The Shadow of a Sin. Charlotte M. Brame

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      "I have no wish to be cruel," she said; "I only desire to say what is true."

      "Then just listen to your own heart, and you will soon know whether you love me or not. Are you pleased to see me? Do you look forward to meeting me? Do you think of me when I am not with you?"

      "Yes," she replied calmly; "I look with eagerness to the time when I know you are coming; I think of you very often all day, and I—I dream of you all night. In my mind every word that you have ever said to me remains."

      "Then you love me," he cried, clasping her little white hands in his, his handsome face growing brighter and more eager—"you love me, my darling, and you must be my wife!"

      She did not shrink from him; the words evidently had little meaning for her. He must have been blind indeed not to see the girl's heart was as void and innocent of all love as the heart of a dreaming child.

      "You must be my wife," he repeated. "I love you better than anything else in the wide world."

      She did not look particularly happy or delighted.

      "You shall go away from this dull gloomy spot," he said; "I will take you to some sunny, far-off city, where the hours have golden wings and are like minutes—where every breath of wind is a fragrant sigh—where the air is filled with music, and the speech of the people is song. You will behold the grandest pictures, the finest statues, the noblest edifices in the world. You shall not know night from day, nor summer from winter, because everything shall be so happy for you."

      The indifference and weariness fell from her face as a mask. She clasped her hands in triumph, her eyes brightened, her beautiful face beamed with joy.

      "Oh, Claude, that will be delightful! When shall it be?"

      "So soon as you are my wife, sweet. Do you not long to come with me and be dressed like a lovely young queen, in flowers, and go to balls that will make you think of fairyland? You shall go to the opera to hear the world's greatest singers; you shall never complain of dulness or weariness again."

      The expression of happiness that came over her face was wonderful to see.

      "I cannot realize it," she said, with a deep sigh of relief and content. "The sky looks fairer already. I can imagine how bright this world is to those who are happy. You do not know how I have longed for some share of its happiness, Claude. All my heart used to cry out for warmth and love, for youth and life. In that dull, gloomy house I have pined away. See, I am as thirsty to enjoy life as the deer on a hot day is to enjoy a running stream. It would be cruel to catch that little bird swinging on the boughs and singing so sweetly—it would be cruel to catch that bright bird, to put it in a narrow cage, and to place the cage in a dark, dull room, where never a gleam of sunshine could cheer it—but it is a thousand times more cruel to shut me up in that gloomy house like a prison, with people who are too old to understand what youth is like."

      "It is cruel," he assented; and then a silence fell over them, broken only by the whispering of the wind.

      "Do you know," she went on, after a time, "I have been so unhappy that I have wished I were like Undine and had no soul?"

      Yet, even as she uttered the words, from the books she disliked and found so dreary there came to her floating memories of grand sentences telling of "hearts held in patience," "of endurance that maketh life divine," of aspirations that do not begin and end in earthly happiness. She drove such memories from her.

      "Lady Vaughan says 'life is made for duty.' Is that all, Claude? One could do one's duty without the light of the sunshine and the fragrance of flowers. Why need the birds sing so sweetly and the blossoms wear a thousand different colors? If life is meant for nothing but plain, dull duty, we do not need starlit nights and dewy evenings, the calm of green woods and the music of the waves. It seems to me that life is meant as much for beauty as for duty."

      Claude looked eagerly into the lovely face.

      "You are right," he said, "and yet wrong. Cynthy, life was made for love—nothing else. You are young and beautiful; you ought to enjoy life—and you shall, if you will promise to be my wife."

      "I do promise," she returned. "I am tired to death of that gloomy house and those gloomy people. I am weary of quiet and dull monotony."

      His face darkened.

      "You must not marry me to escape these evils, Hyacinth, but because you love me."

      "Of course. Well, I have told you all my perplexities, Claude, and you have decided that I love you."

      He smiled at the childlike simplicity of the words.

      "Now, Hyacinth, listen to me. You must be my wife, because I love you so dearly that I cannot live without you and because you have promised. Listen, and I will tell you how it must be."

      Hyacinth Vaughan looked up in her lover's face; there was nothing but the simple wonder of a child in hers—nothing but awakened interest—there was not even the shadow of love.

      "You say that Lady Vaughan intends starting for Bergheim on Thursday, and that Adrian Darcy is to meet you there; consequently, after Thursday, you have not the least chance of escape. I should imagine the future that lies before you to be more terrible even than the past. Rely upon it, Adrian Darcy will come to live at the Chase if he marries you; and then you will only sleep through life. You will never know its possibilities, its grand realities."

      An expression of terror came over her face.

      "Claude," she cried, "I would rather die than live as I have been living!"

      "So would I, in your place. Cynthy, your life is in our own hands. If you choose to be foolish and frightened, you will say good-by to me, go to Bergheim, marry Darcy, and drag out the rest of a weary life at the Chase, seeing nothing of brightness, nothing of beauty, and growing in time as stiff and formal as Lady Vaughan is now."

      The girl shuddered; the warm young life in her rebelled; the longing for love and pleasure, for life and brightness, was suddenly chilled.

      "Now here is another picture for you," resumed Claude. "Do what I wish, and you shall never have another hour's dulness or weariness while you live. Your life shall be all love, warmth, fragrance and song."

      "What do you wish?" she asked, her lovely young face growing brighter at each word.

      "I want you to meet me to-morrow night at Oakton station; we will take the train for London, and on Thursday, instead of going to Bergheim, we will be married, and then you shall lead an enchanted life."

      An expression of doubt appeared on her face; but she was very young and easy to persuade.

      "It will be the grandest sensation in all the world," he said. "Imagine an elopement from the Chase—where the goddess of dulness has reigned for years—an elopement, Cynthy, followed by a marriage, a grand reconciliation tableau, and happiness that will last for life afterward."

      She repeated the words half-doubtfully.

      "An elopement, Claude—would not that be very wrong—wicked almost?"

      "Not at all. Lady Helmsdale eloped with her husband, and they are the happiest people in the world; elopements are not so uncommon—they are full СКАЧАТЬ