“No, sir. I have governed myself so badly, that it ill becomes me to dictate to you how they should be trained. God knows, I am heartily glad they were mercifully thrown into your hands; and if you can only make Stanley Owen such a man as you are, the old blot on the name may be effaced. From Mark and Joel I have not heard for several months, and presume they will be sturdy but unlettered mechanics. If I succeed, I shall interfere and send them to school; otherwise, they must take the chances for letters and a livelihood.”
“Salome, you are bartering life-long peace and happiness for the momentary gratification of a whim, prompted solely by vanity. How worthless are the brief hollow plaudits of the world (which will regard you merely as the toy of an hour), in comparison with the affection and society of your own family? Here, in your home, how useful, how contented you might be!”
Her only reply was a hasty, imperious wave of the hand, and a long silence followed.
In the bright morning light that streamed in through the tendrils of honeysuckle clambering around the window, Dr. Grey looked searchingly at the orphan, and could scarcely realize that this pale, proud, pain-stricken face, was the same rosy round one, fair and fearless, that had first met his gaze under the pearly apple-blossoms.
Then, pink flesh, hazel eyes, vermillioned lips, and glossy hair had preferred incontestable claims to beauty; now, an artist would have curiously traced the fine lines and curves daintily drawn about eyes, brow and mouth, by the stylus of care, of hopelessness, of wild bursts of passion. Her figure retained its rounded symmetry, but the countenance traitorously revealed the struggles, the bitter disappointments, the vindictive jealousy, and rudely-smitten and blasted hopes, that had robbed her days of peace and her nights of sleep.
Until this moment, Dr. Grey had not fully appreciated the 329 change that had been wrought by two tedious years, and as he scrutinized the sadly sharpened and shadowed features, a painful feeling of humiliation and almost of self-reproach sprang from the consciousness that his inability to reciprocate her devoted love had brought down this premature blight upon a young and whilom happy, careless girl,—transforming her into a reckless, hardened, hopeless woman.
While his inexorable conscience fully exonerated him from censure, his generous heart ached in sympathy for hers, and his chivalric tenderness for all things weaker than himself, bled at the reflection that he had been unintentionally instrumental in darkening a woman’s life.
But hope,—beautiful, blue-eyed, sunny-browed hope,—whispered that this was a fleeting youthful fancy; and that absence and time would dispel the temporary gloom that now lay on her heart, like some dense cold vapor which would grow silvery, and melt in morning sunshine.
Under his steady gaze the blood rose slowly to its old signal-station on her cheeks, and she put up one hand to shield its scarlet banners.
“Salome, will you tell me when and where you intend to go? Since you have resolved to leave us, I desire to know in what way I can aid you, or contribute to the comfort of the journey you contemplate.”