“Men are always disproportionately bitter,” she said, to herself. “It is their way to make themselves heard when they are hurt. They seem to have a kind of pride in their pain. Any ordinarily clever woman could see that my lord of the studio had a grievance.”
“Lisbeth,” said Mrs. Despard, breaking in upon her reverie, “isn’t it rather astonishing how that boy has improved?”
“He has improved,” said Lisbeth, “because he has ceased to be a boy. He is a man in these days.”
“And a very personable and entertaining man, I must say,” returned Mrs. Despard, nodding her head, in approval of him. “He is positively handsome. And that luncheon was a very pretty, graceful affair, and quite unique. I shall pay him a visit again one of these fine days.”
Being thus installed as one of Mrs. Despard’s favorites, it was not at all singular that they should see a great deal of the young gentleman. And they did see him pretty often. Gradually he forgot his objection to meeting Lisbeth, and rather sneered in secret at the violence of that first shock of repulsion. It was all over, now, he said, and why should such a woman trouble him? Indeed, what greater proof of his security could he give himself than the fact that he could meet her almost daily, and still feel indifferent? It must be confessed that he rather prided himself upon his indifference. He was drawn also into greater familiarity with the household through Georgie Esmond. For, in expressing her wish to make friends with Lisbeth, Georgie had been sincere, as was her habit. A very short time after the luncheon her first visit was made, and the first visit was the harbinger of many others. “Mamma,” who was her daughter’s chief admiration, came with her, and “mamma” was as much charmed, in her way, as Georgie had been in hers. It was impossible for Lisbeth to help pleasing people when she was in the right mood; and Mrs. Esmond and Georgie invariably put her in the right mood. She could not help showing her best side to these two sweet natures.
Thus a friendship arose which, in the course of time, became a very close one. Colonel Esmond’s house was luxurious and pleasant, and everybody’s heart opened to a favorite of Georgie’s. Accordingly, Lisbeth’s niche in the family was soon found. It was rather agreeable to go among people who admired and were ready to love her, so she went pretty often. In fact, Georgie kept firm hold upon her. There appeared always some reason why it was specially necessary that Lisbeth should be with her. She had visitors, or she was alone and wanted company; she had some new music and wanted Lisbeth’s help, or she had found some old songs Lisbeth must try—Lisbeth, whose voice was so exquisite. Indeed, it was Lisbeth, Lisbeth, Lisbeth, from week to week, until more than one of Miss Esmond’s admirers wished that there had been no such person as Miss Crespigny in the world. As Anstruthers had said, Miss Georgie Esmond was quite a belle, in this the first year of herreign, and if she had been so inclined, it was generally believed that she might have achieved some very brilliant social triumphs, indeed. But I am afraid that she had the bad taste not to aspire as she might have done.
“I don’t want to be uncharitable,” she had said, innocently, to her friend. “And I don’t in the least believe the things people often say about society—the things Hector says, for instance; but really, Lisbeth, I have sometimes thought that the life behind all the glare and glitter was just the least bit stupid and hollow. I know I should get dreadfully tired of it, if I had nothing else to satisfy me; no real home-life, and no true, single-hearted, close friends to love, like you and mamma.”
It made Lisbeth wince, this pretty speech. Georgie Esmond often made her wince.
And Mr. Hector Anstruthers discovered this fact before any great length of time had passed, and the discovery awakened in him divers new sensations.
He had looked on at the growing friendship with a secret sneer; but the sneer was not at Georgie. Honestly, he liked the girl something the better for her affectionate credulity; nothing could contaminate her, not even Lisbeth Crespigny. But sometimes, just now and then,he found it a trifle difficult to control himself, and resist the impulse to be openly sarcastic.
He encountered this difficulty in special force one evening about a month after the studio luncheon. The girls had spent the afternoon together, and, dinner being over, Lisbeth was singing one of Georgie’s favorite songs. It was a love song, too, for though Miss Georgie had as yet had no practical experience in the matter of love, she had some very pretty ideas of that tender passion, and was very fond of love songs, and poems, and love stories, such as touched her heart, and caused her to shed a few gentle tears. And this song was a very pretty one, indeed. “All for love, and the world well lost,” was the burden of its guileless refrain. All for love, love which is always true, and always tender, and never deceives us. What is the world, it demanded, what is life, what rest can we find if we have not love? The world is our garden, and love is the queen of roses, its fairest bloom. Let us gather what flowers we may, but, oh, let us gather the rose first, and tend it most delicately. It will give its higher beauty to our lives; it will make us more fit for heaven itself; it will shame our selfishness, and help us to forget our sordid longings. All for love, and theworld well lost. And so on, through three or four verses, with a very sweet accompaniment, which Georgie played with great taste.
And Lisbeth was singing, and, as she had a trick of doing, was quite forgetting herself. And her exquisite, full-toned voice rose and fell with a wondrous fervor, and her immense dark eyes glared, and her small pale face glowed, and a little pathetic shadow seemed to rest upon her. So well did she sing, indeed, that one might have fancied that she had done nothing, all her life, but sing just such sweetly sentimental songs, and believe every word of them implicitly; and when she had finished, Georgie’s eyes were full of tears.
“Oh, Lisbeth!” she cried, looking up at her affectionately, “you make everything sound so beautiful and—and true. I could never, never sing in that way. It must be because you can feel beautiful, tender things so deeply, so much more deeply than other people do.”
Lisbeth awoke from her dream suddenly. Hector Anstruthers, who had been standing at the other side of the piano, looked at her with a significance which would have roused her at any time. Their eyes met, and both pair flashed; his with the very intensity of contempt; hers with defiance.
“My dear Georgie,” he said, “I admire your enthusiasm, but scarcely think you quite understand Miss Crespigny. She is one of those fortunate people who cannot help doing things well. It is a habit she has acquired. No sentiment would suffer in her hands, even a sentiment quite opposite to the one she has just illustrated the force of so artistically.”
Georgie looked a little amazed. She did not liked to be chilled when all her gentle emotions were in full play; and, apart from this, did not such a speech sound as if it suggested a doubt of the sincerity of her beloved Lisbeth?
“People cannot teach themselves to be innocent and loving,” she said, almost indignantly. “At least, they cannot be artistically loving and innocent. You cannot make art of truth and faith, and you cannot be generous and kind through nothing but habit. Your heart must be good before you can be good yourself. At least, that is my belief, and I would rather have my beliefs than your cynicisms; and so would Lisbeth, I am sure, even if they are not so brilliant and popular. You are too sarcastic, sir, and you have quite spoiled our pretty song.”
