CHAPTER LXI.
Yes, Sweetheart had gone away from Verelands, where she had been so unutterably happy, and where such blighting sorrow and disgrace had fallen upon her life.
She had not waited to be thrust out-of-doors by the hands of her vindictive foe; she had gone herself, creeping forth with bowed head and unsteady steps at the earliest dawn of day. In her arms she carried her sleeping child; but she did not go to the river, as Camille ardently hoped she would; and the fear of such a tragedy was soon dissipated in Norman’s mind by the reception of a letter which Sweetheart had left for him with one of the servants—a letter scrawled in a trembling hand, barely like her own, so terrible was her agitation. Sweetheart had written it upon her knees, being so weak that she could not sit upright to pen the incoherent lines to the man of whom she was taking so bitter a farewell. In it she had inclosed her unfinished verses, and Norman read them through a mist of tears, the bitterest he had ever shed in his shadowed life.
“This is what I was writing, when she—your wife, whom we thought dead—came back and set the seal of shame and despair on the short story of my life:“’Tis midnight, my darling, the house is so lonely—All, all are asleep but me;I waken to weep, ah, beloved, if only—If only I were with thee!But the swift hours are bearing thee further away,The swift hours whose flight my poor heart can not stay;Come back to me, darling, my eager heart cries,And the bitter tears rush from my heart to my eyes.”“You see, Norman, I was feeling very, very unhappy over your absence. It must have been a presentiment of evil. When she first said that she was your wife, I could not believe it. But when Nurse Mary came home from the party, I told her all. She had seen your wife when she lived at Verelands long ago. She went upstairs and looked at the two women, and she came back to me weeping. She had recognized them both. There was no longer any doubt, no longer any hope for me.“So I am going away, Norman, but do not add to your troubles the fear lest I shall drown myself, as your wife advised me to do. I am quite wretched enough to do it, but you will have sorrow enough to bear without that. And I can not throw away my life, because you saved it, and I hold it sacred to you. But you will never see me again. I shall go far away with my child, and live out my unhappy life in silence and obscurity. I have given trouble enough to that poor creature upstairs. Be kind to her, Norman, for the loss of your love seems to have driven her mad.“Oh, how good you have been to me, Norman! She told me all. Even in my babyhood it was my fate to come between your heart and hers. How could she believe that cruel story, and you so noble and so good? But it was her jealous nature. For me, I could not see a fault in you if the whole world bore witness. I have loved you and believed in you always. My heart went to you the first time I saw you on that mysterious journey when you saved my life. It never left you. It remains with you now, while I go out of your life forever. May it be a talisman to guard you from all evil.“I have no fault to find with you, Norman, although you did not marry me for love, but to shield me from a hideous slander. It was very noble in you, and you carried out the farce of love so well I never knew the difference. I shall try to cheat my heart with the fancy that you did learn to love me a little—at least, after Baby Alan came, of whom you were so proud, and now, alas! poor little one.“Farewell, Norman. Perhaps you may learn to forgive her and love her again. I shall pray always for your happiness, but you must forget poor“Sweetheart.”
“This is what I was writing, when she—your wife, whom we thought dead—came back and set the seal of shame and despair on the short story of my life:
“’Tis midnight, my darling, the house is so lonely—All, all are asleep but me;I waken to weep, ah, beloved, if only—If only I were with thee!But the swift hours are bearing thee further away,The swift hours whose flight my poor heart can not stay;Come back to me, darling, my eager heart cries,And the bitter tears rush from my heart to my eyes.”
“’Tis midnight, my darling, the house is so lonely—All, all are asleep but me;I waken to weep, ah, beloved, if only—If only I were with thee!But the swift hours are bearing thee further away,The swift hours whose flight my poor heart can not stay;Come back to me, darling, my eager heart cries,And the bitter tears rush from my heart to my eyes.”
“’Tis midnight, my darling, the house is so lonely—All, all are asleep but me;I waken to weep, ah, beloved, if only—If only I were with thee!But the swift hours are bearing thee further away,The swift hours whose flight my poor heart can not stay;Come back to me, darling, my eager heart cries,And the bitter tears rush from my heart to my eyes.”
“’Tis midnight, my darling, the house is so lonely—
All, all are asleep but me;
I waken to weep, ah, beloved, if only—
If only I were with thee!
But the swift hours are bearing thee further away,
The swift hours whose flight my poor heart can not stay;
Come back to me, darling, my eager heart cries,
And the bitter tears rush from my heart to my eyes.”
“You see, Norman, I was feeling very, very unhappy over your absence. It must have been a presentiment of evil. When she first said that she was your wife, I could not believe it. But when Nurse Mary came home from the party, I told her all. She had seen your wife when she lived at Verelands long ago. She went upstairs and looked at the two women, and she came back to me weeping. She had recognized them both. There was no longer any doubt, no longer any hope for me.
“So I am going away, Norman, but do not add to your troubles the fear lest I shall drown myself, as your wife advised me to do. I am quite wretched enough to do it, but you will have sorrow enough to bear without that. And I can not throw away my life, because you saved it, and I hold it sacred to you. But you will never see me again. I shall go far away with my child, and live out my unhappy life in silence and obscurity. I have given trouble enough to that poor creature upstairs. Be kind to her, Norman, for the loss of your love seems to have driven her mad.
“Oh, how good you have been to me, Norman! She told me all. Even in my babyhood it was my fate to come between your heart and hers. How could she believe that cruel story, and you so noble and so good? But it was her jealous nature. For me, I could not see a fault in you if the whole world bore witness. I have loved you and believed in you always. My heart went to you the first time I saw you on that mysterious journey when you saved my life. It never left you. It remains with you now, while I go out of your life forever. May it be a talisman to guard you from all evil.
“I have no fault to find with you, Norman, although you did not marry me for love, but to shield me from a hideous slander. It was very noble in you, and you carried out the farce of love so well I never knew the difference. I shall try to cheat my heart with the fancy that you did learn to love me a little—at least, after Baby Alan came, of whom you were so proud, and now, alas! poor little one.
“Farewell, Norman. Perhaps you may learn to forgive her and love her again. I shall pray always for your happiness, but you must forget poor
“Sweetheart.”
“My God, I must find her! She can not go out of my life like this, my love—my wife in the sight of Heaven, whatever man’s laws may say to the contrary! Our child, our darling, puts a holier seal on our marriage—makes it more binding than the irksome time that bound me to that fiend Camille,” the stricken man raved aloud in his agony of despair.