By degrees Hortense succ.u.mbed to her disease. There were no happy revivals of her old mood now; no flickering of the old vitality that had brightened other lives besides her own.

She dozed nearly all day long, speaking very little and hardly heeding the questions that were breathed into her ears. The April thaw had set in and the air was moist and chilly. There was something cloudy and oppressive in the very atmosphere one breathed, but as the days wore on the sunshine grew warmer and brighter, and the birds hopping from twig to twig cleared their little throats and sang forth a merry greeting to the advancing summer-time.

The sunshine that flooded the world without grew warmer and brighter, it is true, but the sunshine of hope that gladdens sorrow-stricken human hearts in hours of wearisome suspense became colder and dimmer as each new day confirmed the painful fears of Hortense's friends concerning her ultimate recovery.

The time had at last arrived when death's dreadful warning rested on every feature of her wasted countenance. We no longer exchanged cheerful glances of mutual encouragement as we glided in and out of her chamber. All was solemn and silent as the awful visitor whose advent was now unmistakably and hopelessly announced.

There were tears, and sobs, and aching hearts that could not plead to Hope now, for Hope had grown powerless and pa.s.sive; and so we waited in sorrow and suspense for the dismal day that was so surely at hand, praying and watching with our loved one while the flame faintly flickered with a dying effort within her soul.

May came--the bright, golden month of song and sunshine--and still the faint flame flickered, leaping up at times with a delusive strength and activity, then sinking down again until it almost expired forever.

One afternoon I returned late. I had gone out into the fields in search of a handful of Mayflowers. I thought they might bring a smile to my darling's lips, and for hours I had wandered about the open country searching amid the tender early blades for violets--white or blue.

I was coming back as, the sun began to set, feeling tired and low-spirited. I had found but a few little flowers, for the season was late, and I was eager to reach my destination with them while the freshness of their beauty glowed on their tiny leaves. When I stole to her room, however, the door was partly closed, and Bayard was walking slowly up and down the corridor outside.

"You cannot go in now," he said in a whisper, laying one hand tenderly upon my shoulder, "Father Douglas is with her. Go and wait in the little front room," he added "I will call you when she is alone again."

I turned softly around, and crept on tip-toe to the sitting-room, at the end of the pa.s.sage; the door was partly open, and I glided in noiselessly. In an easy chair, by the open window, with his back towards me, sat Ernest Dalton, alone.

He did not hear me, and I stood with my hand upon the cas.e.m.e.nt, wondering what I had better do: it was only for a moment, however. He was not the same man to me now, with whom I had parted so strangely, after my father's death; he was neither Hortense's lover nor mine, but a good friend to us both; he was my guardian, and the only father I had left.

It seemed strange to me, at that instant, that I ever should have looked upon him differently, I, who had sat upon his knee in my childhood, and cried myself to sleep within his arms, why should I shrink from him now, when his shoulders were bending with their burden of sorrow, and his hair growing silver, with the bitter touches of time?

By right, he should have been my father! My poor mother had loved him so! perhaps he was thinking of her, as he sat there, looking vacantly out towards the west. I stole my hand from the cas.e.m.e.nt, and crept towards him slowly and gently. Still he did not heed me, he was sunk in a reverie too profound; a little footstool lay on the floor at his feet, I dropped myself quietly upon it, and looked up with a smile into his face.

"Mr. Dalton!" was all I could say at the moment.

He started, as if from sleep, and turned his sad blue eyes upon me, with a quiet wonder.

"It is you little Amey, is it?" he said, at length, taking both my hands and bending down towards me. "How are you, little one; are you well and happy?"

"I am not little Amey any more, Mr. Dalton," I answered, with my hands still in his, and my eyes turned up to his good, honest face. "I have grown into a great woman since I saw you last; I have learned many things--sorrowful things; they have told me the story of my mother's life, and it has changed the whole nature of my own."

"They have told you?--did they tell you all?" he asked in a low, tremulous voice.

"Yes, everything," I answered warmly; "Mrs. Nyle has given me every detail."

He looked at me steadily for a moment in silence, and the tears gathered in his blue eyes--but they did not fall. When they had gone back again he drew the footstool nearer, and began to stroke my hair with one gentle hand.

