He put on his hat, and they looked at each other fixedly.
"You are not in earnest? you are not going to quit your home?" cried
Beulah, in a broken, unsteady tone.
"Yes—going into the far East; to the ruined altars of Baalbec; to Meroe, to Tartary, India, China, and only Fate knows where else. Perhaps find a cool Nebo in some Himalayan range. Going? Yes. Did you suppose I meant only to operate on your sympathies? I know you too well. What is it to you whether I live or die? whether my weary feet rest in an Indian jungle, or on a sunny slope of the city cemetery? Yes, I am going very soon, and this is our last meeting. I shall not again disturb you in your ambitious pursuits. Ah, child—"
"Oh, don't go! don't leave me! I beg, I implore you, not to leave me. Oh, I am so desolate! don't forsake me! I could not bear to know you were gone. Oh, don't leave me!" She sprang up, and, throwing her arms round his neck, clung to him, trembling like a frightened child. But there was no relaxation of his pale, fixed features, as he coldly answered:
"Once resolved, I never waver. So surely as I live I shall go. It might have been otherwise, but you decided it yourself. An hour ago you held my destiny in your hands; now it is fixed. I should have gone six years since had I not indulged a lingering hope of happiness in your love. Child, don't shiver and cling to me so. Oceans will soon roll between us, and, for a time, you will have no leisure to regret my absence. Henceforth we are strangers."
"No; that shall never be. You do not mean it; you know it is impossible. You know that I prize your friendship above every earthly thing. You know that I look up to you as to no one else. That I shall be miserable, oh, how miserable, if you leave me! Oh, sir, I have mourned over your coldness and indifference; don't cast me off! Don't go to distant lands and leave me to struggle without aid or counsel in this selfish, unfriendly world! My heart dies within me at the thought of your being where I shall not be able to see you. Oh, my guardian, don't forsake me!"
She pressed her face against his shoulder and clasped her arms firmly round his neck.
"I am not your guardian, Beulah. You refused to make me such. You are a proud, ambitious woman, solicitous only to secure eminence as an authoress. I asked your heart; you have now none to give; but perhaps some day you will love me as devotedly, nay, as madly, as I have long loved you; for love like mine would wake affection even in a marble image; but then rolling oceans and trackless deserts will divide us. And now, good-by. Make yourself a name; bind your aching brow with the chaplet of fame, and see if ambition can fill your heart. Good-by, dear child."
Gently he drew her arms from his neck, and took her face in his soft palms. He looked at her a moment, sadly and earnestly, as if striving to fix her features in the frame of memory; then bent his head and pressed a long kiss on her lips. She put out her hands, but he had gone, and, sinking down on the step, she hid her face in her arms. A pall seemed suddenly thrown over the future, and the orphaned heart shrank back from the lonely path where only specters were visible. Never before had she realized how dear he was to her, how large a share of her love he possessed, and now the prospect of a long, perhaps final separation, filled her with a shivering, horrible dread. We have seen that self-reliance was a powerful element in her character, and she had learned, from painful necessity, to depend as little as possible upon the sympathies of others; but in this hour of anguish a sense of joyless isolation conquered; her proud soul bowed down beneath the weight of intolerable grief, and acknowledged itself not wholly independent of the love and presence of her guardian.
Beulah went back to her desk, and, with tearless eyes, began the allotted task of writing. The article was due, and must be finished; was there not a long, dark future in which to mourn? The sketch was designed to prove that woman's happiness was not necessarily dependent on marriage. That a single life might be more useful, more tranquil, more unselfish. Beulah had painted her heroine in glowing tints, and triumphantly proved her theory correct, while to female influence she awarded a sphere (exclusive of rostrums and all political arenas) wide as the universe and high as heaven. Weary work it all seemed to her now; but she wrote on and on, and finally the last page was copied and the last punctuation mark affixed. She wrapped up the manuscript, directed it to the editor, and then the pen fell from her nerveless fingers and her head went down, with a wailing cry, on her desk. There the morning sun flashed upon a white face, tear-stained and full of keen anguish. How her readers would have marveled at the sight! Ah, "Verily the heart knoweth its own bitterness."