arondelle, even though it was but in an involuntary dream. ”

“ Salome, in the Revolution of '48, my father was assassinated in the streets of Paris, as yours was in his chamber at Lone. My brother, true as steel to his sovereign, was guillotined as a traitor to the Republican party. Last, and hardest to bear, my affianced lover—he on whom my soul was stayed in all my troubles, as if any one weak mortal could be a lasting stay to another in her utmost need—my affianced lover, false to me as yours to you, was shot and killed in a duel by the lover, or husband, of a woman, for whom he had left his promised bride! ”

“ In a word, I was so deeply impressed by her perfect loveliness, that had I been as really the heir of Lone as I was the Marquis of Arondelle, I should at once have cultivated her further acquaintance, and, before this, have laid my heart and hand, titles and estates, at her feet."
"Well, well, my boy? Well, my dear lad, why didn't you do it?" inquired the banker, with tears rising to his kind eyes.
"I have just told you, because I was a ruined man," said the marquis with mournful dignity.
"'A ruined man?'" echoed the banker, with almost angry earnestness. "I know that you are not a ruined man! ”

“ What is that you say?" quickly demanded the duke.
"I say, Rose Cameron, poor misguided girl that she was, did not, however, perjure herself—intentionally I mean," repeated John Potts.
"Is she mad, then? The victim of a monomania?" gravely inquired the duke, fixing his eyes upon the troubled face of the valet.
"No, your grace, she was never more in her right senses."
"What do you mean? Do you dare—"
"My lord duke, I dare nothing. I never was a daring man; if I had been, the daring would have been taken out of me by the troubles of this last quarter of a year! But, my lord duke, I am right. ”

“ Could force on one side, and feebleness on the other, be carried any further than this?" muttered Volaski, between his teeth.
"I knew how helpless, in the hands of my parents, I was," wailed Valerie.
"Well, you are a duchess! Do you love the Duke of Hereward?"
"Oh, mercy! what shall I say? He deserves all my love, honor, and duty!"
"Does he get his deserts?" mockingly inquired Volaski.
"Ah! wretch that I am, why do I live?—I give him honor and duty; but love! love is not mine to give!" ”

“ From the moment that her acceptance of the duke's proposal was announced to her parents, the domestic sky cleared; her ruthless tyrant became again her tender father; her weeping mother brightened into smiles; she herself was once more the petted daughter of the house, and her lover showed himself the proudest and happiest of men; and Valerie de la Motte would have been at peace but for her consciousness of the secret that they were all keeping from the duke. ”

“ In truth, the duke needed all his powers of self-control to enable him to reply calmly:
"I ask you to tell me where is the Lady of Lone, to whom you went on Tuesday afternoon, with a story which has driven her from her home, and driven her, perhaps, to madness, or to death. I charge you to tell me, where is she?"
"Ah! where is Miss Salome Levison, the heiress of Lone, you ask! Exactly! That is what you would give a great deal to know, wouldn't you! You want to follow and join her, and live with her abroad, because you have got a wife living in England. You're a noble duke, so you are! ”

“ Yes! each paper had its paragraph devoted to the one grand sensation of the day—the flight of the beautiful Duchess of Hereward with the young Russian count; and very few dealt with the deplorable case as delicately as the Times had done.
"So my dishonor is the talk of all Paris and London!" groaned the duke, dropping his head upon his chest. "If all the civilization of the nineteenth century had power to stay my arm in its vengeance, it has lost it now! And nothing is left for me to do but to kill the man and divorce the woman." ”

“ The young duke took the emaciated hand of the failing man and pressed it in silence; he was too deeply moved to trust himself to speak.
"I have but this to say now. I leave a wife and helpless child. They are penniless and friendless. You will not let them starve," murmured the man.
"Oh, no, no, I will care for them, believe me, as long as we all shall live," said the duke, earnestly.
"That is all. Bid me good-by now. And when you go out ask good Sister Francoise to send the priest," said John Scott, holding out his white, cold hand. ”

“ Salome! that I could bear this sorrow for you! Oh, my darling, that all my love should be powerless to save you from a sorrow like this!" cried the young man, dropping his head upon his clenched hands.
"My lord," continued Lady Belgrade, who was now applying a vial of sal ammonia to her patient's nostrils: "my dear Lord Arondelle, rouse yourself for her sake! She has no father, brother, or male relative to take direction of affairs in this awful crisis of her life. You, her betrothed husband, should do it—must do it! Rouse yourself at once. Look at this stupefied and gaping crowd of people! ”

“ If this Count Waldemar de Volaski should be such a perfect counterpart of the Duke of Hereward as to have deceived even my eyes and ears! Oh, what joy! Oh, what rapture! What ecstacy to find 'the princely Hereward' as stainless in honor as he is noble in name; and this most unprincipled Volaski the real guilty party! But—the marriage certificate in Hereward's own name! The letters to his so-called 'wife,' Rose Cameron, in Hereward's own handwriting! Ah, no! there is no hope! not the faintest beam of hope! And yet—"
She suddenly paused in her wild walk, and looked toward the abbess. ”

“ CHAPTER XXXI. THE ABBESS' STORY.
"'Not the Duke of Hereward!'" echoed Salome, astonishment now overcoming every other emotion in her bosom.
The abbess bowed her head in grave assent.
"'One whom you thought numbered with the dead, full twenty years ago?'" continued Salome, quoting the lady's own words, and gazing on her face.
"Full twenty-five years ago, my daughter, or longer still," murmured the abbess.
"This man is young. He could not have been grown up to manhood twenty-five years ago."
"He is well preserved, as the selfish and heartless are too apt to be; but he is not young." ”

“ There was a grave pause of a few minutes, and then the voice of Salome was heard in solemn tones:
"The world won me. The world broke me and flung me back upon the convent, and forced me to remember and keep my promise. I return now to dedicate myself to the service of Heaven, at the altar of your convent, if indeed Heaven will take a heart that earth has crushed!"
She sighed.
"It is the world-crushed, bleeding heart that is the sweetest offering to all-healing, all-merciful Heaven," said Sister Josephine, tenderly lifting the hand of Salome and pressing it to her bosom. ”

“ The duke paused a moment, gazing at the card, and then abruptly demanded:
"What is the young man like?"
"Most genteel, your grace; most like our young lord, and about his age, and dressed in the deepest mourning, your grace; and most particular anxious to see your grace."
"I do not know the boy at all; do not know where he came from, nor what he wants; but he bears the family name, and looks like Arondelle," mused the duke, gazing at the card and knitting his brow.
"I will see the young man. Show him up here," at length he said, abruptly.
The footman bowed and withdrew. ”

“ I really appreciate the fact, and most highly appreciate the fact that you are Marquis of Arondelle, and to be Duke of Hereward—and that you are personally as noble in nature as you are fortunately noble in descent. And although my first motive in favoring this marriage is the pure desire for yours and for my daughter's happiness, still I assure you, my lord, I am keenly alive to its eligibility in a mere worldly point of view. Your ancient historical title is, (to speak as a man of the world,) much more than an equivalent for my daughter's expectations. ”

“ Oh Heaven grant I may be permitted to die!" fervently prayed Salome, clasping her hands.
"Hush, hush, my poor, unhappy child. I know not what your sorrow has been, but it cannot possibly justify you in your sinful petition. Life, my child, is the greatest of boons, since it contains within it the possibility of eternal bliss. We should be deeply thankful for simple life, whatever may be its present trials, since it holds the promise of future happiness," said the gentle abbess.
"Oh, mother, my life is wrecked—is hopelessly wrecked!" groaned Salome. ”