A Mad Love

by Charlotte M. Brame

Lose faith in him! She flung back her head, with a bright, proud laugh. No, nothing could shake her faith in him; his proud lady mother had managed to get him under her influence—what did that matter? He loved her and her alone. She remembered the words spoken on her wedding-day; when she had asked him if he was quite sure their marriage was legal, his answer was, "Yes, and that nothing could part them except death."

How well she remembered those words, "except death"! He had taken her in his arms and kissed her, as though even death itself should not claim her. No shadow of fear entered her mind. She knew that he would come, as surely as she knew that the sun would rise and the day would dawn.

The thirtieth of June. No gift of second sight came to her, to tell her that on the twenty-seventh of June Lord Chandos had sat down and wrote her a very long letter, telling her that it was impossible for him to be at home on the thirtieth of June, as he had promised to go with his parents to Spain. A large party were going, and he must join them; but his heart would be with her on that day. He should think of her from morning dawn until sunset, and he would be with her soon. He was vexed that he had to take the journey; it was quite against his will, yet he had been over-persuaded. He should soon see her now; and, whatever he did, she must not feel in the least degree distressed, or put about. Their happiness was only delayed for a short time.

A long letter. She had no gift of second sight; she could not see that his face burned with a shameful flush as he wrote it; that for himself he had no pity; that his heart went out to her with a warmer love than ever, but that the fear of his mother's taunts and the pain on Lady Marion's face kept him where he was.

Then, when the long letter was written, he directed it and sent it by his valet to post; nor could she see how that same valet intended going to post it at once, but was prevented, and then laid it aside for an hour, as he thought, and forgot it for two whole days; then, fearing his master's anger, said nothing about it, trusting that the delay might be attributed to something wrong in the post; and so, on the very day it should have been given to her, it was put into the post-office, three days too late. She could not know all this, and she longed for the thirtieth of June as the dying long for cold water, as the thirsty hart for the clear spring.

It came. She had longed for it, waited for it, prayed for it, and now it was here. She awoke early in the morning; it was to her as though a bridegroom were coming; the song of the birds woke her, and they seemed to know that he was coming—they were up and awake in the earliest dawn. Then a great flood of golden sunlight came to welcome her; she hastened to the window to see what the day was like, and whether the sky was blue. It seemed to her that every little bird sung, "He is coming."

Here were the roses laughing in at the window, nodding as though they would say, "This is the thirtieth of June." There flashed the deep, clear river, hurrying on to the great sea over which he must have crossed; the wind whispered among the leaves, and every leaf had a voice. "He is coming to-day," they all said—"coming to-day."

There was a great stir even at that early hour in the morning between the white and purple butterflies; there was a swift, soft cooing from the wood-pigeons; the world seemed to laugh in the warm embrace of the rising sun. She laughed too—a sweet, happy laugh that stirred the rose leaf and jasmine.

"Oh, happy day!" she cried—"oh, kindly sun and kindly time, that brings my love back to me."

She looked at the gate through which he would pass—at the rose tree from which he would gather the rose; and she stretched out her hands with a great, longing cry.