A Life Sentence: A Novel

by Adeline Sergeant

They did not often see English newspapers; but at this time Westwood took to poring over any that he could obtain from neighbors or from the nearest town. One day Cynthia saw that a copy of the Standard was lying in a very conspicuous position on her writing-table. She took it up and read the announcement of the death at her own house of Leonora Vane, aged sixty-nine. She wondered a little that Enid had not written to tell her of Miss Vane's death; and then the tears fell slowly from her eyes, as she considered how completely she was now cut off from the Vanes and all their concerns—as completely as if she herself had "passed to where beyond these voices there is peace." The old life was over; she had come to a new world where all her duties lay; and the past, with its vigorous life, its passionate emotions, its intense joys, its bitter pains, existed for her no more.

And yet she could not forget it; absorb herself as she would in household cares, busy herself as she would with her father's requirements and the needs of her poorer neighbors—and for these Cynthia was a centre of all that was beneficent and beautiful—moments would come when the present seemed to her like a dream and the past the only reality. When had she lived so fully as when she knew from Hubert's lips the meaning of his love for her—of her love for him? Life would be dull and gray indeed if it contained no memory of those exquisite, passionate moments! For these, the rest of her existence was a mere setting; and for these she knew well enough that she was glad that she had lived.

Thus she sat thinking, with her cheek upon her hand and the tears wet upon her long dark lashes; and she did not hear the footsteps of any one approaching until her father touched her on the shoulder and said—

"Cynthy, here's visitors!"

Then she looked up. At first she saw only the ruddy, face and reddish hair of the admirable MacPhail, and she rose to her feet with an impatient little sigh. After MacPhail came another neighbor—a tall thin man with a military bearing, generally known as "the Colonel," though it was not clear that he had ever held any rank in the army. And after these two a stranger followed—also a tall man, thin, dark, grave, with eyes that seemed to Cynthia like those of one who had returned from beyond the grave.

A start like a sort of electric shock ran through Cynthia's frame. It was impossible for her to speak, to do more than extend her hand in silence to each of the new-comers. And then she looked once more upon her lover's face—upon the face of Hubert Lepel. In the presence of her father and the two comparative strangers, she could not even utter a word of greeting. Her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth, and she dared not even raise her eyes.

Hubert seemed at first as tongue-tied as herself; but presently, she heard him talking in a quiet unobtrusive way, as if he and "the Colonel" were old friends; and it transpired that the two had met during Hubert's previous wanderings in America, and that they had seen a good deal of the world together.

Before long, all four men were busily engaged on a comparison of America and England and in a discussion on contemporary politics, and Cynthia was able to devote herself to household duties and the entertainment of her guests. Hubert was staying in Colonel Morton's house, she found, and they had met Mr. Westwood and MacPhail when they were having a long tramp over the hills; and, strangely enough, Westwood had immediately asked both men to dinner.

It was not until the meal was over and the men had gone out to smoke in the pleasant piazza, with its clustering vines which adorned the front of Westwood's house, that Cynthia had a moment in which to compare her present impressions with her past. It struck her that Hubert looked older, as well as graver and sadder, and perhaps more dignified. His hair was turning gray and thin at the temples; his moustache was also streaked with white—bleached, as Cynthia knew, by trouble, not by age. He was thin, but he looked stronger than when she saw him last; and his gait was firm and elastic. His face was slightly tanned—probably by the sun and sea-air in his recent expedition from England—and the brown hue gave him a look of health and vigor which he had not possessed in England. But the change in his expression was more striking to Cynthia than any alteration in physical aspect. His eyes had lost their anxious restlessness, his mouth was set as if in steadfast resolution; his brow was calm. He looked like a man who had gone "through much tribulation," but had come out victor at the last.

And Cynthia—was she changed? He had thought so when he came upon her that afternoon; but his heart had yearned over her all the more fondly for the change. He had never seen her so thin, so pale, so worn; the dark eyes had not been set in such hollows of shadow when he last saw her; the cheeks had never before been so colorless. He felt that she had suffered for him—that she had borne his punishment with himself; and the thought made it difficult for him to restrain himself from falling at her feet and kissing the very hem of her garment as he looked at her. But at dinner she looked more like her old beautiful self. She was in black when he arrived; but she came to dinner in a pretty gown of cream-colored embroidered muslin, with a bunch of crimson flowers at her bosom. The color had come back to her cheeks too, and the light to her eyes—he saw that, though he could not get her to look at him.