“You and I have innocently wronged and ruined each other; you with your beauty, I with my accursed gold. Time was when at your bidding I would have laid my throbbing heart at your feet, provided I could thereby save you one pang; for I loved you as women very rarely love one another. But now, lonely and hopeless, I have lost the power, the capacity to love anything, and I have no heart left in my bosom. I acquit you of much for which I formerly held you responsible, and I honor the purity of purpose that forbade your receiving the visits or letters of him who must one day answer for our worthless lives. I fully forgive you the suffering that made me prematurely old; but my affection is as dead as all my girlish hopes, and buried under the crushing years that 422 have dragged themselves over my poor, proud, pain-bleached head. You are more fortunate, more enviable than I, for you have the comforting anticipation of a speedy release, the precious assurance that your torture will ere long be ended; while I must front the prospect of perhaps fourscore and ten years: for, despite my ivory skin and fever-blanched locks, I am maddeningly healthy. Friend of my childhood, friend of my happy, sunny, sinless days, I cordially congratulate you on your approaching deliverance. God knows I would pay you my fortune, if I could innocently and successfully inject into my veins and lungs the poison that will soon rob you of care and regret. If I was harsh to-day, forgive and forget it, for nothing rankles in the grave; and now, Edith, go away quickly, before I repent and recant the words I here utter. God comfort you, Edith Dexter, and remember that I hold you guiltless of my wrecked destiny.”
“Oh, Evelyn! add one thing more. Say, ‘Edith, I love you.’”
A strangely mournful smile parted Mrs. Gerome’s perfect lips over her dazzling teeth, as she pushed the kneeling figure from her, and said coldly,—
“Rise, and leave me. I love no living thing, brute or human, for even my faithful dog lies buried a few yards hence. Maurice treated my warm, loving nature, as Tofana did her unsuspecting victims, and for that slow poison there is no antidote. The sole interest I have in life centres in my art, and when death mercifully remembers me, some pictures I have patiently wrought out will be given to the public; and the next generation will, perhaps,—
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‘Hear the world applaud the hollow ghost, Which blamed the living woman,’ |
and, smiling grimly in my coffin, I shall echo,—
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‘Hither to come, and to sleep, Under the wings of renown.’” |
Both rose, and the two so long divided faced each other sorrowfully.
“Dear Evelyn, do not hug despair so stubbornly to your bosom. You might brighten your solitary existence if you would, and be comparatively happy in this lovely seaside home.”