He left Elsie at school and went away to Europe, wandering about for years, and growing more saddened and misanthropic all the while.
He returned at last. Elsie was eighteen then. She had a school-friend, to whom she had been greatly attached; a girl older than herself, and so different in every respect, that it was a wonder Elsie's volatile character had been attracted to her, or that her liking had been reciprocated.
This was the state of events when Mellen returned from Europe. Elsie's account of her friend interested him in the unfortunate girl. When he made her acquaintance that sympathy deepened into a feeling which he had never thought to have for any woman again,—he loved her, and she was now his wife.
It was a restless, craving affection, which threatened great trouble both to himself and its object. He had no cause for jealousy, but his suspicious mind was always on the alert—he was jealous even of her friends, her favorite studies—he wanted every look and thought his own, yet he was too proud to betray these feelings.
Elizabeth's character was not one easy to understand, nor shall I enter into its details here. The progress of my story must show her as she really was, and leave you to judge for yourself concerning it, and the effect it had upon her life.
She was singularly reticent and reserved, but impetuous and warm-hearted beyond any thing that the man who loved her dreamed of. He saw her gay, brilliant, fond of society, yet apparently content with the quiet life he was determined to lead. Still there was something wanting. He felt in the depths of his heart that he was not master of her whole being. That sometimes his very kisses seemed frozen on her lips, and she turned from his protestations of love with sad smiles, that seemed mocking him. And she, alas, the woman who believes herself unloved by her husband, is always in danger—always unhappy.
The first weeks of this strange honeymoon had passed, and Tom Fuller was able to gratify the chief desire of his honest soul, and rush down to the island to bewilder himself more hopelessly in the spell of Elsie's fascinations, like a great foolish moth whirling about a dazzling light.
She had never scrupled to laugh at him and his devotion, even to Elizabeth herself; but just now she was not sorry to see him. The stillness of the house and the seclusion of those slow love weeks, was not at all in unison with her taste, and she was already regretting that Mellen had not allowed her to accept Mrs. Harrington's invitation to remain with her during the first period of that dreary honeymoon.
Mellen and Elsie were standing on the porch when Fuller drove up to the house, and dashed in upon them with such an outpouring of confusion and delight that it might have softened the most obdurate heart.
"I couldn't stop away another day," he cried, wringing Mellen's hand till it ached for half an hour after.