Mary Cholmondeley

“ In moments of real feeling the old words hold their own against all modern new-comers. Dare repeated them over and over again in a paroxysm of overwhelming emotion which shook him from head to foot.
Something in his boyish attitude and in his entire loss of self-control touched Ruth strangely. She knew he was five or six years her senior, but at the moment she felt as if she were much older than he, and a sudden vague wish passed through her mind that he had been nearer her in age; not quite so young. ”

“ The hall was only lighted by a few tall lamps high on pedestals against the walls, which threw great profiles of the various busts upon the dim bass-reliefs of twining scroll-work; and Dare, with his eyes fixed on Ruth, began to play.
There is in some music a strange appeal beyond the reach of words. Those mysterious sharps and flats, and major and minor chords, are an alphabet that in some occult combinations forms another higher language than that of speech, a language which, as we listen, thrills us to the heart. ”

“ You have no right to marry Dare if you care for me. Hesitate, and it will be too late! Break off your engagement now. Do you suppose," with sudden fire, "that we shall cease to love each other; that I shall be able to cease to love you for the rest of my life because you are Dare's wife? What is done can't be undone. Our love for each other can't. It is no good shutting your eyes to that. Look the facts in the face, and don't deceive yourself into thinking that the most difficult course is necessarily the right one." ”

“ We are as one. I bring sorrow upon her I love."
"She knows, then?" asked Charles, hoarsely, hating himself for being such a hypocrite, but unable to refrain from putting a leading question.
"She knows that some one—a person—is at Vandon," replied Dare, "who calls herself my wife, but I tell her it is not true and she, all goodness, all heavenly calm, she trusts me, and once again she promises to marry me if I am free, as I tell her, as I swear to her."
Charles listened in astonishment. He saw Dare was speaking the truth, but that Ruth could have given such a promise was difficult to believe. ”

“ But you must not reproach yourself, Aunt Mary. We are none of us infallible. No doubt you acted for the best at the time, and I dare say what you gave him may not do him any permanent injury."
"If that is intended to be amusing," said Lady Mary, her teacup trembling in her hand, "I can only say that, in my opinion, wilfully misunderstanding a simple statement is a very cheap form of wit."
"I am so glad to hear you say so," said Charles, rising, "as it was at your expense." ”

“ Even Charles, who is less dense than most men, has never been allowed to form an idea of the plans which from time to time I have made for him. Nothing sets a man more against a marriage than the idea that it has been put in his way. They like to think it is all their own doing, and that the whole universe will be taken by surprise when the engagement is given out. Charles is no exception to the rule. Our duty is to provide a wife for him, and then allow him to think his own extraordinary cleverness found her for himself. How old is this cousin of yours, Miss Deyncourt? ”

“ There never is. There are, I confess, moments when I don't regard the child's immortal welfare sufficiently to make her present existence less enjoyable. What a round of gayety Molly's life is! She flits from flower to flower, so to speak; from me to cook and the jam-pots; from the jam-pots to some fresh delight in the loft, or in your society. Life is one long feast to Molly. Whatever that old impostor the Future may have in store for her, at any rate she is having a good time now."
There was a shade of regretful sadness in Charles's voice that ruffled his aunt. ”

“ Dare burst into a torrent of gratitude, but she broke suddenly away from him, and went swiftly up-stairs again to her own room.
The release had not come. She laid her head down upon the table, and Hope, which had ventured back to her for one moment, took her lamp and went quite away, leaving the world very dark.
There are turning-points in life when a natural instinct is a surer guide than noble motive or high aspiration, and consequently the more thoughtful and introspective nature will sometimes fall just where a commonplace one would have passed in safety. Ruth had acted for the best. ”

“ On this particular morning in August, Ruth had slipped out as far as the chestnut-tree, the lower part of which was hidden from the rectory windows by a blessed yew hedge. It was too hot to walk, it was too hot to draw, it was even too hot to read. It did not seem, however, to be too hot to ride, for presently she heard a horse's hoofs clattering across the stones of the stable-yard, and she knew, from the familiarity of the sound at that hour of the day, that Dare had probably ridden over, and, more probably still, would stay to luncheon. ”

