"I have asked to speak to you, to wish you good-bye," I said. "I am going away to-morrow. For my own sake I must stay here no longer. I am going back to the East. I am well now, and anxious to be on service again. I have stayed in the Fatherland far too long as it is. To-morrow at daybreak Bold and I must be en route for Trieste." I paused; she winced, and drew in her breath quickly, but bowed her head without speaking, and I went on--"Mine has been a strange lot, and not a very happy one; and this must account to you for my reserved, unsociable conduct, my seeming ingratitude to my best and kindest friends. Believe me, I am not ungrateful, only unhappy. I might have been, I ought to have been a very different man. I shall to-night bid you farewell, perhaps for ever. You are a true friend; you have always borne and sympathised with me. I will tell you my history; bear and sympathise with me now. I have been a fool and an idolater all my life; but I have been at least consistent in my folly, and true in my idolatry. From my earliest boyhood there has been but one face on earth to me, and that one face will haunt me till I die. Was it my fault, that seeing her every day I could not choose but love her? that loving her I would have striven heart and soul, life and limb, to win her? And I failed. I failed, though I would have poured out my heart's blood at her feet. I failed, and yet I loved her fondly, painfully, madly as ever. Why am I an exile from my country--a wanderer on the face of the earth--a ruined, desperate man? Why, because of her. And yet I would not have it otherwise, if I could. It is dearer to me to sorrow for her sake, than it could ever have been to be happy with another. Valèrie, God forbid you should ever know what it is to love as I have done. God forbid that the feeling which ought to be the blessing and the sunshine of a life should turn to its blight and its curse! Valèrie!"
She was shaking all over; she was weeping convulsively under her mask: I could hear her sobs, and yet I was pitiless. I went on. It was such a relief in the selfishness of my sorrow, to pour out the pent-up grief of years, to tell any one, even that merry, light-hearted girl, how bitterly I had suffered--how hopeless was my lot. It was not that I asked for sympathy, it was not that I required pity; but it seemed a necessity of my being, that I should establish in the ears of one living witness the fact of my great sorrow, ere I carried it away with me, perhaps to my grave. And all this time the melody of the "Weintrauben" was pealing on, as if in mockery. Oh, that waltz! How often she had played it to me in the drawing-room at Beverley! Surely, surely, it must smite that cold heart even now.
My companion's sobs were less violent, but she grasped the bouquet in her hand till every flower drooped and withered with the pressure.
"Valèrie," I continued, "do not think me vain or presumptuous. I speak to you as a man who has death looking him in the face. I am resolved never to return. I am no braver than my neighbours, but I have nothing on earth to live for, and I pray to die. I can speak to you now as I would not dare to speak if I thought ever to look in your face again. You have been my consoler, my sister, my friend. Oh, I could have dared to love you, Valèrie; to strive for you, to win you, had I but been free. You are, perhaps, far worthier than that proud, unfeeling girl, and yet--and yet--it cannot be. Farewell, Valèrie, dear Valèrie; we shall never meet again. You will be happy, and prosperous, and beloved; and you will think sometimes of the poor wounded bird whose broken wing you healed, only that it might fly away once more into the storm. As for me, I have had no future for years. I live only in the past. Bold and I must begin our wanderings again to-morrow--Bold whom she used to fondle, whom I love for her sake. It is not every man, Countess Valèrie, that will sacrifice his all to an idea, and that idea a false one!"
"Stop, Vere!" she gasped out wildly; "hush, for mercy's sake, hush!"
Oh! that voice, that voice! was I dreaming? was it possible? was I mad? Still the wild tones of the "Weintrauben" swelled and sank upon mine ear; still the motley crowd down below were whirling before my sight; and as surely as I saw and heard, so surely was it Constance Beverley who laid her hand in mine, and tearing down her mask, turned upon me a look so wild, so mournful, so unearthly, that, through all my astonishment, all my confusion, it chilled me to the heart. Many a day afterwards--ay, in the very jaws of death, that look haunted me still.
"So true," she muttered; "oh, misery, misery! too late."
"Forgive me, Miss Beverley," I resumed, bitterly, and with cold politeness; "this communication was not intended for you. I meant to bid Countess Valèrie farewell. You have accidentally heard that which I would have died sooner than have told you. It would be affectation to deny it now. I shall not annoy you any further. I congratulate you on your many conquests, and wish you good-bye."
She was weeping once more, and wrung my hand convulsively.
"Vere, Vere," she pleaded, "do not be so hard upon me; so bitter, so mocking, so unlike yourself. Spare me, I entreat you, for I am very miserable. You do nob know how I am situated. You do not know how I have struggled. But I must not talk thus now."