"And I am," replied Irene, speaking with more firmness of manner.

"Expectation grows so nervous, sometimes, that when the event comes it falls upon us with a painful shock. This is my case now. I would have felt it less severely if it had occurred six months ago."

"What will you do?" asked Rose.

"Do?"

"Yes."

"What can I do?"

"Resist the application, if you will."

"But I will not," answered Irene, firmly. "He signifies his wishes in the case, and those wishes must determine everything. I will remain pa.s.sive."

"And let the divorce issue by default of answer?"

"Yes."

There was a faintness of tone which Rose could not help remarking.

"Yes," Irene added, "he desires this complete separation, and I can have nothing to say in opposition. I left him, and have remained ever since a stranger to his home and heart. We are nothing to each other, and yet are bound together by the strongest of bonds. Why should he not wish to be released from these bonds? And if he desires it, I have nothing to say. We are divorced in fact--why then retain the form?"

"There may be a question of the fact," said Rose.

"Yes; I understand you. We have discussed that point fully. Your view may be right, but I do not see it clearly. I will at least retain pa.s.sive. The responsibility shall rest with him."

No life or color came back to the face of Irene. She looked as cold as marble; not cold without feeling, but with intense feeling recorded as in a piece of sculpture.

There were deeds of kindness and mercy set down in the purposes of our young friend, and it was to go forth and perform them that Rose had called for Irene this morning. But only one Sister of Charity went to the field that day, and only one for many days afterward.

Irene could not recover from the shock of this legal notice. It found her less prepared than she had been at any time during the last two years of separation. Her life at Ivy Cliff had not been favorable to a spirit of antagonism and accusation, nor favorable to a self-approving judgment of herself when the past came up, as it often came, strive as she would to cover it as with a veil. She had grown in this night of suffering, less self-willed and blindly impulsive. Some scales had dropped from her eyes, and she saw clearer. Yet no repentance for that one act of her life, which involved a series of consequences beyond the reach of conjecture, had found a place in her heart. There was no looking back from this--no sober questioning as to the right or necessity which had been involved. There had been one great mistake--so she decided the case--and that was the marriage.

From this fatal error all subsequent evil was born.

Months of waiting and expectation followed, and then came a decree annulling the marriage.

"It is well," was the simple response of Irene when notice of the fact reached her.

Not even to Rose Carman did she reveal a thought that took shape in her mind, nor betray a single emotion that trembled in her heart. If there had been less appearance of indifference--less avoidance of the subject--her friends would have felt more comfortable as to her state of mind. The unnatural repose of, exterior was to them significant of a strife within which she wished to conceal from all eyes.

About this time her true, loving friend, Miss Carman, married. Irene did not stand as one of the bridesmaids at the ceremony. Rose gently hinted her wishes in the case, but Irene shrunk from the position, and her feeling was respected. The husband of Rose was a merchant, residing in New York, named Everet. After a short bridal tour she went to her new home in the city. Mr. Everet was five or six years her senior, and a man worthy to be her life-companion. No sudden attachment had grown up between them. For years they had been in the habit of meeting, and in this time the character of each had been clearly read by the other. When Mr. Everet asked the maiden's hand, it, was yielded without a sign of hesitation.

The removal of Rose from the neighborhood of Ivy Cliff greatly disturbed the even-going tenor of Irene's life. It withdrew also a prop on which she had leaned often in times of weakness, which would recur very heavily.

"How can I live without you?" she said in tears, as she sat alone with the new-made bride on the eve of her departure; "you have been everything to me, Rose--strength in weakness; light, when all around was cold and dark; a guide when I had lost my way. G.o.d bless and make you happy, darling! And he will. Hearts like yours create happiness wherever they go."

"My new home will only be a few hours' distant," replied Rose; "I shall see you there often."

Irene sighed. She had been to the city only a few times since that sad day of separation from her husband. Could she return again and enter one of its bright social circles? Her heart said no. But love drew her too strongly. In less than a month after Rose became the mistress of a stately mansion, Irene was her guest. This was just six years from the time when she set up her home there, a proud and happy young wife. Alas! that hearth was desolate, "its bright fire quenched and gone."

