Chaste as Ice, Pure as Snow: A Novel

by C. Despard

There was a cry at last from the child, which the horseman heard. He half stopped and bent over her, then rose again erect and vigorous, for the little hand had pointed out his goal, and the dark spot, still in the distance, but faintly showing against the background of sea by the solitary lamp that shone before it, was the shrine that held his treasure. A moment, and Maurice Grey was tearing wildly along the road. Would that faint light ever grow nearer? Maurice was wont to say in after years that those minutes spent in rushing through the darkness were the longest he had ever known.

But the longest minutes have an end. The panting horse was drawn up at last before the solitary lamp. Blindly and madly, not thinking of what might become of it, Maurice threw himself from his saddle, burst open the little garden-gate, and trying, but in vain, to steady his trembling nerves, walked up the path.

But as he looked at the cottage his fierce pace slackened, and a sudden horror seized him, for in its dreary solitude it looked like death.

Maurice stopped for a moment. The heart of the strong man, the heart that had borne so much, beat violently. He thought he must have fallen to the ground, but gathering himself together he pressed forward, trying to reassure his coward heart.

"They are in the back part of the house, of course," he muttered. The door of the cottage stood wide open. "Strange," he thought, "on so cold a night!"

Noiselessly the husband, who was a stranger in his wife's house, passed into the little hall, and still that sickening silence, that dreariness of solitude, met him. A faint light glimmered from the remnants of the parlor-fire. He peered into the room; it was dark and seemingly empty. Maurice struck a match and looked round him. The red ashes, the position of the chairs, the tumbled covers, the crushed sofa pillow, all told of recent occupation; and indeed the two fugitives could scarcely have gone many yards from the house. As he gazed the haggard face relaxed. Crossing to the sofa, he stooped and pressed his lips to the pillow, for something told him that Margaret's head had been there. But his match died down; he was left again in darkness.

"Was anything stirring," he asked himself, "in this house of death? Where was she the traces of whose presence he was finding in the deserted room?"

He decided to remain there for a moment. It could not but be that before many moments should pass the music of her voice would meet his ears, and then he could discover himself. But waiting met with the same fate as searching. Not a sound, not a breath broke the stillness. It was a strange coincidence. In the very room, by the very spot where the deserted wife, the bereaved mother had thrown herself down, almost lost, even to herself, in her anguish, he stood, he waited, his heart sinking with vague dread, his spirit fainting in its sickening suspense, the man who had deserted her, the husband who had misunderstood, who had lightly judged her.

The first sound which met Maurice's ear was the rattling of the wheels that announced the approach of his companions. He rose and went to the door of the room. Surely this new sound would be heard. In the little hall, on the narrow staircase, he might catch the fluttering of her dress. Before she knew of his coming he might clasp her in his arms.

As the little Laura sprang from the carriage, and danced rather than walked along the path, up the steps, through the hall, the driver rang the outside bell with some violence, and this at last proved effectual. Maurice's hungry ears detected movement, but it came from below. There was the sound of chairs being pushed back, of steps on the lower passages and stairs.