CHAPTER LI.
A MOTHER.
"Time wore on, and I became a mother. With the first gleam of maternal hopes, such as thrilled my whole being with new-born happiness, I was hastened into the country; and, in a remote estate seldom visited by the family, gave birth to a son. My life was in great peril; a fever set in, and for a week I wandered unconsciously on the very brink of the grave, delirious, and sometimes wild. When reason came back, my father was there: he told me that my child was dead.
"Alas, old man! mine was a dreary life after that. Honors and wealth were showered on my father. By the death of his mother he became Earl of Sefton, and one of the wealthiest peers in England; but all this was embittered by the fact that I, who must inherit all these privileges, was wedded to a man, as he persisted in believing, so utterly beneath me. This thought seemed to pursue him like a demon. At times my very presence appeared hateful to him; there was never affectionate companionship between us. He was content that I should remain in the solitude of the estate to which I had been consigned almost as a prisoner, and I, still hoping against hope, was willing to live in seclusion till my husband should claim me. For, strange as it may appear, I had faith in the accomplishment of his promise, wild as it seemed.
"One day—it was in the second year of my solitary life—Lord Sefton came down to the country, after the rising of parliament; and for the first time since the death of my child was announced to me spoke of William Phipps.
"'Read this,' he said, placing a newspaper before me, 'and thank God that the disgrace of your connection with that man is unknown.'
"I unfolded the paper. It contained a paragraph copied from an American letter, dated two months back.
"How I read this paragraph through—the agony of fear that possessed me—I cannot tell; but every word of the cruel statement reached my heart. My husband was dead—lost at sea! I was a widow.
"This mournful knowledge broke up my life. Even my father was terrified by the state of dejection into which I fell. Thinking that it was only the promptings of compassion that induced him to take me away from England, I was grateful. We travelled for years through Europe, into Egypt and the Holy Land. Sometimes we rested in one place for months and months together; then again we would make long sea-voyages, and visit places far remote from the usual course of English travel. Among other countries we went to Bermuda and the West India islands, taking with us, on our return, a young person, whose history I have no time to give, but with whom my after-life has been strangely associated.