"Dead! Deed!
His soul hath sped,
The turf lies over his golden head.
"Cold! Cold!
In churchyard mould,
And just one stroke hath the death-bell tolled.
"Child! Child!
The angels smiled,
Then carried thee heavenward undefiled."
After the departure of Eustace, life went on in the same old fashion at the Hall. Alizon passed her days and nights with Sammy, received the few visitors that called, and was as happy as she could be under the circumstances. She deeply regretted the kind friend who had been such a comfort to her in her loneliness, but looking back on what she had done, could not wish things otherwise. True, he had spoken most delicately, and in such a way as could offend no woman, still she was glad that he had gone, as his presence would have been a perpetual reminder to her of his unhappy passion.
"If I had married him," she thought sometimes, "perhaps he would have made me a better husband than Guy. But no! his love was a mere passion of envy, wishing for what he could not obtain. Had I been single, very probably he would not have spoken to me as he did. The fact that I am the wife of another man is the true reason of his desire that I should love him. Ah! these men, they are all the same. Eustace is a poet, and his pleading was more delicate than another man's would have been, but his instincts resemble those of the rest of his sex."
Thus she talked to herself, trying to harden her heart against the misery of the man who loved her so devotedly and hopelessly. He was going away from England, to exile, perhaps to death, and all for her sake; even the least vain of woman could not but feel a thrill of responsive feeling to such unutterable worship. But whenever she found herself thinking in this dangerous fashion, she tried to change the current of her thoughts. She was the wife of Guy Errington, and, little as he deserved it, he had a right to expect entire purity of thought and deed in his wife, yet, in spite of her Puritanical nature, she dreamed at times of the unhappy exile whose love she had rejected.
Guy never wrote to his wife, nor gave any sign of existence, and she, on her part, acted in the same way, so it seemed as if their lives were parted for ever. Yet she frequently thought about him and began to believe that she had been too harsh in her judgment. If such was the case, let him come back and ask her forgiveness. If he did so--well she might pardon him, and then--but no, there could never be any trust or affection between them. The phantom of the past would always come between them; so far as she could see, nothing remained to make her life happy but the child.
Sammy was the idol of her heart. She forgot everything when she had him in her arms, and she felt that the whole world might go to ruin as long as this blue-eyed darling was left untouched, safe on the tender bosom of his mother. In her daily life she adapted all things to suit the living of her child, and never knew a happy moment when she was away from his side.
The first thing in the morning the child was brought down to her bedroom, and sprawled on the coverlet, while she lay looking at him with happy eyes, babbling fond nonsense suited to his baby understanding. When he slept in the morning she sat beside his crib watching the flushed little face, the tangled golden curls, and the tiny dimpled hands. She went out with him for his daily drive, accompanied by Mrs. Tasker, and would hardly let that worthy woman touch him, so jealous she was of his liking for anyone save herself. He played at her feet for hours, and she sat beside him in a low chair singing tender little songs, playing baby games, amusing him with his toys, and when he grew fretful with wakefulness, lulled him to sleep on her breast. Every hour of the day she found some new perfection in him, she was never tired of talking about his clever ways, his infantile wisdom, his loving disposition, and when he was laid to rest at night, she hung over him like an enamoured lover breathing blessings on his unconscious head.
The world will doubtless laugh at such tender devotion, at such intense absorption in an unformed infant, but no one but a woman, no one but a mother, can understand the wondrous power of maternal love that dominates every other feeling in the feminine heart. All the passion of lovers, the ecstacies of poets, the blind adoration of men for those they love, pale before this strongest of all feelings implanted in the human breast. Perhaps some will say that self-preservation is stronger, but this is not so, as a mother in an extreme case will sacrifice her life for that of her child, thereby proving the superiority of the maternal feeling.