Carlotta strained her again and again to her bosom, then, seeing she was not to be shaken from her purpose, we slowly and sorrowfully left the room. At the door Carlotta’s feelings overcame her, and resolving to make one more trial, she went back, and embracing her again, said:
”Lulie, I cannot leave you so. By the Blood of dear Jesus, by the Cross of our Redeemer, I beseech you to go with us to our home.”
Poor Lulie caught her hand and pressed her tear-wet cheek and lips upon it, then pushed her from her side, not rudely but sadly, with despair in her very touch.
And so we left her sitting on the floor, with her head buried in her folded arms upon an ottoman. We were so troubled to leave her as we found her, that we wrote a long note and sent it up to Madame Dubourg’s that evening from the hotel. The waiter soon returned with our note unopened, but on it, scribbled with a pencil:
”Dear friends, forget me!
Lulie.”
Next morning, as we stood on the deck of the steamer for Havana, inhaling the breeze and enjoying the scene, while the giant wheels were throbbing us out into the ocean, we little thought that in the great city behind us, up in a room with perfumed and silken hangings, an overburdened heart, slower and slower, was throbbing, throbbing, throbbing a soul out into eternity.
[CHAPTER XLVII.]
Carlotta and I are standing in the balcony of our chamber, gazing in rapt admiration on the gorgeous beauty of a Cuban sunset. The home we have come to is indeed a lovely one; it is situated about fifteen miles from Havana. The house, built of white stone, is like some Gothic castle, with its towers, and arches, and extensive proportions, yet has all the airy lightness of Italian architecture, in tasteful decorations and elegant finish. It stands on a slight elevation overlooking the sea, and is surrounded with all the appointments refined taste could suggest or wealth procure. White shelled walks, bordered with smoothly trimmed evergreens, wind through gardens of exquisite flowers, or beneath wire-trellised graperies, whose luscious clusters rival those of Eschol. Beautiful drives lead around lawns of green velvet, where fountains play with sparkling jets, and marble statues gleam amid the shrubbery, or down through long fragrant groves of oranges and limes, that drop their yellow fruit beneath the passing wheels.