The Law and the Lady | Page 9

"Good-by, Valeria!" he said. "Try and think kindly of me, my darling,
when you are married to some happier man."
He attempted to leave me. I clung to him in an agony of terror that
shook me from head to foot.

"What do you mean?" I asked, as soon as I could speak. "I am yours
and yours only. What have I said, what have I done, to deserve those
dreadful words?"
"We must part, my angel," he answered, sadly. "The fault is none of
yours; the misfortune is all mine. My Valeria! how can you marry a
man who is an object of suspicion to your nearest and dearest friends? I
have led a dreary life. I have never found in any other woman the
sympathy with me, the sweet comfort and companionship, that I find in
you. Oh, it is hard to lose you! it is hard to go back again to my
unfriended life! I must make the sacrifice, love, for your sake. I know
no more why that letter is what it is than you do. Will your uncle
believe me? will your friends believe me? One last kiss, Valeria!
Forgive me for having loved you--passionately, devotedly loved you.
Forgive me--and let me go!"
I held him desperately, recklessly. His eyes, put me beside myself; his
words filled me with a frenzy of despair.
"Go where you may," I said, "I go with you! Friends--reputation--I care
nothing who I lose, or what I lose! Oh, Eustace, I am only a
woman--don't madden me! I can't live without you. I must and will be
your wife!"
Those wild words were all I could say before the misery and madness
in me forced their way outward in a burst of sobs and tears.
He yielded. He soothed me with his charming voice; he brought me
back to myself with his tender caresses. He called the bright heaven
above us to witness that he devoted his whole life to me. He vowed--oh,
in such solemn, such eloquent words!--that his one thought, night and
day, should be to prove himself worthy of such love as mine. And had
he not nobly redeemed the pledge? Had not the betrothal of that
memorable night been followed by the betrothal at the altar, by the
vows before God! Ah, what a life was before me! What more than
mortal happiness was mine!
Again I lifted my head from his bosom to taste the dear delight of

seeing him by my side--my life, my love, my husband, my own!
Hardly awakened yet from the absorbing memories of the past to the
sweet realities of the present, I let my cheek touch his cheek, I
whispered to him softly, "Oh, how I love you! how I love you!"
The next instant I started back from him. My heart stood still. I put my
hand up to my face. What did I feel on my cheek? (I had not been
weeping--I was too happy.) What did I feel on my cheek? A tear!
His face was still averted from me. I turned it toward me, with my own
hands, by main force.
I looked at him--and saw my husband, on our wedding-day, with his
eyes full of tears.
CHAPTER III.
RAMSGATE SANDS.
EUSTACE succeeded in quieting my alarm. But I can hardly say that
he succeeded in satisfying my mind as well.
He had been thinking, he told me, of the contrast between his past and
his present life. Bitter remembrance of the years that had gone had risen
in his memory, and had filled him with melancholy misgivings of his
capacity to make my life with him a happy one. He had asked himself
if he had not met me too late--if he were not already a man soured and
broken by the disappointments and disenchantments of the past?
Doubts such as these, weighing more and more heavily on his mind,
had filled his eyes with the tears which I had discovered--tears which
he now entreated me, by my love for him, to dismiss from my memory
forever.
I forgave him, comforted him, revived him; but there were moments
when the remembrance of what I had seen troubled me in secret, and
when I asked myself if I really possessed my husband's full confidence
as he possessed mine.

We left the train at Ramsgate.
The favorite watering-place was empty; the season was just over. Our
arrangements for the wedding tour included a cruise to the
Mediterranean in a yacht lent to Eustace by a friend. We were both
fond of the sea, and we were equally desirous, considering the
circumstances under which we had married, of escaping the notice of
friends and acquaintances. With this object in view, having celebrated
our marriage privately in London, we had decided