“When Louisa left me, I went up to my chamber; it was a back-room overlooking the gardens. I sat by the window all night, for my grief and the solitude were complete. I heard the carriages disappear, while the hum of voices grew faint upon the night air. I saw the blaze of lights go out, and at last the beating of my own heart was the loudest sound I heard.
“The daylight flashed around me where I had sat so many dreary hours, but still I remained motionless, letting the morning deepen toward the noon. It seemed to me that I should never care to stir again. I was aroused as if from a dull dream, by the noise of a carriage driven down the opposite street. It was Oakley, with his bride, on their way to the European steamer. It seemed as if the horses that bore her away were tramping my heart under their hoofs; but when the sound died in the distance, my breath came more freely. It was over, and I knew the worst. When that knowledge comes to any brave soul, fate has lost half its power to torture!”
“I know it,” answered the brother, who, shrouding his face with one hand, while his elbow rested on the table, had listened attentively. “But fate sometimes leaves a long, dull waste of lurid hopes to mourn over, after the worst is known.”
CHAPTER LVI.
THE BROTHERS TALK OVER THEIR FATHER’S DEATH.
“Louis,” said George De Marke, “how long was all this after our father’s death; I have never had a thorough knowledge of that time. Everything connected with it was too painful for questions.”
“I remember,” answered Louis, “she had driven you from the house before I was old enough to know that I had a brother. You were happier for it. Year by year, our home had become more uncomfortable and dreary. As age crept on our father, some cause of strife, which always existed, seemed to break out afresh between him and Madame. I never thoroughly understood it, George; there was something in the past never explained to us. Quick words and broken sentences, which I remember now, though scarcely noticed at the time, connect this mystery with your own mother.”
George De Marke looked up with sudden interest. “It is strange,” he said, “but I never heard anything about my mother. Madame never mentioned her!”
“Nor did my father; during his life I was kept so far apart from his confidence, that I never ventured to question him regarding his or her family. Indeed, it was years before I knew that Madame was not alike your mother and mine. It was discovered to me at last by some angry words with which she was taunting him, as if some disgrace had been attached to your birth. This made me angry at the time, but I accepted it as little more than a burst of fiery malice. Forgive me, dear boy, for saying so of my mother; but she was used to saying what came uppermost in her mind when he offended her, and I gave it no importance.”
“I dare say it had no importance,” said George, “she must always have delighted in tormenting him.”
“That is probably true, dear boy—but as I became a man, the fact that I knew absolutely nothing of my mother’s family forced itself upon me. If my father had been living, I would know all about her. Had I been here when he died, that one subject should not have been left in the dark.”