It was best for Irene thus to get back again into a wider social sphere--to make some new friends, and those of a cla.s.s that such a woman as Mrs. Everet would naturally draw around her. Three years of suffering, and the effort to lead a life of self-denial and active interest in others, had wrought in Irene a great change. The old, flashing ardor of manner was gone. If she grew animated in conversation, as she often did from temperament, her face would light up beautifully, but it did not show the radiance of old times.

Thought, more than feeling, gave its living play to her countenance.

All who met her were attracted; as her history was known, observation naturally took the form of close scrutiny. People wished to find the angular and repellant sides of her character in order to see how far she might be to blame. But they were not able to discover them. On the subjects of woman's rights, domestic tyranny, s.e.xual equality and all kindred themes she was guarded in speech.

She never introduced them herself, and said but little when they formed the staple of conversation.

Even if, in three years of intimate, almost daily, a.s.sociation with Rose, she had not learned to think in some new directions on these bewildering questions, certain womanly instincts must have set a seal upon her lips. Not for all the world would she, to a stranger--no, nor to any new friend--utter a sentiment that could in the least degree give color to the thought that she wished to throw even the faintest shadow of blame on Hartley Emerson. Not that she was ready to take blame to herself, or give the impression that fault rested by her door. No. The subject was sacred to herself, and she asked no sympathy and granted no confidences. There were those who sought to draw her out, who watched her face and words with keen intentness when certain themes were discussed. But they were unable to reach the penetralia of her heart. There was a chamber of record there into which no one could enter but herself.

Since the separation of Irene from her husband, Mr. Delancy had shown signs of rapid failure. His heart was bound up in his daughter, who, with all her captious self-will and impulsiveness, loved him with a tenderness and fervor that never knew change or eclipse. To see her make shipwreck of life's dearest hopes--to know that her name was spoken by hundreds in reprobation--to look daily on her quiet, changing, suffering face, was more than his fond heart could bear. It broke him down. This fact, more perhaps, than her own sad experiences, tended to sober the mind of Irene, and leave it almost pa.s.sive under the right influences of her wise young friend.

After the removal of Rose from the neighborhood of Ivy Cliff, the health of Mr. Delancy failed still more rapidly, and in a few months the brief visits of Irene to her friend in New York had to be intermitted. She could no longer venture to leave her father, even under the care of their faithful Margaret. A sad winter for Irene succeeded. Mr. Delancy drooped about until after Christmas, in a weary, listless way, taking little interest in anything, and bearing both physical and mental consciousness as a burden it would be pleasant to lay down. Early in January he had to give up and go to bed; and now the truth of his condition startled the mind of Irene and filled her with alarm. By slow, insidious encroachments, that dangerous enemy, typhoid fever, had gained a lodgment in the very citadel of life, and boldly revealed itself, defying the healer's art. For weeks the dim light of mortal existence burned with a low, wavering flame, that any sudden breath of air might extinguish; then it grew steady again, increased, and sent a few brighter rays into the darkness which had gathered around Ivy Cliff.

Spring found Mr. Delancy strong enough to sit, propped up with pillows, by the window of his chamber, and look out upon the newly-mantled trees, the green fields, and the bright river flashing in the sunshine. The heart of Irene took courage again. The cloud which had lain upon it all winter like a funereal pall dissolved, and went floating away and wasting itself in dim expanses.

Alas, that all this sweet promise was but a mockery of hope! A sudden cold, how taken it was almost impossible to tell--for Irene guarded her father as tenderly as if he were a new-born infant--disturbed life's delicate equipoise, and the scale turned fatally the wrong way.

Poor Irene! She had only staggered under former blows--this one struck her down. Had life anything to offer now? "Nothing! nothing!"

she said in her heart, and prayed that she might die and be at rest with her father.

Months of stupor followed this great sorrow; then her heart began to beat again with some interest in life. There was one friend, almost her only friend--for she now repelled nearly every one who approached her--who never failed in hopeful, comforting, stimulating words and offices, who visited her frequently in her recluse life at Ivy Cliff, and sought with untiring a.s.siduity to win her once more away from its dead seclusion. And she was at last successful. In the winter after Mr. Delancy's death, Irene, after much earnest persuasion, consented to pa.s.s a few weeks in the city with Mrs.

