Rita

“ She kneels beside the little cot where the tiny figure lies so still, so calm now; her tearless eyes riveted on the lovely little face; eyes so wild, so passionate, so entreating, that none dare meet their gaze.
"He is only asleep; he has not—left me," she cries: and weeping, they stand aside and know not what to do.
Then Lady Etwynde bade them all go out, and knelt down by Lauraine's side. The tears dimmed her eyes, her gentle heart was wrung at the sight of this mute, blank suffering. "Dear, do try and realize it," she whispered tenderly. "It is hard, terribly hard, I know. ”

“ Lauraine says faintly, "I see."
"Duty demands much, but it also repays much,", continues Lady Etwynde gently. "Heaven knows I am not fit to preach to you; but in the world, as we know it, Lauraine, there are so many faithless wives, so many divided households. Oh, my dear, don't you add to the number! You have many enemies of whom you know nothing, and they would gladly seize your name, and smirch its purity with scandals, and whispers, and evil words. I want you to be brave, and face them all, and live out your life nobly and well. ”

“ That is one advantage of poetry—it clothes a thought in grace so exquisite that we feel as if conversing with a being from another world. I never can understand people saying they don't like, or can't comprehend it. Sense, memory, love, pleasure, joy, pain, all that is sensitive, emotional, purest, best, is acted upon and intensified by poetry. A word, a line, will thrill us to the very core and centre of our beings—will make joy more sweet—-pain less bitter—love more exquisite and life less hard, even beneath its burden of regrets."
"You love poetry so much?" questions Lauraine. ”

“ She trembles with mingled rage and shame. If Lauraine had stood before her now she could have killed her without a regret, crushed out her youth and beauty with ruthless hands and rejoicing heart; but Lauraine is not there, and Lauraine has all the triumph, and she all the shame and defeat. Like a wounded tigress she paces to and fro her room, a thousand schemes and projects flashing through her brain, and all the fierceness and savagery of her nature roused into an insensate, furious longing to revenge this insult, as she terms it, upon the woman who has dealt it to her. ”

“ A wilder sky is above their heads, one that foretells a storm close at hand.
Lauraine turns her face seaward, and the fierce wind and dashing spray seem to give it a new and wonderful beauty. "It is glorious!" she murmurs, as she stands there in a sort of rapture. "It seems as if one could move, breathe, be free in a place like this."
"Free?" says Lady Etwynde. "Is any one that? As long as life shackles our souls, so long does bondage curb our wishes. I never met a single person, man or woman, who could do exactly as they wished." ”

“ I have never forgotten; and now I am thirty years old, and my parents, as you know, are dead, and I live alone, and am looked upon as a marvel of eccentricity, and have my school of apostles and fool them to the top of their bent. Sometimes life seems a horrible travesty of all that is dignified and pure, and sometimes a jest that one laughs at and forgets. But no one knows me as I really am, save you, Lauraine. To most people I suppose I hardly seem a woman. But my true self and my lost love live a life apart, a life of dreams, sad but yet beautiful. ”

“ For thirteen years my darling has been true; thirteen years during which I have made no sign, given no token of relenting. But it is all over and forgotten now. Once more I seem to wake and live. The old, cheerless, weary years that I have dreamt away, have lost their pain, are only full now of a soft regret that my folly delayed my happiness; for oh! how short life seems when one is glad, and the possibilities of the future seem limitless. My poor disciples are in despair, of course. I am bound to neglect them, for Cyril is a more exigeant lover now than in those days of old. ”

“ I cannot bear to hear you talk like that," cries Lady Etwynde. "Does he—does Sir Francis suspect anything?"
"He said he knew Keith loved me," answers Lauraine wearily. "Fancy hearing one's husband speak of the love of another man! I felt treacherous—shamed in his sight and my own. He could not understand—he would not believe in the long, long struggle, the pain, the suffering of it all. I feel as if conscience and honour had both suffered in the conflict, as if with my child I had lost all that was pure and of any worth in me. And now the world may say what it likes. ”

“ Love is something purer, holier, nobler than sensual gratification. It is sympathy, it is fidelity without reward; it is consecration without a vow. Did we take our teaching of it from them, Heaven help us all. Thank God, something within us helps us to the right, the pure, the better part of it. Lauraine, do not waste your pity thus. What right had he to dishonour you in your grief, your loneliness, by any such words as these? If indeed he loved you, you should have been sacred to him for your child's sake, even though he ignored your husband. Can you not see it too, dear? ”