“I did not mean to spoil it,” he answered. “Forgive me, I beg,” with a satirical bow,“and pray favor me with another, that I may learn to believe. Perhaps I shall. I am inclined to think Miss Crespigny could convince a man of anything.”
“You don’t deserve another,” said Georgie. “Does he, Lisbeth?”
“Hardly,” said Lisbeth, who was turning over some music, with an indifferent face. But she sang again nevertheless, and quite as well as she had done before, though it must be admitted that she influenced Georgie to a choice of songs of a less Arcadian nature.
The following morning Anstruthers called to see Mrs. Despard, and found that lady absent, and Miss Crespigny in the drawing-room. Consequently, it fell to Miss Crespigny’s lot to entertain him during his brief visit. He made it as brief as possible; but when he rose to take his leave, to his surprise Lisbeth detained him.
“There is something I should like to say to you,” she began, after she had risen with him.
He paused, hat in hand.
“It is about Georgie—Miss Esmond,” she added.“You were very kind to speak to her of me as you did last night. It was very generous. I feel that I ought to thank you for trying to make her despise me.” And her eyes flashed with an expression not easy to face.
“I ask pardon,” he returned, loftily. “If I had understood that your friendship was of such a nature——”
“If its object had been a man, instead of an innocent girl, you would have understood easily enough, I have no doubt,” she interposed, angrily.
He bowed, with the suspicion of a sneer upon his face.
“Perhaps,” he answered.
“Thank you,” said she. “However, since you need the matter explained, I will explain it. I am fond of Georgie Esmond, and she is fond of me, and I do not choose to lose her affection; so I must resort to the poor expedient of asking you to deny yourself the gratification of treating me contemptuously in her presence. Say what you please when we are alone, as we are sometimes forced to be; but when we are with your cousin, be good enough to remember that she is my friend, and trusts me.”
It was so like the girl Lisbeth, this daring, summary course, this confronting and settling the matter at once, without the least sign of hesitation or reluctance, that he began to feel very uncomfortable. Had he really behavedhimself so badly, indeed? Was it possible that he had allowed himself to appear such a rampant brute as her words implied? He, who so prided himself upon his thoroughbred impassibility?
“I treat you contemptuously!” he exclaimed.
“It is not you I care for,” she answered him. “It is Georgie Esmond.”
He had no resource left but to accept his position, the very humiliating position of a man whose apologies, if he offered any, would be coolly set aside, whose humiliation was of no consequence, and who was expected to receive punishment, like a culprit whose sensations were not for a moment to be regarded.
He left the house feeling angry and helpless, and returning to his chambers, wrote a stinging criticism of a new book. Poor Blanke, who had written the book, received the benefit of the sentiments Miss Crespigny had roused.
On her part, Lisbeth resorted to one of her “humors,” to use Mrs. Despard’s expression. She was out of patience with herself. She had lost her temper almost as soon as she had spoken her first words; and she had been so sure of perfect self-control before she began. That was her secret irritant. Why could she not have managed it better? It was not usualwith her to give way when she was sure of herself.
“Somebody has been here,” said Mrs. Despard, when she came in, and found her sitting, alone with her sewing. “Some one you do not like, or some one who has said something awkward or unpleasant to you.”
“Hector Anstruthers has been here,” was Lisbeth’s answer, but she deigned no further explanation, and did not even lift her eyes as she spoke.
The next time that Georgie found herself alone with Mr. Anstruthers, she read him a very severe little lecture on the subject of his shortcomings.
“I knew that you liked to be satirical, and make fine, cutting speeches,” she said, with the prettiest indignation; “but I did not think you would have gone so far as to be openly rude, and to Lisbeth, of all people! Lisbeth, who is so good, and unselfish, and kind, and who is my dearest friend.”
Hector Anstruthers looked at her sweet face almost mournfully. “Is she good, and unselfish, and kind?” he said. But the question was not a satire. He only asked it in a tender wonder at the girl’s innocent faith.
“There is no one like her. No one so good, unless it is mamma herself,” exclaimed Miss Georgie, with warmth.
“But Lisbeth’s is not a common surface goodness, and I suppose that is the reason that you cannot see it. You, too, who are so far-sightedand clever. I, for one, am glad I am not a genius, if to be a genius one must be blind to everything but the failings of one’s friends. Ah, Hector!” a sudden pity kindling in her gentle breast, as she met his eyes, “Ah, Hector, people often envy you, and call you fortunate, but there are times when I am sorry for you—sorry from my heart.”
“Georgie,” answered the young man, not quite able to control a tremor in his voice, “there are more times than you dream of, when I am sorry for myself.”
“Sorry for yourself?” said Georgie, softening at once. “Then you must be more unhappy than I thought. To be sorry for one’s self, one must be unhappy indeed. But why is it? Why should you be unhappy, after all? Why should you be cynical and unbelieving, Hector? The world has been very good to you, or, as I think we ought to say, God has been very good to you. What have you not got, that you can want? What is there that you lack? Not money, not health, not friends. Isn’t it a little ungrateful to insist on being wretched, when you have so much?”
“Yes,” answered Anstruthers, gloomily. “It is very ungrateful, indeed.”
“Ungrateful? I should think it was,” returnedGeorgie, with her favorite dubious shake of the head. “Ah, poor fellow! I am afraid it is a little misfortune that you need, and I am very sorry to see it.”
It was no marvel that Georgie Esmond was popular. She was one of those charming girls who invariably have a good effect upon people. She was so good herself, so innocent, so honest, so trustful, that she actually seemed to create a sweeter atmosphere wherever she went. The worst of men, while listening to her gentle, bright speeches, felt that the world was not so bad after all, and that there was still sweetness and purity left, to render sin the more shameful by their white contrast. “A fellow wants to forget his worst side, when he is with her,” said one. “She makes a man feel that he would like to hide his shadinesses even from himself.” Her effect upon Hector Anstruthers was a curious, and rather a dangerous one. She made him ashamed of himself, too, and she filled his heart with a tender longing and regret. Had it not been for his experience with Lisbeth, he would have loved the girl passionately. As it was, his affection for her would never be more than a brotherly, though intensely admiring one. He was constantly wishing that Fate had given Georgie to him;Georgie, who seemed to him the purest and loveliest of young home goddesses; Georgie, who would have made his life happy, and pure, and peaceful. If it had only been Georgie instead of Lisbeth. But it had been Lisbeth, and his altar-fires had burned out, and left to him nothing but a waste of cold, gray ashes. And yet, knowing this, he could not quite give Georgie up. The mere sight of her fresh, bright-eyed face was a help to him, and the sound of her voice a balm. He grew fonder of her every day, in his way. Her kindly, little girlish homilies touched and warmed him. As Lisbeth had made him worse, so Georgie Esmond made him better. But the danger! The danger was not for himself, it was for Georgie.
