Mal Moulée: A Novel

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Helena's nature was deeply romantic and profoundly sympathetic. These letters, therefore, appealed to the strongest elements of her being.

All through her girlhood she had jealously guarded her heart's vast store of intense love for an ideal lover whom she had never yet seen.

And now through the medium of an earnest sympathy she was bestowing upon Percy all the lavish wealth of her rich nature, just as one might give a five-dollar gold piece, thinking it was only a shining penny, to a mendicant. She lived in a dream world; she performed her duties as music teacher and choir singer mechanically. The people with whom she associated were shadowy and unreal forms. The only person who really existed for her, was Percy, with his load of mysterious sorrow, which she and her glorious horde of spirit friends would somehow lift from him.

With her slight knowledge of the world at large, and society as it exists in cities, Helena had no comprehension of what that sorrow might be. She did not puzzle her head to divine it. She was willing to wait Percy's own time. Whatever it was, she knew he deserved her sympathy and her prayers.

Almost daily Percy saw Dolores. Each day he promised himself, that he would tell her what was in his heart. Each day he delayed the dreaded scene.

Upon Dolores, the terrible and overwhelming conviction was forcing itself, that Percy no longer loved her. The thought of a rival never once presented itself to her. She knew that she was beautiful, accomplished, congenial—every thing, in fact, which he could desire in a companion.

"But," she reasoned, "it is a man's nature to tire of that which is his. Somewhere I have read, 'who ever gives too much in love, is certain not to receive enough in return;' and I am proving it true. It would be the same, were I his wife."

Then, in spite of herself, back upon her mind rushed the recollection of a quotation once made by Mrs. Butler in her arguments in favor of marriage: "If the fickle husband goes, he returns; but the lover, once gone, he never returns." She remembered how scornfully she had regarded such an argument. "What woman of pride or self-respect would desire the fickle husband to return?" she had said. "I should want him to go speedily, the moment his heart strayed from me, or tired of me. And better by far, for both, if there were no legal ties to sever."

All this sophistry she recalled now, with a dull pain at her heart. The time had come, when she felt positive, that Percy no longer loved her. Yet she could not tell him to go. The very thought of a separation was like a knife in her breast.

"How vain it is to assert what we would do in any situation in life," she said, "until we have loved. Love changes everything, even to one's whole nature. May God help me to bear this."