His whole manner now changed. Turning towards her, he took both her hands in his own, and looking gravely and sweetly in her face, he answered:

"My wife! such questions between you and me ought never to arise, even in jest. I hold the marriage relation always too sacred for such trifling! And _our_ relations towards each other seem to me dearer, sweeter, more sacred even, than those of most other married couples! No, my own Sybil! Soul of my soul! there is no woman that I ever did, or ever could prefer to you!" And he drew her to his bosom, and pressed her there in all good faith and true love. And his grave and tender rebuke did even more to tranquilize her jealousy than all his caresses had done.

"I know it! I know it, my dear husband! But it is only when I feel how imperfect, how unworthy of you, I am, that I ever have doubts!" she murmured with a sigh of infinite relief.

CHAPTER XI.

LOVE AND JEALOUSY.

There was a time when bliss Shone o'er her heart from every look of his; When but to see him, hear him, breathe the air In which he dwelt, was her soul's fondest prayer; When round him hung such a perpetual spell, Whate'er he did none ever did so well; Yet now he comes, brighter than ever, far, He beamed before; but ah! not bright for her.--MOORE.

Fortunately for the fascinated husband and the jealous wife, the Circuit Court was now sitting at Blackville, and the lawyer's professional duties demanded all Mr. Berner's time.

Only one year before this, when the struggling young lawyer depended upon his work for his bread, he could hardly get a paying client; now that he was entirely independent of his profession, he was overwhelmed with business. As the wealthy master of the Black Valley manor, with its rich dependencies of farms, quarries, mills, and hamlets, he might have led the easy life of a country gentleman. But in Lyon Berners'

apprehension, work was duty; and so to work he went, as if he had had to get his living by it.

Every day he left home at nine o'clock in the morning, in order to be present at the opening of the court at ten. He reached home again at four in the afternoon, and dined with Sybil and Rosa. After dinner he retired to his study, and spent the evening in working up his briefs and preparing for the next day's business.

Thus he was entirely separated from his guest, who never saw him except at the table, with the breadth of the board between them, and almost entirely from his wife, who only had his company to herself at night.

Yet Sybil was content. Her love, if, in some of its phases, it was a jealous and exacting pa.s.sion, in others was a n.o.ble and generous principle. She would not spare a glance, a smile, a caress of his, to any other woman; yet she would give him wholly up to his duty, his profession, his country, or to any grand _impersonal_ object. And the few hours out of the twenty-four when she could enjoy his society apart from her dreaded rival, compensated her for the many when he was absent or engaged upon his professional duties.

But ah! this could not last!

It happened, very naturally, that while Mr. Lyon Berners spent his mornings in the court-house, Mrs. Lyon Berners spent hers in receiving the calls and congratulations of her friends, to whom she always presented her permanent visitor, Mrs. Blondelle.

At length two unconnected events happened at the same time. The court adjourned, and the last visit of ceremony was paid.

Sybil, at the instance of Mr. Berners, gave a dinner-party, and they entertained the judges and barristers of the court. And upon that occasion, Mrs. Blondelle of course was introduced, and equally of course, her beauty made a very great sensation. And Sybil was well pleased. She was perfectly willing that her protege should outshine her in every company, if only she did not outrival her in her husband's admiration.

But ah! whether it was that the long interruption of his conversations with the beautiful blonde had given a new zest to the pleasure he enjoyed in her society, or whether his admiration for her had been ever, under all circ.u.mstances, on the increase, or whether both these causes combined to influence his conduct, is not known; but it is certain that from this time, Lyon Berners became more and more blindly devoted to Rosa Blondelle. And yet, under and over and through all this, the husband loved his wife as he never did or could love any other woman.

But Rosa Blondelle was one of those vain and shallow women who must and will have a sentimental flirtation or a platonic friendship with some man or boy, always on hand. She, like those of her mischievous cla.s.s, really meant no harm, while doing a great deal of wrong. Such a woman will engage a husband's affections and break a wife's heart from mere vanity, and for mere pastime, without the slightest regard for either of her victims. And yet, because, they have not been grossly guilty, as well as deeply sinful, they retain their positions in society.

Rosa Blondelle's whole life lay in these sentimental flirtations and platonic friendships. Without a lover, she did not care to live at all.

Yet hers was a sham love, though her victims were not often sham lovers.

With her fair and most innocent face, Rosa Blondelle was false and shallow. And Lyon Berners knew this; and even while yielding himself to the fascination of her smiles, he could not help comparing her, to her great disadvantage, with his own true, earnest, deep-hearted wife.

But every morning, while Sybil was engaged in her domestic duties, which were now greatly increased by the preparations that were going on for the masquerade ball, Lyon Berners would be walking with Rosa Blondelle, exploring the romantic glens of the Black Valley, or wandering along the picturesque banks of the Black River. Or if the weather happened to be inclement, Mr. Berners and Mrs. Blondelle would sit in the library together, deep in German mysticism or French sentiment.

