As no object could be answered by the prolonged stay of Mr. Aumerle and Mabel in the over-crowded cottage, they departed on that day for their home. The countess could not endure to quit the spot, and Ida remained to bear her company, while Augustine resumed his watch by his suffering friend.
Day after day the once proud Earl of Dashleigh lay on a pallet-bed in the fisherman’s rude hovel, mind and body alike prostrated by the fever induced by the fearful trials which he had endured. He was passing indeed through a burning fiery furnace, but its flame was consuming the dross which had largely mixed with a nobler metal. When the powers of good and evil contend together for the dominion over a human soul, it is as in the battles of earth; dark and painful traces are often left behind of the conflict, conquest is not attained without suffering. Never, perhaps, is the strife more painful than when the enemy to be subdued is pride! Then how often a merciful Providence sends humiliation, anguish, disgrace, first to rouse the soul to a sense of its danger, and then to aid it in the perilous war! From how much of suffering is exempted the meek and quiet spirit that has calmly laid down the shackles of pride, not left them till some loving yet terrible dispensation should wrench them away from the bleeding soul!
Annabella was deeply humbled; there was some danger that depression might with her sink into hopeless despondency. Her ardent and volatile disposition was ever prone to extremes, and she could not believe it possible that her proud lord could ever forgive one who had wounded his dignity so deeply,—one whose indiscretion had so nearly cost him his life! The forced inaction to which she had to submit greatly increased the trial to Annabella. If it had been possible for her to have done or suffered anything in order to repair the evil that she had wrought, she would have contemplated its effects with less overwhelming remorse. Had the countess belonged to the Church of Rome, she would have wasted her strength with fasting, lacerated her flesh by the scourge, or gone on some painful pilgrimage in the hope of redeeming her fault. As it was, she had to sit still—useless, helpless, receiving from time to time tidings of her husband’s varying state from the lips of ministering strangers! Annabella’s spirit might have altogether sunk under the lengthened trial, but for the support of Ida’s calmer and more chastened spirit, which had itself found its stay on the Rock of Ages.
On the sixth day of Dashleigh’s illness, his wife received from her home a small packet, containing the little pocket-book which had been her own earliest gift to her betrothed. The beautiful remembrance had been accidentally discovered at no great distance from the letter which Mabel had dropped; but its comparative weight had made it fall with an impetus that had half imbedded it in the sod. Easily identified by the coronet and name upon the shield, which marked it as the property of the unfortunate nobleman, with whose fate the county was ringing, it had been forwarded to Dashleigh Hall, and thence—still stained and clotted with dust and mud—it had been sent on by her servants to the countess.
Annabella gazed on the book for some moments without daring to unfasten the clasp. The sight of that little gift brought with it a crowd of recollections of the time when wedded life had lain before fancy’s eye as a bright, golden-clasped book, on whose yet blank pages hope, pleasure, and love, would trace nothing but sentences of joy! Why was it that the leaves of that life had been blistered and blotted with tears,—that the gold had been tarnished, the beauty marred, and that the once joyous bride now dreaded even to look upon what that book might contain!
“Open it for me, Ida, dearest,” murmured Annabella faintly; “I tremble to behold what his fingers may have traced in that terrible hour!”
Ida silently obeyed, kneeling at the side of her unhappy cousin, whose cold hand rested upon her shoulder. Ida turned slowly leaf after leaf. There were various memoranda in the book, evidently written at an earlier period—addresses of friends, names of books, engagements for days long passed. Little of interest or importance could attach to entries such as these. But almost at the end of the book, on a page otherwise blank, appeared two words in pencil, traced evidently by a hand that had shaken from weakness, excitement, or emotion. The words were barely legible, but such as they were Ida with tremulous eagerness pointed them out to her friend. Annabella caught the book from her hand, pressed it convulsively to her lips, and while her eyes overflowed with tears and her heart with thanksgiving, repeated again and again the two blessed words which spoke forgiveness and peace!
Even while the young wife’s tears were still flowing, a gentle tap was heard at the door. Ida went and unclosed it; there was a low whispering sound, and then the maiden returned to her cousin with a gentle smile on her face as she said, laying her hand on that of the countess, “It is my uncle, dearest; he comes to bring you good tidings. The earl is greatly better,—has been speaking to him,—has been questioning him of you; he knows—”
“Knows that I am here!” exclaimed Annabella, starting eagerly from her seat.