The day was slowly dawning when the girl’s innocent friendship and admiration for him would become something else. When she began to pity him, she began to tread on unsafe ground. She had lived through no miserable experience; she had felt no desolating passion; her heart was all untried, and his evident affection stirred it softly, even before she understood her own feelings. She thought her budding love was pity, and her tenderness sympathy. He had gone wrong, poor fellow, somehow, and she was sorry for him.
“I am sure he does not mean the hard things he sometimes says,” she said to Lisbeth. “I think that satirical way of speaking is more a bad habit than anything else. Mamma thinks so, too, but,” with a little guileless blush, “we are both so fond of him, that we cannot help being sorry that he has fallen into it.”
“It is a sort of fashion in these days,” returned Lisbeth, and she longed to add a scorching little sneer to the brief comment, but she restrained it for Georgie’s sake.
Positively such a thing had become possible. She, who had never restrained her impulses before, had gradually learned to control them for this simple girl’s sake. On the one or two occasions, early in their acquaintance, when she had let her evil spirit get the better of her, the sudden pain and wonder in Georgie’s face had stung her so quickly, that she had resolved to hide her iniquities, at least in her presence. Sometimes she had even wished that she had been softer at heart and less selfish. It was so unpleasant to see herself just as she was, when she breathed that sweet atmosphere of which I have spoken. Georgie Esmond caused her to lose patience with Lisbeth Crespigny, upon more than one occasion.
“I am a hypocrite,” she said to herself. “Ifshe knew me as I am, what would she think of me? What would Mrs. Esmond say if she knew how cavalierly her ‘dear Lisbeth’ had treated those three loving old souls at Pen’yllan? I am gaining everything on false pretenses.” And one night, as she sat combing her hair before her mirror, she added, fiercely, “I am false and selfish all through; and I believe they are teaching me to be ashamed of myself.”
The fact was, these two sweet women, this sweet mother and daughter, were teaching her to be ashamed of herself. She quite writhed under her conviction, for she felt herself convicted. Her self-love was wounded, but the day came when that perfect, obstinate self-confidence, which was her chief characteristic, was not a little shaken.
“I should like to be a better woman,” she would say, in a kind of stubborn anger. “It has actually come to this, that I would be a better woman, if I could, but I cannot. It is not in me. I was not born to be a good woman.”
The more she saw of the Esmonds, the more she learned. The household was such a pleasant one, and was so full of the grace of home and kindly affection. How proud the goodold colonel was of his pretty daughter. How he enjoyed her triumphs, and approved of the taste of her many admirers. How delighted he was to escort her to evening parties, or to the grandest of balls, and to spend the night in watching her dance, and smile, and hold her gay little court, entirely ignoring the fact that his gout was apt to be troublesome, when he wore tight boots instead of his huge slippers. It was quite enough for him that his girl was enjoying herself, and that people were admiring her grace, and freshness, and bloom. How fond the half-dozen small brothers and sisters were of Georgie! and what a comfort and pleasure the girl was to her mother! It was an education to Lisbeth Crespigny to see them all together. It even seemed that in time she fell somewhat into Georgie’s own way of caring for other people. How could she help caring for the kind hearts that beat so warmly toward her. Then, through acquiring, as it were, a habit of graciousness, she remembered things she had almost forgotten. If she was not born to be a good woman, why not try and smooth the fact over a little, was her cynical fancy. Why not give the three good spinsters at Pen’yllan the benefit of her new experience? It would be so little trouble to gladden theirhearts. So, with an impatient pity for herself and them, she took upon herself the task of writing to them oftener, and at greater length; and frequently. Before her letters were completed, she found herself touched somewhat, and even prompted to be a trifle more affectionate than had been her wont. A poor little effort to have made, but the dear, simple souls at Pen’yllan greeted the change with tenderest joy, and Aunt Millicent, and Aunt Clarissa, and Aunt Hetty, each shed tears of ecstasy in secret—in secret, because, to have shed them openly, would have been to admit to one another that they had each felt their dear Lisbeth’s former letters to be cold, or at least not absolutely all that could be desired.
“So like dear, dear Philip’s own child,” said Miss Clarissa, who was generally the family voice. “You know how often I have remarked, sister Henrietta, that our dear Lisbeth was like brother Philip in every respect, even though at times she is, perhaps, a little more—a little more reserved, as it were. Her nature, I am sure, is most affectionate.”
That fortunate and much-caressed young man, Mr. Hector Anstruthers, not only met Miss Crespigny frequently, but heard much of her. Imperfect as she may appear to us, whosit in judgment upon her, the name of her admirers was Legion. Her intimacy with the Esmonds led her into very gay and distinguished society, far more illustrious society than Mrs. Despard’s patronage had been able to afford her. And having this, her little peculiarities did the rest. Her immense, dusky eyes; her small, pale, piquant face; her self-possession; her wit, and her numerous capabilities, attracted people wondrously. Even battered old beaux, who had outlived two or three generations of beauties, and who were fastidious accordingly, found an indescribable charm in this caustic, clever young person who was really not a beauty at all, if measured according to the usual standard. She was too small, too pale, too odd; but then where could one find such great, changeable, dark eyes, such artistic taste, such masses of fine hair, such a voice?
“And, apart from that,” it was said of her,“there is something else. Hear her talk, by Jove! See how she can manage a man, when she chooses to take the trouble; see how little she cares for the fine speeches that would influence other women. See her dance, hear her sing, and you will begin to understand her. A fellow can never tire of her, for she is everything she has the whim to be, and she is everything equally well.”
“So she is, Heaven knows,” Hector Anstruthers muttered, bitterly, looking across the room at her, as she stood talking to Colonel Esmond. Old Denbigh’s laudatory speech fell upon his ears with a significance of its own. She could be anything she chose so long as her whim lasted; and there was the end of it. It all meant nothing. She was as false when she played her pretty part for the benefit of the Esmonds, young and old, as when she encouraged these dandies, and ensnared them. With Georgie she took up therôleofingénue, that was all. She was bad through and through. He felt all this sincerely, this night, when he heard the men praising her, and he was savage accordingly.