Every evening Rosa sat at the grand piano, singing for him the most impa.s.sioned songs from the German and Italian operas; and Lyon hung over her chair turning her music, and enraptured with her beauty.

Ah! Rosa Blondelle! vain and selfish and shallow coquette! Trifle, if you must, with any other man's love, with any other woman's peace; but you had better invade the lair of the lioness, and seize her cubs--you had better walk blindfold upon the abyss of Hades, than come between Sybil Berners and her husband!

For Sybil saw it all! and not only as any other woman might have seen it, just as it was, but as the jealous wife did--with vast exaggerations and awful forebodings.

They did not suspect how much she knew, or how much more she imagined.

Before them the refined instincts of the lady still kept down the angry pa.s.sions of the woman.

Whenever her emotions were about to overcome her, she slipped away, not to her own room, where she was liable to interruption, but far up into the empty attics of the old house, where, in some corresponding chamber of desolation, she gave way to such storms of anguish and despair as leave the deepest

"Traces on heart and brain."

And after an hour or two she would return to the drawing-room, whence she had never been missed by the pair of sentimentalists, who had been too much absorbed in each other, and in Mozart or Beethoven, to notice her absence.

And while all unconscious of her, they continued their musical flirtation, she would sit with her back to the light, toying with her crochet-work and listening to Rosa's songs.

She was still as a volcano before it bursts forth to bury cities under its burning lava flood!

Why did she not, in the sacred privacy of their mutual apartment appeal to the better nature of her husband by telling him how much his flirtation with their guest pained her, his wife? Or else, why had she not spoken plainly with her guest?

Why? Because Sybil Berners had too much pride and too little faith to do the one or the other. She could not stoop to plead with her husband for the love that she thought he had withdrawn from her; still less could she bend to tell her guest how much his defection troubled her. Nor did she believe her interference would do any good. For, to Sybil Berners earnest nature, all things seemed earnest, and this vain and shallow flirtation wore the aspect of a deep, impa.s.sioned attachment. And in her forbearance she acted from instinct rather than from reason, for she never even thought of interfering between these platonists. So, outwardly at least, she was calm. But this calmness could not last. Her heart was bleeding, burning, breaking! and its prisoned flood of fire and blood must burst forth at length. The volcano seems quiet; but the pent up lava in its bosom must at last give forth mutterings of its impending irruption, and swiftly upon these mutterings must follow flames and ruin!

It happened thus with Sybil.

One morning, when the weather was too threatening to permit any one to indulge in an outdoor walk, it chanced that Lyon and Sybil Berners were sitting together at a centre-table in the parlor--Lyon reading the morning paper; Sybil _trying_ to read a new magazine--when Rosa Blondelle, with her flowing, azure-hued robes and her floating golden locks, and her beaming smiles, entered the room and seated herself at the table, saying sweetly:

"My dear Mrs. Berners, is it to-morrow that you and I have arranged to drive out and return the calls that were made upon us?"

"Yes, madam," politely replied Sybil.

"Then, dear Mr. Berners, I shall have to ask you to write a few visiting-cards for me. I have not an engraved one in the world. But you write such a beautiful hand, that your writing will look like copper-plate. You will oblige me?" she inquired, smiling, and placing a pack of blank cards before him.

"With the greatest pleasure," answered Lyon Berners, promptly putting aside his paper.

Rosa turned to leave the room.

"Will you not remain with us?" courteously inquired Sybil.

"No, dear; much as I should like to do so," replied Rosa.

"But why?" inquired Lyon Berners, looking disappointed.

"Oh! because I have my dress to see about. We are far from all fashionable modistes here; but I must try to do honor to madam's masquerade for all that," laughed Rosa, as she pa.s.sed gracefully out of the room.

With a sigh that seemed to his sorrowing wife to betray his regret for the beauty's departure, Lyon Berners drew the packet of blank cards before him, scattered them in a loose heap on his left hand, and then selecting one at a time, began to write. As he carefully wrote upon and finished each card, he as carefully laid it on his right hand, until a little heap grew there.

Sybil, who gloried in all her husband's accomplishments, from the greatest to the least, admired very much his skill in ornamental chirography. She drew her chair closer to the table, and took up the topmost card, and began to decipher, rather than to read, the name in the beautiful old English characters, so tangled in a thicket of rose-buds and forget-me-nots as to be scarcely legible. She looked closely and more closely at the name on the card.

What was there in it to drive all the color from her cheeks?

She s.n.a.t.c.hed up and scrutinized a second card, a third, a fourth; then, springing to her feet, she seized the whole ma.s.s, hurled them into the fire, and turned, and confronted her husband.

Her teeth were clenched upon her bloodless lips, her face seemed marble, her eyes lambent flames.