Chaste as Ice, Pure as Snow: A Novel

by C. Despard

She would not look at him. Her eyes were fixed on a distant speck on the horizon—the sail of a ship or the long line of smoke from a passing steamer.

"You have forced yourself upon me," she said in a low, constrained voice; "you know your presence is distasteful, and you know why. But for you these years of what you are pleased to call savage loneliness would never have been."

He did not seem to hear her; he was carrying on a kind of soliloquy. "She is changed," he said, gazing at her still, "yes, and fading. The rich bloom in her cheek, the laughing sparkle in her eye, the fair roundness of form, it is passing—passing; but, hélas! mon Dieu! is she not fairer than ever in her pure, sad whiteness? Ah, Marguerite, my pearl! how could he ever have doubted you?"

Almost fiercely she answered, the fire of indignation giving back to her eyes the sparkle of the olden days: "And you can ask that—you from whom all the misery came? He knew what had passed between you and me before our marriage. He trusted me, my life was blest; you came between us and destroyed my happiness."

"Gently, gently, my fair Marguerite," he said, pleadingly; "you English are a justice-loving people. Is it not your law that allows what they call extenuating circumstances? That meeting between you and me need never have taken place. If you remember, I warned you. I received no answer. Silence gives consent. Was I less or more than human not to avail myself of it?"

It was true—too true. Margaret hid her face in her hands, and when she next spoke her voice was low and pleading: "Mr. L'Estrange, you are cruel. Yes—God forgive me!—I was to blame, and He has punished me sorely; but have pity on me—leave me here."

A smile played over his lips, but she could not see it; he drew nearer to her and touched the folds of her dress with a hand that was burning.

"It is time it should end," he said, trying to gaze into her hidden face, "It was all a mistake, a grand mistake. I should never have allowed it, only I wanted faith. I dared not drag you into any uncertain future. Ah, my white pearl! who understands you so well as I? Do you remember—shall I, can I, ever forget?—those few blessed days? We were happy, Margaret—happy as children to whom the present is all; the future was not even named between us, for when a cloud, born of the North, your childhood's home, passed over your gentle mind, I was able to dispel it. Those moonlight excursions on the silver water of fair Venice—your friends were with us, yet we were alone, for the kindly darkness made us almost forget their presence; the serenades—ah! I see your memory is no worse than mine; the soft harmonies dying away in the far distance as we sat together in our gondola, our hands clasped, our souls rapt to ecstasy; the lessons in astronomy on those clear spring evenings when you and notre chère fillette scanned in turns the deep, star-spangled sky; that day spent in exploring, Margaret—your pretty coquetry had vexed me, but the soft golden radiance of pictured glass, the sculptured marbles in that beautiful church, the Scalzi, soothed my soul and I was at rest, your softly gleaming eyes telling of your sympathy in my joy; the pictures, Margaret—our delight when we were able to trace the hand of the greatest masters, and pronounce, without guide or cicerone, on the authorship of one of our favorites,—yes, these were pleasures. I sometimes think that they were pleasures too pure, too high, for any but the gods, and in their jealousy they dashed the cup of bliss from our lips. But," his voice deepened; he drew so near to her that his hot, passionate breath fanned her cheek, "they have given us one more chance. Shall we be wise and seize it? Ah, ma belle! I see it passing. Happiness! think what that is; it is not often offered to the dull sons and daughters of humanity, and, Margaret, we have once rejected it."

He spoke, and gradually the bitterness seemed to pass from Margaret's face. There came into her eyes a lustrous shining to replace the fierce light with which she had greeted his first words; she even leant over toward him and allowed him to touch her pale face with his strong, nervous hand. For all was on his side for the moment. The strange, wellnigh overpowering fascination he possessed—memory, imagination, present loneliness and a certain bitter rising of indignation which the readiness of her husband's mistrust and desertion could not but cause her at times.