But how was it, the very next night, when he dropped in to see Mrs. Despard, and surprised the syren, reading a letter of Miss Clarissa’s, and reading it in the strangest of moods, reading it with a pale face, and heavy, wet lashes.
She did not pretend to hide the traces of her mental disturbance. She did not condescend to take the trouble. She evidently resented his appearance as untimely, but she greeted him with indifferent composure.
“Mrs. Despard will come down, as soon as she hears that you are here,” she said, and then proceeded to fold the letter, and replace it in its envelope; and thus he saw that it bore the Pen’yllan post-mark.
What did such a whim as this mean? he asked himself, impatiently, taking in at a glance the new expression in her face, and the heaviness of her gloomy eyes. This was not one of her tricks. There was no one here to see her, and even if there had been, what end could sheserve by crying over a letter from Pen’yllan? What, on earth, had she been crying for? He had never seen her shed a tear before in his life. He had often thought that such a thing was impossible, she was so hard. Could it be that she was not really so hard, after all, and that those three innocent old women could reach her heart? But the next minute he laughed at the absurdity of the idea, and Lisbeth, chancing to raise her eyes, and coolly fixing them on his face at that moment, saw his smile.
“What is the matter?” she asked.
A demon took possession of him at once. What if he should tell her, and see how she would answer? They knew each other. Why should they keep up this pretense of being nothing but ordinary acquaintances, with no unpleasant little drama behind?
“I was thinking what an amusing blunder I had been on the verge of making,” he said.
She did not answer, but still kept her eyes fixed upon him.
“I was trying to account for your sadness, on the same grounds that I would account for sadness in another woman. I was almost inclined to believe that something, in your letter, had touched your heart, as it might havetouched Georgie Esmond’s. But I checked myself in time.”
“You checked yourself in time,” she said, slowly. “That was a good thing.”
There was a brief silence, during which he felt that, as usual, he had gained nothing by his sarcasm; and then suddenly she held out her mite of a hand, with Miss Clarissa’s letter in it, rather taking him aback.
“Would you like to read it?” she said. “Suppose you do. Aunt Clarissa is an old friend of yours. She speaks of you as affectionately as ever.”
He could not comprehend the look she wore when she said this. It was a queer, calculating look, and had a meaning of its own; but it was a riddle he could not read.
“Take it,” she said, seeing that he hesitated. “I mean what I say. I want you to read it all. It may do you good.”
So, feeling uncomfortable enough, he took it. And before he had read two pages, it had affected him just as Lisbeth had intended that it should. The worst of us must be touched by pure, unselfish goodness. Miss Clarissa’s simple, affectionate outpourings to her dear Lisbeth were somewhat pathetic in their way. She was so grateful for the tenderness of theirdear girl’s last letter, so sweet-tempered were her ready excuses for its rather late arrival, her kind old heart was plainly so wholly dedicated to the perfections of the dear girl in question, that by the time Anstruthers had reached the conclusion of the epistle he found himself indescribably softened in mind, though he really could not have told why. He did not think that he had softened toward Lisbeth herself, but it was true, nevertheless, that he had softened toward her, in a secretly puzzled way.
Lisbeth had risen from her seat, and was standing before him, when he handed back the letter, and she met his eyes just as she had done before.
“They are very fond of me, you see,” she said. “They even believe that I have a real affection for them. They think I am capable of it, just as Georgie Esmond does. Poor Georgie! Poor Aunt Clarissa! Poor Aunt Millicent! Poor everybody, indeed!” And she suddenly ended, and turned away from him, toward the fire.
But in a minute more she spoke again.
“I wonder if I am capable of it,” she said. “I wonder if I am.”
He could only see her side face, but something in her tone roused him to a vehement reply.
“God knows,” he said, “I do not. I do not understand you, and never shall.”
She turned to him abruptly then, and let him see her whole face, pale, with a strange, excited pallor, her eyes wide, and sparkling, and wet.
“That is true,” she said. “You do not understand. I do not understand myself, but—Well, I have told you lies enough before, when it has suited me. Now, I will tell you the truth, for once. Your blunder was not such a blunder, after all. My heart has been touched, just as a better woman’s might have been—almost as Georgie’s might have been. And this letter touched it—this effusion of poor Aunt Clarissa’s; and that was why I was crying when you came into the room—why I am crying now.” And having made this unlooked-for confession, she walked out of the room, just as Mrs. Despard came in.
On his next visit to his friends, the Esmonds, Mr. Anstruthers found the pretty head of the lovely Miss Georgie full of a new project. Had he not heard the news? She was going to Pen’yllan with Lisbeth, and they were to stay with the Misses Tregarthyn. Miss Clarissa had written the kindest letter, the dearest, most affectionate letter, as affectionate asif she had known her all her life. Wasn’t it delightful?
“So much nicer, you know, than going to some stupid, fashionable place,” said Miss Georgie, with bright eyes, and the brightest of fresh roses on her cheeks. “Not that I am so ungrateful as to abuse poor old Brighton, and the rest; but this will be something new.”
“And new things are always better than old ones,” suggested Anstruthers.
“Some new things always are,” answered Georgie, with spirit. “New virtues, for instance, are better than old follies. New resolutions to be charitable, instead of old tendencies to be harsh. New——”
“I give it up!” interposed Hector. “And I will agree with you. I always agree with you, Georgie,” in a softer tone.
The poor, pretty face bloomed into blush-rose color, and the sweet eyes met his with innocent trouble.
“Not always,” said Georgie. “You don’t agree with me when I tell you that you are not as good as you ought to be—as you might be, if you would try.”
“Am I such a bad fellow, then?” drawing nearer to her. “Ah, Georgie! etc., etc.——” until, in fact, he wandered off in spite of himself,into that most dangerous ground, of which I have already spoken.