"Amey," he said, "I have been waiting for this day through many a long and lonely year. I might have hastened it, I suppose, but I could not--however, perhaps it is time enough now. You know, now," he continued, taking my hands in his again and holding them firmly together, "why I have watched you, and followed your progress through childhood and girlhood, into your blooming womanhood. You know why I shared your little joys and sorrows in your youth; why I persuaded your father to send you to Notre Dame, when I saw how miserable your life was at home. During your absence I managed to find out the only surviving relative I knew you had. I feared a day might come when you would find yourself in need of such a friend, and indeed such came to pa.s.s. When you returned from school I met you in the Hartmanns' ball room; I had come in late on the evening train, and found an invitation among my letters; I knew you had come home, and expected to find you there, so I hastened thither, and saw you, as you know, first when you were dancing, and next in the conservatory. I shall never forget how you looked that night, Amey; it was as if time had rolled its iron portals back, and that forth from the buried past came the dearest and holiest a.s.sociations of my life. I saw in you, as plainly as if the 'loved and lost' one her self had stood before me, the image proud and beautiful, of my first and only love."

"My mother?" I faltered.

"Your mother," he repeated.

"I remember now," I said, with slow, sad emphasis, "that papa looked strangely at me that night too, and did what he had not done for years before, he kissed me kindly and tenderly, and muttered something about my being the 'image of his happy past,' and of his never having seen 'such a likeness before.'"

"It is little wonder, child," Mr. Dalton answered, looking wistfully into the s.p.a.ce between us. "He loved her, too, poor Hampden--every one did--but I loved her first, and best--yes, I know I loved her best.

How I watched your every look and tone and gesture at this time, Amey," he exclaimed eagerly, "they were constantly bringing back my vanished youth, and casting fitful gleams of sunshine across my wintry track. And you took to me. I could see the reflection of the old love-light, faint though it was, in the eyes that were only like hers, and not really hers--yes it was a living pledge of her early love each time you watched for me, and welcomed me, or singled me out in a crowded room from all the rest. It was her inheritance, that she left you, wherewith to gladden the life that Fate had urged her to darken,--and you did it, my little one, though it could never be quite the same."

"I loved you, and watched you jealously, G.o.d knows I did, but it was not with that other dead love, which shall never be revived on earth.

In the sight of heaven we belonged to one another, a pledge is a pledge, in spite of all the subterfuges and impediments of destiny, and we were pledged to one another. Therefore do I weep my widowed love, as if men had called her mine, as well as heaven."

"You were the only living reminder of my past to me, and as such I cherished and guarded you. One day I almost forgot that you were only what you are to me--it was the anniversary of that betrothal day, and though the winter wind blew cold and fierce without, something of the old fire glowed anew within my breast. I said to myself as I sauntered along the quiet street, 'I will go and see my _other_ Amey, in commemoration of this eventful day, perhaps she will smile a familiar smile and speak words of kindness, like those my heart remembers, of long ago.'"

"I went up to the house and asked, as usual, for your father," he said, breaking into a sad smile. "They told me he was in his library, and with the privileges of an old friend I walked unceremoniously in.

It was nearly dark there, and the fire was smouldering quietly among the gathering ashes, there was a lounge drawn up before it, on which my 'other' Amey lay sleeping. My coming in did not disturb her; she never moved, one hand was thrown carelessly over her shapely head, the other hung down beside her, a rich red glow was on each pretty cheek and the shadow of a smile upon the lips so like those silent sealed ones that twenty odd years before had spoken their love into my listening ear.

"I looked down upon her, scarcely daring to breathe, lest the spell be broken. We were alone in the room--we two, and it was a day pregnant with stirring remembrances for me. Even supposing the spirit of my loved and lost one kept guard beside her sleeping child, would she check the honest impulse that seized me at that moment? Would she cover the unconscious lips, that in deepest reverence and most hallowed and respectful love I stooped and kissed? Would she, Amey--tell me do you think she would?" he pleaded, with a wistful sadness.

"I don't think so, Mr. Dalton," I replied in solemn earnest. "If things had been otherwise, no one would have had a better right to do so than you. Even as it is, your faithful, I may say religious, love for my poor angel-mother recommends you before all others to my everlasting esteem and affection. Besides--" I added a little playfully--"I am your G.o.d-child, you know!"