“ A roaring log-fire in the immense fireplace threw a ruddy glow over the long array of armor and gleaming weapons which lined the walls, and made the pale winter twilight outside look bleak indeed. Charles, emerging slim and graceful out of an exquisite ulster, sauntered up to the fire, and asked where Sir George Danvers was. As he stood inside the wide fireplace, leaning against one of the pillars which supported the towering white stone chimney-piece, covered with heraldic designs and coats of arms, he looked a worthier representative of an ancient race than I fear he really was. ”

“ Ruth drew the old condemned cottages, with the long lines of pollarded marshy meadow, and distant bridge and mill in the background, but it was a sketch she never cared to look at afterwards. She was constantly drawing now. There was a vague restlessness in her at this time that made her take refuge in the world of nature, where the mind can withdraw itself from itself for a time into a stronghold where misgiving and anxiety cannot corrupt, nor self break through and steal. ”

“ Denis had retired to his chamber, a prey to sudden and acute indisposition.
"Dear me!" said Charles to Lady Mary, with a dismal shake of his head, "how precarious is life! Here to-day, and in bed to-morrow. Support your aunt Mary, my dear Evelyn; she wishes to retire to rest. Indeed, we may as well all go to bed, for there will be no more acting to-night without poor Denis. I only trust he may be spared to us till to-morrow, and that he may be well enough to die by my hand to-morrow evening."
We all dispersed for the night in some anxiety. ”

“ Alwynn was kindness itself in the way of sweet-breads and warm rooms; but the only thing Ruth craved for, to be left alone, she would not allow for a moment. No! Mrs. Alwynn was cheerful, brisk, and pious at intervals. If she found her niece was sitting in her own room, she bustled up-stairs, poked the fire, gave her a kiss, and finally brought her down to the drawing-room, where she told her she would be as quiet as in her own room. She need not be afraid her uncle would come in; and she must not allow herself to get moped. ”

“ Others get up and begin to forage for themselves. Happy are these—when the transition period is over—when, after a time, the first and worst mistakes have been made and suffered for, and the only teaching that profits anything at all, the bitter teaching of experience, has been laid to heart.
Such a nature was Ruth's, upright, self-reliant, without the impetuosity and impulsiveness that so often accompanies an independent nature, but accustomed to look at everything through her own eyes, and to think, but not till now to act for herself. ”

“ Ruth, whose self-possession never wholly deserted her, had reached a depth of exhausted stupor, in which the mind is perfectly oblivious of the impression it is producing on others. By an unceasing effort she listened and answered and smiled at intervals, and looked exceedingly distinguished in the pale red gown which she had put on to please her aunt; but the color of which only intensified the unnatural pallor of her complexion. ”

“ Raymond and the poachers were alike forgotten.
It was not until a couple of men joined them silently in the woods, and others presently rose up out of the darkness, to whisper directions and sink down again, that Charles came to himself with a start, and pulled himself together.
The party had halted. It was pitch-dark, and he was conscious of something towering up above him, black and lowering. It was the ruined house of Arleigh.
"You and Brooks wait here, and keep well under the lea of the house," said Ralph, in a whisper. "If the moon comes out, get into the shadow of the wall. ”

“ I think there was not a woman present who did not envy Aurelia as Ralph took up a flashing diamond crescent and held it against her fair hair. I saw Evelyn turn away and begin to tear up a small piece of paper in her hand. Women are very jealous of each other, especially the nice, by which I mean the pretty, ones. I was sorry to see jealousy so plainly marked in such a charming looking girl as Evelyn; but women are all the same about jewels. Aurelia blushed and sparkled, and pouted when the clasp caught in her hair, and shook her little head impatiently, and was altogether enchanting. ”

“ Charles looked intently at Ruth. Women are so terribly apt in handling any subject to make it personal. Would she fire up, or would she, like so many women, join in abuse of her own sex? She did neither. She was looking straight in front of her, absently watching the figures of Dare and Molly in the next field. Then she turned her grave, thoughtful glance towards him.
"I think respect is never weakness," she said. "It is a sign of strength, even when it is misplaced. There is not much to admire in cunning people who are never taken in. ”