Actually, within the last few days, the idea had occurred to him, that, perhaps—possibly, just possibly—he would not be going so far wrong, if he let himself drift into a gentle passion for Georgie. Perhaps, after all, he could give her a better love than he had ever given to Lisbeth Crespigny. It would be a quieter love. Was not a man’s second love always quieter than the first, and at the same time was it not always more endurable and deep? But perhaps he could make it a love worthy of her. Mind you, he was not shallow or coarse enough to think that anything would do; any mock sentiment, any semblance of affection. It was only that he longed to anchor himself somehow, and admired and trusted this warm-souled young creature so earnestly, that he instinctively turned toward her. She was far too good for him, he told himself, and it was only her goodness that could help her to overlook his many faults; but perhaps she would overlook them; and perhaps, in time, out of the ashes of that wretched passion of his youth, might arise a phœnix, fair enough to be worthy of her womanhood.
So he was something more tender, and so hisnew tenderness showed itself in his handsome face, and in a certain regret that he was to lose what Pen’yllan and the Misses Tregarthyn were to gain.
“Will you let me come to see you?” he asked, at last. “Will you——”
But there he stopped, remembering Lisbeth. How would she like such a plan?
“Why should you not?” said Georgie, with a pleased blush. “I have heard you say that the Misses Tregarthyn have asked you again and again. And they seem so fond of you; and I am sure mamma and papa would be quite glad if you would run down and look at us, and then run back and tell them all the news. And as to Lisbeth, Lisbeth never objects to anything. I think she likes you well enough when you are good. Come, by all means.” And she seemed to regard his proposition as so natural and pleasant, that he had no alternative but to profess to regard it as such himself; and so it was agreed upon, that, in course of time, he should follow them to Pen’yllan.
Indeed, he drifted so far this evening, that there is no knowing how sad a story this of mine might have been, if the fates had not been kinder to pretty Georgie Esmond than they are to the generality of people. Surely it must have been because she deserved something better than the fortune of a disappointed woman, that chance interposed in her behalf before she went to sleep that night.
She had enjoyed herself very much during Hector’s visit. She had sung her sweetest songs, and had been in the brightest of good spirits. Indeed, she had been very happy, and perhaps had felt her innocent, warm heart stirred a little, once or twice, by the young man’s tender speeches, though she was very far from being in the frame of mind to analyze the reasons for her gentle pleasure.
When her visitor had taken his departure, she came to the colonel’s arm-chair, and possibly feeling somewhat conscience-stricken, because she had left “papa” to his own resourcesfor so long a time, she applied herself to the task of petting him in her most seductive manner.
“You are very quiet, papa,” she said, settling herself upon a footstool, at his side. “I hope you are not going to have the gout again, darling. Mamma, what shall we do with him, if he insists on having the gout, when I am going to Pen’yllan? I shall have to stay at home, and so will Lisbeth. He cannot possibly dispense with us, when he has the gout.”
“But I am not going to have the gout,” protested the colonel, stoutly. “I am quite well, my dear; but the fact is—the fact is, I was thinking of a discovery I made this evening—a discovery about Anstruthers.”
“Hector?” exclaimed Georgie, half-unconsciously, and then turned her bright eyes upon the shining fender.
“Yes,” proceeded Colonel Esmond. “Hector himself. I believe I have found out what has changed him so—so deucedly, not to put too fine a point upon it—during the last four or five years. You remember what a frank, warm-hearted lad he was, at three-and-twenty, Jennie?” to Mrs. Esmond.
“Papa,” interposed Georgie, “do you really think he has changed for the worse? In his heart, I mean.”
“He has not changed for the better,” answered the colonel. “But his heart is all right, my dear.”
“I am sure,” said Georgie, a little piteously. “I am sure he is good at heart.”
“Of course he is,” said the colonel. “But he has altered very much, in many respects. And Jennie, my dear, I have discovered that the trouble was the one you hinted at, in the beginning. There was a woman in the case. A woman who treated him shamefully.”
“She must have been very heartless,” said Georgie. “Poor Hector!”
The colonel warmed up.
“She was shamefully heartless, she was disgracefully, unnaturally heartless! Such cold-blooded, selfish cruelty would have been unnatural in a mature woman, and she was nothing more than a school-girl, a mere child. I congratulate myself that I did not learn her name. The man who told me the story had not heard it. If I knew it, and should ever chance to meet her, by George!” with virtuous indignation, “I don’t see how a man of honor could remain in the same room with such a woman.”
And then he poured out what he had heard of the story, and an unpleasant enough sound it had, when related with all the additionalcoloring confidential report had given it. It was bad enough to begin with, but it was worse for having passed through the hands of the men who had gathered it together, by scraps, and odds, and ends, and joined it as they thought best.
“And the worst of it is,” ended Colonel Esmond, “that he has not lived it down, as he fancies he has done. At least there are those who think so. It is said the girl is here in town now, and though they are not friends, Anstruthers cannot keep away from her altogether, and is always most savage and reckless when he has seen her.”
“Poor fellow!” said Georgie, in a low, quiet voice. “Poor Hector!”
But she did not look up at any one, as she spoke. Indeed she had not looked up, even once, during the time in which this unpleasant story had been told.
Having heard it, she confronted it very sensibly. When, indeed, was she not sweet and sensible? While she listened, a hundred past incidents rushed back upon her. She remembered things she had heard Hector say, and things she had seen him do; she remembered certain restless moods of his, certain desperate whims and fancies, and she began to comprehendwhat their meaning was. Her vague fancies of his unhappiness found a firm foundation. He was wretched, and broken in faith, because this cruel girl had robbed him of his honest belief in love, and truth, and goodness. Ah, poor Hector! She did not say very much while the colonel and Mrs. Esmond discussed the matter, but she was thinking very deeply, and when she bade them good night, and went up to her room, there was a sad sort of thoughtfulness in her face.
She did not begin to undress at once, but sat down by her toilet table, and rested her fresh cheek on her hand.
“I wonder who it was?” she said, softly. “Who could it be? Whom did he know when he was three-and-twenty?”
Surely some fate guided her eyes, just at that moment, guided them to the small, half-opened note, lying at her elbow; a note so opened that the signature alone presented itself to her glance. “Your affectionate Lisbeth.”
She gave a little start, and then flushed up with a queer agitation.
“Lisbeth!” she said, “Lisbeth!” And then, with quite a self-reproach in her tone, “Oh, no! Not Lisbeth. How could I say it? Not Lisbeth!” She put out her hand andtook up the note, protestingly. “I could not bear to think it,” she said. “It might be any one else, but not Lisbeth.” And yet the next minute a new thought forced itself upon her, a memory of some words of Lisbeth’s own.
