He wanted a home where he could proudly welcome the whole world, if need be, to witness his happiness. He wanted a wife to entertain his friends—not a mistress to hide from them; and he wanted children to crown his life and perpetuate his name.
These highest human instincts come knocking at the door of every man's heart, some time in his life.
He may bolt the door with avarice or pride, curtain the windows with lawless passions, and block the entrance with worldly ambitions and pleasure. But the Creator who meant him to be a part of that holy earthly trinity,—father, mother, and child,—shall send a great unrest upon his soul; and despite all his precautions, a longing for the love of a pure woman and a little child shall take possession of his heart.
That time had come to Percy: come as suddenly and unexpectedly as the greatest eras almost always come in human existence.
He closed his eyes and indulged in wild dreams.
He saw himself sitting before an open fire-place: a little distance from him, Helena, in flowing white robes, singing a golden-haired child to sleep upon her breast. Near by, a friend, some of his bachelor companions, perhaps, envying his happiness, as he looked upon the scene with admiring eyes.
Then he sprang up and fairly groaned aloud.
"I must guard myself in my letters," he said. "I will only write to Helena, as a suffering man might address a Sister of Charity. She shall never know how I love her, until my life is free from every fetter of sin and folly, and until I have made myself worthy by years of noble living."
But you may as well talk of hiding the glory of the sunrise from the earth, as the fervor of a great passion from the object which inspired it.
Careful as were his expressions, his letters breathed an atmosphere of love as passionate as his mysterious sorrow seemed hopeless.