“ Dare winced. His fortune had not gone the time-honored way of the fortunes of spirited young men of narrow means with souls above a sordid economy, but still it had gone all the same, and in a manner he did not care to think of.
It was after one of these depressing interviews with Waters that Ralph and Evelyn found the new owner of Vandon, when they rode over together to call, a day or two after the school-feast. Poor Dare was sitting on the low ivy-covered wall of the topmost terrace, a prey to the deepest dejection. ”

“ Alwynn had been reading extracts to her in the morning, while Ruth had been engaged in preparing herself to teach in the Sunday-school. She wondered vaguely how pleasure could be derived, even by the most religious persons, from seeing favorite texts twined in and out among forget-me-nots, or falling aslant in old English letters off bunches of violets; but she was old enough and wise enough to know that one man's religion is another man's occasion of stumbling. Books are made to fit all minds, and small minds lose themselves in large-minded books. ”

“ The various articles of furniture, the red silk handkerchiefs dabbed behind pendent plates, the musical elephants on the mantle-piece, the imitation Eastern antimacassars, the shocking fate, in the way of nailed and glued pictorial ornamentation, that had overtaken the back of the cottage piano—indeed, all the various objects of luxury and vertu with which Mrs. Alwynn had surrounded herself, seemed to recall to Ruth, as the apparatus of the sick-room recalls the illness to the patient, the stupor into which she had fallen in their company. ”

“ I could not help saying how much I liked Charles.
"Strangers always do," he replied, coldly, as we walked towards the lodge. "I constantly hear him spoken of as a most agreeable young man."
"And he is so handsome."
"Yes," replied Sir George, in the same hard tone, "handsome and agreeable. I have no doubt he appears so to others; but I, who have had to pay the debts and hush up the scandals of my handsome and agreeable son, find Ralph, who has not a feature in his face, the better-looking of the two. ”

“ Dare had understood the promise to depend on the legality or illegality of that divorce, and told Charles so in all good faith. With an extraordinary effort of reticence he withheld the name of his affianced, and pressing Charles's arm, begged him to ask no more. And Charles, half-sorry, half-contemptuous, wholly ashamed of having allowed such a confidence to be forced upon him, marched on in silence, now divided between mortal anxiety for Raymond and pity for Dare, now striving to keep down a certain climbing rapturous emotion which would not be suppressed. ”

“ Drive as quickly as he would through mist and darkness, a voice followed him, the voice of a pursuing devil close at his ear, whispering in the halting, feeble utterance of a dying man:
"Keep your own counsel about Dare. There is no one to tell if you don't."
Charles shivered and set his teeth. High on the hill among the trees the distant lights of Slumberleigh shone like glowworms through the mist. ”

“ It was in Kansas, and in Kansas it is very easy to marry, and also to be divorced."
"It is a disgraceful story," said Mr. Alwynn, in great indignation.
"Disgraceful!" echoed Dare, excitedly. "It is more than disgraceful. It is abominable. You do not know all yet. I will tell you. I was young; I was but a boy. I go to America when I am twenty-one, to travel, to see the world. I make acquaintances. I get into a bad set, what you call undesirable. I fall in love. I walk into a net. She was pretty, a pretty widow, all love, all soul; without friends. I protect her. I marry her. ”

“ Alwynn, "she does not love me at all."
There is something pathetic in seeing any cheerful, light-hearted animal reduced to silence and depression. To watch a barking, worrying, jovial puppy suddenly desist from parachute expeditions on unsteady legs, and from shaking imaginary rats, and creep, tail close at home, overcome by affliction, into obscurity, is a sad sight. Mr. Alwynn felt much the same kind of pity for Dare as he glanced at him, resignedly blighted, handsomely forlorn, who but a short time ago had taken life as gayly and easily as a boy home for the holidays. ”

“ The keeper's cottage is in sight, built against a ledge of rock, up to which wide rough steps have been cut in the sandstone. Ruth looks down at the gate below. He is waiting—the dreadful man is waiting there, as she expected; and Balaam, toying with a fern, is at that moment coming round the corner. She sees that he takes in the situation instantly. There is but one way in which they can have fled, and he knows it. In a moment he comes halting and pounding up the slope. He sees their white dresses among the firs. Run, Molly! run, Ruth! ”