“We were nothing but a couple of children when we met at Pen’yllan,” that young lady had said, a few days before, a trifle cavalierly. “He was only three-and-twenty, and as for me, what was I but a child, a school-girl, not much more than sixteen.”
“But,” protested Georgie, her eyes shining piteously, and the moisture forcing itself into them, “but it might not have been she; and if it was Lisbeth he loved, the story may have been exaggerated. Such stories always are; and if any part of it is true, she was so young, and did not know what she was doing. It was not half so wrong in Lisbeth as it would have been in me, who have had mamma all my life to teach me the difference between right and wrong. She had nobody but the Misses Tregarthyn; and people who are good are not always wise.”
She was not very wise herself, poor, loving, little soul! At least she was not worldly wise. She could not bear the thought of connecting that cruel story with her most precious Lisbeth,in whom she had never yet found a fault. And if it must be connected with her, what excuses might there not be! Oh, she was so sure that it was an exaggerated story, and that, if the truth were known, Lisbeth’s fault had only risen out of Lisbeth’s youth and innocence. She was so disturbed about her friend, that it was quite a long time before she remembered that she had a quiet little pain of her own to contend with, only the ghost of a pain as yet, but a ghost which, but for this timely check, might have been very much harder to deal with than it was.
“I think,” she said, at last, blushing a little at the sound of her own words, “I think that, perhaps, I was beginning to care for Hector more than for any one else; and I am glad that papa told me this, before—before it was too late. I think I should have been more sorry, after a little time, than I am now; and I ought to be thankful. If I did not mean to be sensible, instead of sentimental, perhaps I should try to believe that what is said is not true, and that he has really lived his trouble down; but I would rather be sensible, and believe that he only means to think of me as his friend, as he has done all his life. I must think that,” she thought, eagerly. “I must remember it always,when he is with me. It would be best. And if it is Lisbeth he has loved, and he loves her yet, I—I must try to help them to forgive each other.” And here she bent her face, and as she touched the note lightly with her lips, a bright drop, like a jewel, fell upon the paper. “We must always be true to each other,” she whispered, tremulously. “This would be a sad world if people were not true to each other, and ready to make little sacrifices for the sake of those they love.”
And thus it was that the innocent white rose of love, just turning to the sun, folded its fresh petals, and became a bud again. It was better as it was, much better that it should be a bud for a longer time, than that it should bloom too early, and lose its too lavish beauty before the perfect summer came.
Emulating the example of the Misses Tregarthyn, Pen’yllan had put on its best dress to grace the occasion of the arrival of the visitors. As they drove from the little railway station, Lisbeth was of the opinion that she had never seen the sea so blue, and cool, and sparkling, the sands so silver white, or the village so picturesque. The truth was, the sight of it quite subdued her, and invested her with one of her softest and most charitable moods.
“I did not know it was so pretty,” she said. “I believe we shall enjoy ourselves, Georgie.”
Georgie was enraptured. Everything pleased her. The sea, the beach, the sky, the quaint, white cottages, the bare-legged children, the old Welsh women in their steeple hats and woollen petticoats. The up-hill streets of the village were delightful; the little bandbox of a railway station was incomparable. She had been rather pale and tired during the journey, but as soon as she set her feet upon the platform at Pen’yllan, her pallor and fatigue disappeared. Thefresh breeze from the sea tinged her cheeks, and made her eyes sparkle, and she was in the best of good spirits.
“I never saw such a dear little place in my life,” she said, delightedly. “Enjoy ourselves, Lisbeth? Why, as you know, I feel just as I used to when we were all children, and went to the sea-side with mamma and the nurses, and dug caves in the sand with wooden spades, and built forts, and looked for shells. I am going to make friends with those little urchins on the beach to-morrow, and ask them to play with me.”
Behold the Tregarthyn household, arrayed in all its modest splendor, when the carriage drove up to the garden gate. Behold the neatest of young handmaidens, brisk and blue-eyed, and the smallest of pages standing ready to assist with the boxes, and admire the young ladies with an exceeding admiration. Behold, also, the three Misses Tregarthyn, in the trimmest of “company” dresses, and in such a state of affectionate tremor and excitement, that they kissed their dear Lisbeth on the tip of the nose by one consent, instead of bestowing their delighted caresses upon her lips.
“So very happy to see you, my love,” said Miss Clarissa, squeezing Georgie’s hand, as sheled the way into the parlor. “Our dear Lisbeth’s friend, I hope you are not tired, and that you left your mamma and papa quite well. Our dear Lisbeth is so tenderly attached to your mamma and papa, that if such a thing were possible, we should be quite jealous.”
“They are quite as much attached to her, I can assure you,” answered Georgie, in her pretty, earnest way. “Indeed, we all are, Miss Clarissa. Everybody is fond of Lisbeth.” And thereby rendered her position as a favorite secure at once.
Indeed, she found her way to the heart of the spinster household in an incredibly short space of time. Miss Millicent, and Miss Hetty, and Miss Clarissa were charmed with her. Her pretty face and figure, her girlish gayety, her readiness to admire and enjoy everything, were attractions enough to enchant any spinster trio, even if she had not possessed that still greater charm of being Lisbeth’s dearest friend.
The two girls shared Lisbeth’s old room together; a cool nest of a place, with white draperies, and quaint ornaments, and all the child Lisbeth’s treasures, of land and sea, still kept in their original places.
“It looks exactly as it did when I went away with Mrs. Despard,” said Lisbeth, glancinground, with a sigh, which meant she scarce knew what. “I gathered that sea-weed when I was fourteen, and I was always engaged in difficulties with the cooks, because I would bring in more shells than I wanted, and leave piles of them in the kitchen. Aunt Clarissa sent one woman away because we had a row, and she said I was ‘a imperent young minx, allus litterin’ the place with my rubbidge.’ How the dear old souls did spoil me. If I had brought a whale into the drawing-room, they would have regretted, but never resented it. I had my own way often enough when I ought to have had my ears boxed.”
“You must have been very happy in their loving you so,” said Georgie, who had drawn a low wicker chair to the open window, and was enjoying the moonlight and the sea.
“You would have been,” returned Lisbeth, drawing up chair number two. “And you would have behaved yourself better than I did. I was an ill-conditioned young person, even in those days.”
They were both silent for a while after this. There was a lovely view from the window, and all was so still that neither cared to stir for a few moments. Then the thoughtfulness on Georgie’s face attracted Lisbeth’s attention.