"I have not forgotten it, bless you '" he answered. "You have her spirit in you," he then muttered, as if in soliloquy, and then went on to say--

"It was on that day, that I lost this little amulet of mine--this priceless treasure, with the image of her beauty within, I have worn it for twenty years and more, I shall wear it until I die! I knew I lost it in that library, and used to a.s.sure myself that it was safe, though I would not mention it to any one. At last, you returned it to me, and I restored it to its accustomed place. It is all I will have, in a little while, when Arthur Campbell has taken you away from me."

I have never been able to say very much in the trying moments of my life, and so when Mr. Dalton's story was ended, I only looked out of the window upon the gathering twilight, listening to the echo of his plaintive accents, as they settled down upon my heart forever. After a pause, he spoke again:--"You have promised to marry Campbell, have you not?" he asked.

"Yes Mr. Dalton, I think he is a worthy fellow, don't you?" I replied.

"He is Amey, he is. I trust you will both be happy," was the distracted rejoinder, and then Bayard knocked timidly at the door; I knew what the summons meant and starting to my feet at once, I went and obeyed it.

CHAPTER XIX.

It was my last vigil by Hortense's bed-side--for, when morning came with its glad sun-beams, her spirit had pa.s.sed away--there was no struggle, no pain, only a sinking to rest, a falling to sleep; a quiet transit from life's worrying turmoil, into the hallowed peace of death!

With a handful of fresh violets, and a cross upon her breast, a lily, white and newly-gathered, in her hand, the emblem of that purity in which her eternal sleep had overtaken her, she lay within the quiet precincts of her little room.

Many tears were shed, and many sighs were heaved about her! So young, so fresh a flower in life's great garden, lying before us with its broken stem!

We bade her our last farewell, and resigned her to the grave; I, who had loved her with all the intimate intensity of a glowing friendship, kissed her cold lips again and again, and turned away from her, forever. Mr. Dalton wiped the moisture from his eyes, as he stooped over the coffin lid, and touched her brow, fondly but reverently, with his trembling lips, Mdme. de Beaumont fell upon the prostrate figure of her darling, and in their last mortal embrace, swooned away! Bayard leaning slowly over her, with a face almost as pallid as her own, muttered in feeble sobs--"My angel! my guardian angel!" and with one long, lingering kiss, the last he could ever give her, he turned from her, baptized anew in her self-abnegating love, a conscious and contrite penitent.

When the funeral was over and peace and quiet were in a measure restored to the agitated hearts of her mother and Bayard, I made my silent preparations to depart. Mr. Dalton had left before me. Madame de Beaumont parted from me with the greatest reluctance, and indeed, I was not over anxious to leave her so soon after her severe bereavement, but my duty now lay elsewhere.

It was with the greatest profusion of grat.i.tude and expressions of the deepest appreciation and regard, that Bayard and his mother bade me their last farewells. We went together to Hortense's grave in the morning, and prayed awhile; I plucked one little sprig of early clover that had struggled into bloom above her, and carried it away with me as the last parting souvenir of my deeply lamented friend.

When I returned to the comfort and quiet of Cousin Bessie's home, from which I had been estranged for many months, I began to feel the re-action of all my recent exertions setting in. I struggled against it with all the violence of a perverse inclination to combat it, but I was baffled; I grew weaker day by day, and at length succ.u.mbed to the depressing influence of a slow fever.

How good, and generous and thoughtful, dear Cousin Bessie proved herself a thousand times over during my tedious illness. Never complaining, never impatient, though at times I was so peevish and trying, night after night she tended me with her own loving hands, cheering me up when I was disposed to be gloomy, with the happiest of predictions about my near recovery. At last, I began to show the effects of her careful nursing, and was well enough to be helped downstairs by Girly, or Zita or some one of that loving household--and even here their untiring solicitude pursued me; there was no end to the diversity of the distractions they provided for me, foremost among which was an invitation written by Louis urging Arthur Campbell to come and spend a few weeks at the house.

Cousin Bessie has most seriously maintained to this day that we treated her very shabbily on this occasion; she declares she shall never forgive Arthur, but she says it so good-humouredly that I am tempted to suspect her sincerity.

That she should have brought us together in the fulness and generosity of her heart, and that we should have taken advantage of the opportunity she afforded us of enjoying one another's company from morning until night, to plot and plan a speedy escape from her immediate guardianship, seemed to her a selfish and ungrateful return for so great a favour.