The girl turned away with a quick writhing motion. "No," she groaned, "it is he who has killed me—with two words—bring Helene." She darted to the house with the news of Edward's accident, and then to the beach, where Helene was already before her. The tiny skiff was pushed off, and the two girls were alone together.
As long as she lived Helene DeBerczy remembered that swift boat ride across the bay. Great masses of black clouds still hung heavily in the western sky, occasionally pierced by a brilliant flash of sunshine, that emphasized by contrast the dreariness succeeding it. Below, the waters were dark and troubled, while from the flat shores rose the majestic monotony of the forest, chill, shadowy, inscrutable. But these were as the frame of a picture, that printed itself indelibly upon the heart of this high-born woman of the world—the picture of a tropically beautiful face, now for the first time deathly pale, and seamed with lines of unutterable anguish; of bare rounded arms, showing in their raised muscles, and in the tense grasp of the oars, a power of self-repression awful in its strength; of deeply-heaving bosom, beneath which was raging that old, old conflict between true and false love—the true love that gives everything, the false love that grasps everything; of the passionate, eloquent, suffering eyes, full of jealousy and yearning, fierce hate and fiercer desire, and behind all, yes, dominating all, the struggle for martyr-like self-effacement whose cry forever is, not for my sake, but for the sake of one that I love. Great waves of pity overwhelmed every other emotion in Helene's breast, as she leaned forward. "My poor child," she said, "how intensely you love him! Do not let my coming hurt you so, I have long ago yielded him to you."
"But he has not yielded himself to me," moaned the girl, her ashen lips framing the cry that came from her soul. The boat grated in the sand, and she sprang out, and pulled it upon the beach. Then, taking in a feverish clasp the delicately-draped arm of the other, she hurried her to the spot where Edward still lay, deadly pale but conscious. He did not look at Wanda—he had no eyes save for Helene. With a little cry of passionate love and sorrow she flung herself beside him, and drew the white wounded face close to her aching heart. His broken syllables of love were in her ears, his head was nestled, like that of a weary child, within her arms, his blood was staining the white laces on her breast. For a moment Wanda paused and looked upon them; then noiselessly as a dream she vanished away.
But where in the wide, pitiless world is there a place of refuge for a woman's broken heart? Instinctively Wanda went back to the boat, and rowed far out upon the troubled waters. The afternoon's storm had been but the warning of a wilder one yet to come; the heavy skies shut down on all sides, adamantine and inexorable as the fate enshrouding her; from the mute mysterious woods came the sighing of the wind, sinking now into deep moaning, then rising into a shrill anguish, that was answered by the sobbing of the waves upon the beach. All nature seemed stirred to the heart at the hopeless misery of this her cherished child. But Wanda's eyes were blank, and her ears deafened to the sights and sounds around her. With the desperation of despair she rowed fast and strenuously out into the heaving lake, while hours passed, and the black night, like a pall, enveloped all things earthly. At last, with her strength utterly gone, she dropped the oars and drifted wherever the wild tide might choose to take her. Low mutterings of thunder shook the air, and with them she mingled the notes of an Indian death-chant. Before the weird, heart-breaking tones had ceased, the black heavens opened, and tears of pity were rained upon this desolate human soul. She lay outstretched, her glorious face upturned to the starless skies, her tired hands far apart over the sides of the boat. Towards them with wolfish haste rushed the white-capped breakers, rising in fury as they reached the little craft, and flinging themselves wildly across it. Wanda paid no heed. Her voice rose once again, thrilling the air with its wild sweet melody, and then she sank, without even a convulsive clutch at the frail bark which overturned upon her.
So perished the life that was naught but a mere empty husk, since love, its strong sweet occupant, had departed. Alas, poor Wanda! alas, poor little one, whose sore feet and sorer heart could find no resting-place in all this wide hard world. The anguished winds moaned on far into the night; the sad waves, now racked and scourged by the tempest, sobbed ceaselessly upon the beach; the pitiful heavens outpoured their flood of tears, but the tortured soul that had committed the god-like sin of loving too much had found rest at last.
CHAPTER XXII.
LOVE'S REWARDS.
A few days afterwards the body of the Algonquin maiden, recovered from the waves, was lying in an upper chamber at Pine Towers. Whatever may have been the supreme agony in which this suffering soul parted from its human habitation, no trace of it remained upon the inanimate form. Free from scar or stain it lay, the languid limbs forever motionless, the cold hands crossed upon a pulseless breast, the beautiful figure, heavily shadowed in enshrouding tresses, stretched in painless repose, and on the wonderful face the expression of one who has gained, not rest and peace—when had she ever hungered for these?—but the look, almost startling in its intensity, of one who has found love. Somewhere, sometime, we who struggle through life—nay, rather, struggle after life—in this world that God so loved, shall find our longings satisfied; the one yearning cry of our heart shall be stilled. The poet shall touch the stars, whose pale light now shines so uncertainly upon his brow; the painter shall put upon canvas a beauty too deep for words; the worshipper of nature shall thrill with the knowledge of unspoken secrets; the seeker after truth shall learn the mysteries of heaven. The infinite Father cannot deny his children; He will not cheat them. But the lessons of patience are harder to learn than those of labour.
Upon this poor child of the wilderness had fallen a happiness so bewildering and so complete that it seemed as though the perfect lips must open to give utterance to a joy too full to be contained. But to the man self-accused of robbing her of love and life, this sweet reflected glory from the other side of the dark gateway brought no consolation. In that silent room, flooded with cold moonlight, Edward Macleod stood alone in the dead girl's presence, and felt the bitter waves of remorse sweep over his soul. Her beauty, touched by the light of absolute happiness, thrilled him now as never before. From mere wantonness, he had crushed out the heart of this faultlessly lovely and innocent creature, and his head fell upon his breast in shame and self-contempt. God might forgive him, but how could he ever forgive himself?
The door blew open, and, silently as a vision, Helene came in and stood beside him. It was a strange place for a lover's tryst—that bare room with its lifeless occupant, flooded with white unearthly moonlight "Let me stay with you, Edward," she pleaded, with quivering lips. "No," she added, in answer to the unspoken fear in his eyes, "I shall not try to comfort you." She knew intuitively that no consolation could avail in this hour of silent self-torture. "Only," she whispered, "you must let me share your grief, for I also have wronged her."