“I should like to know,” she said, “what you are thinking about?”
The girl drew a positively ecstatic little sigh.
“I was thinking how sweet and quiet everything looked,” she said, innocently; “and how much happier I am.”
“Happier?” exclaimed Lisbeth. “When were you unhappy, Georgie?”
The surprise in her tone brought Georgie to a recognition of what her words had unconsciously implied. She found herself blushing, and wondering at her own simplicity. She had not meant to say so much. She could not comprehend why she should have said anything of that kind at all.
“It is strange enough to hear that you can be made happier than you always seem to be,” said Lisbeth. “You speak as if—” And then, her quick eye taking in the girl’s trepidation, she stopped short. “You never had a trouble, Georgie?” she added, in a voice very few of her friends would have known; it was so soft.
“No,” said Georgie. “Oh, no, Lisbeth! Not a trouble, exactly; not a trouble at all, indeed; only—” And suddenly she turned her bright, appealing eyes to Lisbeth’s face. “I don’t know why I said it,” she said. “It was nothing real, Lisbeth, or else I am sureyou would have known. But it—Well, I might have had a trouble, and I was saved from it, and I am glad, and—thankful.” And, to Miss Crespigny’s surprise, she bent forward, and kissed her softly on the cheek.
Lisbeth asked her no questions. She was not fond of asking questions, and she was a young person of delicacy and tact, when she was in an affectionate mood. She was too partial to Georgie to wish to force her into telling her little secrets. But a certain thought flashed through her mind, as she sat with her eyes resting on the sea.
“She is the sort of girl,” she said, sharply, to herself, “who would be likely to have no trouble but a love trouble. Who has been making love to her, or rather, who, among all her admirers, would be likely to touch her heart?”
But this mental problem was by no means easy to solve. There were so many men who admired Georgie Esmond, and such a large proportion of them were men whom any girl might have loved.
It was one of Lisbeth’s chief wonders, that Georgie, who was so soft of heart, and ready with affection, should have held her own so long against so agreeable a multitude of adorers.Certainly, if she had lived through any little romance, she had kept her secret well. She did not look like a love-lorn young lady when she came down, the next morning, fresh and rosy, and prepared to explore Pen’yllan in all its fastnesses. It was exhilarating to see her; and the Misses Tregarthyn were delighted beyond bounds. She made a pilgrimage through half the up-and-down-hill little streets in the village, and, before dinner, had managed to drag Lisbeth a mile along the shore, against a stiff breeze, which blew their long, loose hair about, and tinted their cheeks brilliantly. Lisbeth followed her with an amused wonder at her enthusiasm, mingled with discontent at her own indifference. It was she who ought to have been in raptures, and she was not in raptures at all. Had she no natural feeling whatever? Any other woman would have felt a sentimental tenderness for the place which had been her earliest home.
They had found a comfortable nook behind a cluster of sheltering rocks, and were sitting on the sand, when Lisbeth arrived at this stage of thought. The place was an old haunt of hers, and Hector Anstruthers had often followed her there in their boy and girl days; and the sight of the familiar stretch of sea andsand irritated her somehow. She picked up a shell, and sent it skimming away toward the water, with an impatient gesture.
“Georgie,” she said, “I should like to know what you see in Pen’yllan to please you so.”
“Everything,” said Georgie. “And then, somehow, I seem to know it. I think its chief attraction is, that you lived here so long.”
Lisbeth picked up another shell, and sent it skimming after the other.
“What a girl you are!” she said. “It is always your love and your heart that are touched. You are all heart. You love people, and you love everything that belongs to them: their homes, their belongings, their relations. It is not so with me; it never was. You are like what Hector Anstruthers was, when I first knew him. Bah!” with a shrug of her shoulders. “How fond the foolish fellow was of Aunt Hetty, and Aunt Millicent, and Aunt Clarissa.”
Her tongue had slipped, just as Georgie’s had done the night before. For the moment she forgot herself entirely, and only remembered that old sentimental affection of her boyish lover; that affection for her spinster relatives, which, in the past, had impressed her as being half troublesome and half absurd.
Georgie turned to her, taking sudden courage.
“Lisbeth,” she said, “you never told me much about your acquaintance with Hector Anstruthers. I wonder how it was. You knew him very well, it seems.”
“I wish,” broke out Lisbeth, almost angrily, “that I had never known him at all.”
The faithful heart, beating in the breast of the girl at her side, leaped nervously.
“It was Lisbeth,” said she to herself. “It was Lisbeth.”
“I wish,” repeated Lisbeth, frowning at the sea, “that I had never seen him.”
“Why?” was Georgie’s quiet question.
“Because—because it was a bad thing for us both,” in greater impatience than ever.
Georgie looked up at her sadly.
“Why, again?” she ventured, in her soft voice. She could not help it.
But for a moment Lisbeth did not answer.She had risen, and stood leaning against the rock, a queer look on her face, a queer darkening in her eyes. At length she broke into a little, hard laugh, as if she meant to defy herself to be emotional.
“How horror-stricken you would be, if I were to tell you why,” she said.
“Does that mean,” Georgie put it to her “that you were unkind to him?”
“It means,” was her strange reply—“it means that it was I who ruined his life forever.”
She made the confession fairly, in spite of herself. And she was emotional—vehement. She could not stand this innocent Georgie, and her beliefs any longer. She had been slowly approaching this mood for months, and now every inner and outer influence seemed to combine against her natural stubborn secretiveness. Perhaps Pen’yllan, the sea, the shore, the sky, helped her on to the end. At any rate, she must tell the truth this once, and hear what this innocent Georgie would say to it.
“I ruined his life for him,” she repeated. “I broke his faith. I believe I am to blame for every evil change the last few years have wrought in him. I, myself—Lisbeth. Do you hear, Georgie?”
The face under Georgie’s straw hat was rather pale, but it was not horror-stricken.
“You were too young,” she faltered, “to understand.”
“Too young?” echoed Lisbeth. “I never was young in my life. I was born old. I was born a woman, and I was born cold and hard. That was it. If I had been like other girls, he would have touched my heart, after he had touched my vanity, or he might even have touched my heart first. You would have loved him with all your soul. Are you willing to hear the whole history, Georgie?”
“Quite willing. Only,” and she raised her face with a bright, resolute, affectionate look, “you cannot make me think harshly of you. So, don’t try, Lisbeth.”
Lisbeth regarded her with an entirely new expression, which had, nevertheless, a shade of her old wonder in it.