Everet. This gained, her friend was certain of all the rest.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE HAUNTED VISION.

_GRADUALLY_ the mind of Irene attained clearness of perception as to duty, and a firmness of will that led her to act in obedience to what reason and religion taught her was right. The leading idea which Mrs. Everet endeavored to keep before her was this: that no happiness is possible, except in some work that removes self-consciousness and fills our minds with an interest in the well-being of others. While Rose was at Ivy Cliff, Irene acted with her, and was sustained by her love and companionship. After her marriage and removal to New York, Irene was left to stand alone, and this tried her strength. It was feeble. The sickness and death of her father drew her back again into herself, and for a time extinguished all interest in what was on the outside. To awaken a new and higher life was the aim of her friend, and she never wearied in her generous efforts. During this winter plans were matured for active usefulness in the old spheres, and Mrs. Everet promised to pa.s.s as much time in the next summer with her father as possible, so as to act with Irene in the development of these schemes.

The first warm days of summer found Irene back again in her home at Ivy Cliff. Her visit in New York had been prolonged far beyond the limit a.s.signed to it in the beginning, but Rose would not consent to an earlier return. This winter of daily life with Mrs. Everet, in the unreserved intercourse of home, was of great use to Irene.

Affliction had mellowed all the harder portions of her disposition, which the trouble and experiences of the past few years could not reach with their softening influences. There was good soil in her mind, well prepared, and the sower failed not in the work of scattering good seed upon it with a liberal hand--seed that felt soon a quickening life and swelled in the delight of coming germination.

It is not our purpose to record the history of Irene during the years of her discipline at Ivy Cliff, where she lived, nun-like, for the larger part of her time. She had useful work there, and in its faithful performance peace came to her troubled soul. Three or four times every year she paid a visit to Rose, and spent on each occasion from one to three or four weeks. It could not but happen that in these visits congenial friendship would be made, and tender remembrances go back with her into the seclusion of her country home, to remain as sweet companions in her hours of loneliness.

It was something remarkable that, during the six or seven years which followed Irene's separation from her husband, she had never seen him. He was still a resident of New York, and well known as a rapidly advancing member of the bar. Occasionally his name met her eyes in the newspapers, as connected with some important suit; but, beyond this, his life was to her a dead letter. He might be married again, for all she knew to the contrary. But she never dwelt on that thought; its intrusion always disturbed her, and that profoundly.

And how was it with Hartley Emerson? Had he again tried the experiment which once so signally failed? No; he had not ventured upon the sea whose depths held the richest vessel he had freighted in life. Visions of loveliness had floated before him, and he had been lured by them, a few times, out of his beaten path. But he carried in his memory a picture that, when his eyes turned inward, held their gaze so fixedly that all other images grew dim or unlovely. And so, with a sigh, he would turn again to the old way and move on as before.

But the past was irrevocable. "And shall I," he began to say to himself, "for this one great error of my youth--this blind mistake--pa.s.s a desolate and fruitless life?"

Oftener and oftener the question was repeated in his thoughts, until it found answer in an emphatic No! Then he looked around with a new interest, and went more into society. Soon one fair face came more frequently before the eyes of his mind than any other face. He saw it as he sat in his law-office, saw it on the page of his book as he read in the evening, lying over the printed words and hiding from his thoughts their meaning; saw it in dreams. The face haunted him.

How long was this since that fatal night of discord and separation?

Ten years. So long? Yes, so long. Ten weary years had made their record upon his book of life and upon hers. Ten weary years! The discipline of this time had not worked on either any moral deterioration. Both were yet sound to the core, and both were building up characters based on the broad foundations of virtue.

Steadily that face grew into a more living distinctness, haunting his daily thoughts and nightly visions. Then new life-pulses began to throb in his heart; new emotions to tremble over its long calm surface; new warmth to flow, spring-like, into the indurated soil.

This face, which had begun thus to dwell with him, was the face of a maiden, beautiful to look upon. He had met her often during a year, and from the beginning of their acquaintance she had interested him.