From that time Sir Ronald Alden changed so completely that he was hardly to be recognized as the same man. He ceased to struggle for content; he said to himself that a curse was upon him, and he must live under it while it pleased Heaven that he should live at all; but the happiest moment that life held in store for him would be the one that held death—the moment that would bring the woman he loved to his side to look at him for the last time. He was young, and life ran full, warm and rich in his veins, yet he would have gladly laid it down to have brought her for only one moment to his side, so great and passionate was his love for her.
Lady Clarice could not fail to notice the change. She comforted herself by thinking that the Aldens were a strange race, not governed by the same laws as other men, subject to moods and passions that required indulgence. She never dreamed that he had met Lady Hermione, and that his new sorrow was caused by the constant smart of knowing that life might have been different for him.
“Ronald,” she said to him one day, “has life any interest for you?”
“No,” he replied; “I cannot, in truth, say that it has.”
Her face flushed warmly.
“Then, if I were you, I should be ashamed to say so. You are the first Alden who has found life empty, I should imagine.”
“I did not say it was empty, Clarice; I merely say nothing in it interests me.”
She knelt down by his side, and clasped her white hands round his arm.
“You must unsay that, Ronald. There is one interest left—you love me. You cannot turn from me and say no. You could not be so cruel. Love must win love, and, my husband, I love you.”
He made no reply, and she kissed his hands as they lay listless in her warm clasp. If he had told her the truth, it would have been that her love for him was one of his greatest burdens; but he had the grace to keep silent.