“I really do not believe I could,” she said. “You are very hard to deal with; at least I find it hard to deal with you. You are a new experience. If there was just a little flavor of insincerity or uncharitableness in you, if you would be false to your beliefs now and then, I should know what to do; but, as it is, youare perplexing. Notwithstanding, here comes the story.”
She put her hands behind her, and bracing herself against the rock, told it from beginning to end, in her coolest, most daring way, even with a half-defiant air. If she had been telling some one else’s story, she could not have been more caustic and unsparing, more determined to soften no harsh outline, or smooth over anything. She set the girl Lisbeth before her listener, just as Lisbeth Crespigny at seventeen had been. Selfish, callous, shallow, and deep, at once: restless, ungrateful, a half-ripe coquette, who, notwithstanding her crudeness, was yet far too ripe for her age. She pictured the honest, boyish young fellow, who had fallen victim to her immature fascinations, simply because he was too guileless and romantic to see in any woman anything but a goddess. She described his sincerity, his unselfish willingness to bear her caprices, and see no wrong in them; his lavish affection for every thing and every one who shared his love for her; his readiness to believe, his tardiness to doubt and see her as she really was; the open-hearted faith which had made the awakening so much harder to bear, when it forced itself upon him at last. She left out the recital of no petty wrong shehad done him, and no small tyranny or indignity she had made him feel. She told the whole story, in fact, as she saw it now; not as she had seen it in that shallow, self-ruled girlhood; and when she had touched upon everything, and ended with that last scene in the garden, among Aunt Clarissa’s roses, she stopped.
And there was a silence.
Georgie’s eyelashes were wet, and so were her cheeks. A tear or so stained her pink cravat. It was so sorrowful. Poor Hector again! And then, of course, poor Lisbeth! By her own showing, Lisbeth deserved no pity; but the warm young heart gave her pity enough, and to spare. Something had been wrong somewhere. Indeed, it seemed as if everything had been wrong, but—Poor Lisbeth! She was so fond of Lisbeth herself, and mamma was so fond of her, and the Misses Tregarthyn. So many people were fond of Lisbeth.
And then Lisbeth’s voice startled her. A new voice, tremulous and as if her mood was a sore and restive one.
“You are crying, of course, Georgie? I knew you would.”
“I have been crying.”
Pause enough to allow of a struggle, and then—
“Well, since you are crying, I suppose I may cry, too. It is queer enough that I should cry, but—” And to Georgie’s amazement and trouble, Lisbeth put her hand up on the rough rock, and laid her face against it.
“Lisbeth!” cried the girl.
“Wait a moment,” said Lisbeth. “I don’t know what has come over me. It is a new thing for me. I—I——”
It was a new thing, indeed, and it did not last very long. When she raised her head, and turned again, her eyelashes were wet, too, and she was even pale.
“Ah, Lisbeth!” said Georgie, pitying her, “you are sorry.”
Lisbeth smiled, faintly.
“I never was sorry before for anything I had done; never, in my life,” she answered. “I have had a theory that people should take care of themselves, as I did. But now—Well, I suppose I am sorry—for Hector Anstruthers; and perhaps a little for myself. No one will offer me such an unreasoning love again. Very few women are offered such a love once; but I always got more than my share of everything. It is my way. I supposeI was born under a lucky star. Georgie, what do you think of me now?”
Georgie got up, and kissed her, in a most earnest fashion.
“What?” cried Lisbeth, with a dubious smile. “You can’t be moral, and improving, and sanctimonious, even now. Think what an eloquent lecture you might read me! I have sometimes thought I was merely created to point a moral, or adorn a tale! See how reckless I am, after all. You ought to be down on me, Georgie. It is your duty, as a well-trained young woman of the period.”
“Then,” said Georgie, “I can’t do my duty. You are so different from other people. How can I pretend to understand what has made you do things that other people are not tempted to do? And then you know how fond I am of you, Lisbeth.”
“You are a good, pure little soul!” cried Lisbeth, her pale face flushing excitedly. “And the world is a thousand times better for your being in it. I am better myself, and Heaven knows I need something to make me better. Here, let me take hold of your hand, and let us go home.”
And as they turned homeward, on the beach, hand-in-hand, like a couple of children, Georgiesaw that there were tears in the inconsistent creature’s eyes again.
They did not say much upon the subject after this. That wise young woman, Miss Esmond, felt that it was a subject of far too delicate a nature to be lightly touched upon. It had been Lisbeth’s secret so long, that, even after this confidence, she could not help regarding it as Lisbeth’s secret still. Perhaps she felt in private that there were certain little confidences of her own, which she would scarcely be willing even for Lisbeth to refer to, as if they were her own property. For instance, that accidental confession, made in the bedroom, on the first night they had spent in it together. How glad she had been that Lisbeth had let it pass, as if she had not noticed it very particularly. But though the subject was not discussed, is it to be supposed that it was not brought to mind at all, but was buried in oblivion? Certainly not. While that terse young woman, Miss Esmond, said little, she thought much, and deeply. She had constantly before her a problem, which she was very anxious to work out. Was it not possible that these two interesting beings might be brought to—might be induced to—well, not to put too fine a point upon it—to think better of eachother, and the unfortunate past, and the world generally? Would it not be dreadful to think that so much poetic material had been lost? That these two who might have been so happy, should drift entirely apart, and leave their romance incomplete, as the most unsatisfactory of novels? Probably, having sensibly, even if with a little pang, given up that bud of a romance of her own, the girl felt the need of some loving plot to occupy her mind; and if so, it was quite natural and very charming, that she should turn to her friend. Hector would make his appearance one of these fine days, and then, perhaps, Pen’yllan, and its old familiar scenes, would soften his heart, as she had an idea they had softened Lisbeth’s. Surely, old memories would touch him tenderly, and make him more ready to forgive his injuries. In fact, Miss Georgie painted for herself some very pretty mental pictures, in which the figures of Lisbeth and her ex-lover were always the prominent features. Lisbeth in the trysting-place, the sea-breeze blowing her beautiful hair about, and coloring her pale face; that queer mist of tears in her mysterious eyes. Lisbeth, in one of her soft moods, making those strange, restive, unexpected speeches, which were so fascinating, because so unlookedfor,and Hector Anstruthers standing by, and listening. Such interesting little scenes as these she imagined, and, having imagined them, positively drew some consolation from their phantom existence.