On, on through the darkness and gloom--surely never train moved on so slowly before!--surely never were so many vexatious delays! Flora wept no longer; her fount of tears appeared to be dried up. Her brow was throbbing with a burning pain; a band of iron seemed pressed across her temples She was scarcely conscious of what was passing around her, when the weary journey ended at last.
Bewildered and confused, the hapless Lady Legrange found herself in the midst of the bustle of an arrival in London at night. Friends and servants were there waiting for travellers; but, either from neglect on the part of her own household, or from her having been expected by the earlier train, no one was in waiting for Flora. In vain she strained her eyes to find some familiar face, to see some one who could relieve her agony of suspense, by giving her tidings of her husband. After some delay--and delay was torture--a conveyance was procured, in which the miserable wife was slowly jolted through narrow, gloomy streets, towards the home at which she yearned to arrive. The cab stopped at her own door; Flora sprang from it--herself rang the bell, gently, fearfully, for was not suffering within the dwelling? No answer! She rang the bell again, and, before the sound died away, the door was opened by a servant. He started at seeing his mistress; his face answered the question which she could not speak; he uttered but the sentence, "Too late!" and Flora sank senseless on the threshold.
CHAPTER XIX.
CONCLUSION.
The newspapers on the following day all dilated on one theme--the genius, the brilliant career, and the sudden death, of Sir Amery Legrange. Each had its paragraph of praise, not in every case unmingled with censure, but censure tenderly, sparingly dealt forth; for the melancholy fate of the gifted young author had wrung compassion from literary critics and theological opponents. In the gay saloons and haunts of fashion, of which he had but a few days since been the ornament and pride, his name was upon every tongue. In a brief space the news spread far and wide, like circles on a river when some large object has been suddenly plunged into its waters. But the current of society flowed on as ever; soon not the faintest ripple on its surface told that one of its proudest names had become a word of the past--that one of its loftiest spirits had gone to the "bourn from which no traveller returns."
But there was one being, weeping in her darkened chamber alone, in whose almost broken heart a void was made which nothing earthly could ever fill--one crushed beneath the weight of a grief for which even religion has no comfort. What mattered it to her that the voice of nations swelled the tribute to departed genius--that he whom she so passionately loved would occupy a niche in the temple of Fame! Blessed mourners are they who weep for the dead translated to a more blissful existence; thrice blessed they who, when all the pride of this world shall have passed away like a fevered dream, shall hear the voice of the Saviour pronounce the sentence, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!" But Flora sorrowed as one without hope. Oh! that those who, in defiance of the command--the merciful warning of their God--choose to twine the dearest affections of their hearts around an earthly pillar, on which "holiness to the Lord" has never been inscribed, would anticipate the anguish of that day when, beneath the stroke of the angel of death, that pillar shall lie shattered in the dust; and Despair, gazing on the broken relics of all that was dear, fair, talented, and brave, shall utter the mournful wail, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!"
Little was it to the bereaved young widow that, with the loss of her dearest treasure, wealth also took wings to itself and fled away. Sir Amery's income had principally consisted of life-rent; careless in money concerns, little anticipating so sudden and speedy a close to his career, he had left a very scanty provision for his survivor. There was, indeed, a new work of his, almost completed, for which contending publishers were ready to offer sums which would have materially enlarged the scanty resources of Lady Legrange. The posthumous work of an author so renowned was certain to command the eager attention of the public; and Flora received various communications on the subject. She read the manuscript, wept over the lines which had been last traced by the loved hand now cold in death; she then folded up the papers, enclosed and sealed them, and, resolved that no eye but her own should ever peruse the unhallowed creation of a mind which had made fatal progress in error, she endorsed the packet with a command that at her death other hands should burn, unread, that which she had not herself the heart to destroy. "These would be his orders, could he speak from the grave," said Flora to herself, as she locked up the papers in her cabinet's deepest recess. "Oh! would he not desire to obliterate in all his writings every page which could injure others when he is himself no more--every page which could witness against him! O God! my God!" exclaimed the widow, suddenly raising her clasped hands with a cry of anguish wrung from the depths of her soul, "they cannot be obliterated--they cannot be recalled--it is too late!--oh! misery! it is too late!"
The first thing which served in any degree to restore composure to the unhappy Flora was her return to her early home. Mrs. Vernon, who had been too ill to hasten to her daughter when the tidings of her bereavement arrived, or even for some time to be permitted to know of her loss, was now convalescent, and welcomed her beloved child with a depth and intensity of loving sympathy that poured balm into Flora's bleeding heart. She had thought, in the first transport of her anguish, that all had been rent from her at once; but she found that one of earth's most priceless blessings was left to her yet--the deep, unchanged, holy love of her mother.
Mrs. Vernon received back her Flora as a precious treasure restored; and it was a treasure purified, beautified, refined. The furnace of affliction, seven times heated, had not been heated in vain.
Gradually Flora resumed her daily round of occupations, and passed a life closely resembling that which had been hers at the period when our story opened. She visited the sick and the poor, comforted the sorrowful, taught the ignorant--neglected none of the duties of home. But in how different a spirit were those duties performed! With what altered feelings did the chastened mourner now repeat the confession of the sins of whose existence she had then scarcely known! Shrinking from the idea of resting on her own righteousness, her own imperfect and polluted works, Flora's only hope was in the merits of her Saviour--her greatest solace the remembrance of His death--her aim and object in life to show her humble gratitude to Him who had loved and given Himself for her. She was no more as a sunbeam in the dwelling--her sparkling brightness was gone for ever; but rather like the gentle moonbeam that illumines the night, shining with a soft lustre, borrowed from the only true Source of happiness and of light.