Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1887 | Page 4

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This could not go on so forever. Clement had placed a red curtain so as
to throw a rose-bloom on his marble, and give it an aspect which his
fancy turned to the semblance of life. He would sit and look at the
features his own hand had so faithfully wrought, until it seemed as if
the lips moved, sometimes as if they were smiling, sometimes as if they
were ready to speak to him. His companions began to whisper strange
things of him in the studio,--that his eye was getting an unnatural
light,--that he talked as if to imaginary listeners,--in short, that there
was a look as if something were going wrong with his brain, which it
might be feared would spoil his fine intelligence. It was the undecided
battle, and the enemy, as in his noblest moments he had considered the
growing passion, was getting the better of him.
He was sitting one afternoon before the fatal bust which had smiled and
whispered away his peace, when the postman brought him a letter. It
was from the simple girl to whom he had given his promise. We know
how she used to prattle in her harmless way about her innocent feelings,
and the trifling matters that were going on in her little village world.
But now she wrote in sadness. Something, she did not too clearly
explain what, had grieved her, and she gave free expression to her
feelings. "I have no one that loves me but you," she said; "and if you
leave me I must droop and die. Are you true to me, dearest
Clement,--true as when we promised each other that we would love
while life lasted? Or have you forgotten one who will never cease to
remember that she was once your own Susan?"

Clement dropped the letter from his hand, and sat a long hour looking
at the exquisitely wrought features of her who had come between him
and honor and his plighted word.
At length he arose, and, lifting the bust tenderly from its pedestal, laid
it upon the cloth with which it had been covered. He wrapped it closely,
fold upon fold, as the mother whom man condemns and God pities
wraps the child she loves before she lifts her hand against its life. Then
he took a heavy hammer and shattered his lovely idol into shapeless
fragments. The strife was over.
CHAPTER XXII.
A CHANGE OF PROGRAMME.
Mr. William Murray Bradshaw was in pretty intimate relations with
Miss Cynthia Badlam. It was well understood between them that it
might be of very great advantage to both of them if he should in due
time become the accepted lover of Myrtle Hazard. So long as he could
be reasonably secure against interference, he did not wish to hurry her
in making her decision. Two things he did wish to be sure of, if
possible, before asking her the great question;--first, that she would
answer it in the affirmative; and secondly, that certain contingencies,
the turning of which was not as yet absolutely capable of being
predicted, should happen as he expected. Cynthia had the power of
furthering his wishes in many direct and indirect ways, and he felt sure
of her co-operation. She had some reason to fear his enmity if she
displeased him, and he had taken good care to make her understand that
her interests would be greatly promoted by the success of the plan
which he had formed, and which was confided to her alone.
He kept the most careful eye on every possible source of disturbance to
this quietly maturing plan. He had no objection to have Gifted Hopkins
about Myrtle as much as she would endure to have him. The youthful
bard entertained her very innocently with his bursts of poetry, but she
was in no danger from a young person so intimately associated with the
yard-stick, the blunt scissors, and the brown-paper parcel. There was

Cyprian too, about whom he did not feel any very particular solicitude.
Myrtle had evidently found out that she was handsome and stylish and
all that, and it was not very likely she would take up with such a
bashful, humble, country youth as this. He could expect nothing
beyond a possible rectorate in the remote distance, with one of those
little shingle chapels to preach in, which, if it were set up on a stout
pole, would pass for a good-sized martin-house. Cyprian might do to
practise on, but there was no danger of her looking at him in a serious
way. As for that youth, Clement Lindsay, if he had not taken himself
off as he did, Murray Bradshaw confessed to himself that he should
have felt uneasy. He was too good-looking, and too clever a young