“ All the remorse and all the regret are so futile. Tears of blood cannot wash away one memory, take out the sting of one mistake. We must just bear life as it is, till Death seals all its woes into forgetfulness."
"You are so good," cries Lauraine sadly. "I am not like you. I am wicked and rebellious, and I cannot accept my fate with patience, even though I know my own past weakness is to blame for all my present misery."
"I am not good. Do not praise me," says Lady Etwynde humbly. "And I know I do not deserve my present happiness. It makes me fearful of my great joy. ”

“ The master-hand that produces the highest order of melody is perhaps too often that of some passing stranger who goes carelessly by—and who, so to speak, finds the instrument open—runs his hands lightly over the keys, awakens brilliance, life, beauty, where others have produced but dull, prosaic sounds, and then goes away and—forgets."
"Ah, if we were only wood and leather, and had wire for our strings, not hearts and souls, we should not miss the player, or sigh for the vanished music," says Lauraine. "Unfortunately, forgetfulness is not always possible for us, desire it as we may." ”

“ Those young tired eyes of Keith Athelstone's look out on it all, and a sigh parts his lips.
"There are so many women in the world," he mutters, as he ceases his restless pacing, and leans against the open window. "So many that are beautiful and young, and easy to win, and yet all my life is but a longing for one who can be nothing to me. How hard fate is!"
The cool, fresh air blows over his brow, but it does not still its aching. His whole soul is hardened, and bitterly ashamed. ”

“ Keith bends over her impulsively. "Say one word, Lauraine—only one. Say 'stay!'"
She draws her breath sharp and quick—his hand is on her own—she feels its strong, warm pressure, and all her good resolutions fly away. Nothing seems in her heart but one aching, passionate longing for his presence—his voice. Her face pales to the whiteness of death, but to his ear steals the word he has asked for—a whisper that seals their fate to-night—a whisper for which the future holds its own Nemesis of dread and of despair. ”

“ They can only wait, wait in that agony of suspense which is the cruellest suffering of life. Weeping, frightened, the little crowd fill the room. The mother alone is dry-eyed and calm. Her voice from time to time wakes the silence with all the fond and tender words the baby ears have grown familiar with. Sometimes a quiver of agony passes over her face as she sees the terrible suffering, as the lovely star-like eyes gaze up at her in a wondering, imploring way, seeming to beseech help and ease from one who loves him so. ”

“ My folly has shut me out from the only happiness I have. How cruel a good woman can be."
"It is not cruelty—it is safety," murmurs Lauraine, with faltering voice. "How can we meet and face each other in the world knowing what we know? Friendship between us is impossible—you have made it so—and there can be—nothing more."
"I would rather die than lose you," says Keith passionately. "If you were happy it would be different; but you are not, and your husband is a blackguard, and half London knows it—even your precious mother. ”

“ Even all her enemies and detractors cannot deny that the Lady Etwynde is essentially beautiful and graceful. Her every movement and attitude are a study; her soft, clinging draperies float and sway to her rhythmic motions in a way that is at once the envy and despair of her imitators and admirers. To see her walk across a room is a treat—a poem, as her disciples say, and countless have been the effusions inspired by her doing so.
As Lauraine greets her, Keith Athelstone approaches. She had not expected to find him there, and a little flush of pleasure rises to her face. ”

“ But be sure of my sympathy always."
"I am sure of it," answers Lauraine. "I think I have never made a friend of any woman but you. You are always so good, and one always feels one can trust you. But you are right. Something is troubling me very much. I feel to-night as if life was altogether too hard!"
"Who of us does not feel that at some time or other?" says Lady Etwynde, sadly. "A time when to look back or to look forward seems alike equally hard; for during the one we think of what 'might have been,' and during the other we dread to think what may be. ”

“ It is the critical moment of Keith Athelstone's life. All that is best and worst in his heart are at war; all that is most hard to resist wraps him in a flame of tempting that burns away all good resolves, and almost stifles the faint whispers of a conscience that pleads for her.
For her—for her. To save her from herself as well as from his own mad love. To leave her unharmed, untainted by the baseness of his selfish passion; to be worthy of love, as love had been in those sweet, glad, childish days. ”

“ They take our snubs and insults, and flatter and fawn just the same only for a card in their halls, a half-hour passage through their drawing-rooms, the honour and glory of a 'name' to figure in a society journal as one of their guests. Faugh! it is sickening!"
"But the society who eats and drinks and amuses itself at their expense is alone to blame," says Lauraine calmly. "If people had sufficient dignity and self-respect to oppose such innovations, to keep these people at a distance, they could not force themselves in."
"But they are always so abominably rich," laughs Lady Jean. ”