Barren Honour: A Novel

by George A. Lawrence

In a book of this length, one can only record the salient points of conversations and situations; your imaginations must fill up the intervals, reader of mine, if you think it worth the trouble to exercise it. It is enough to say, that gentle steadfastness of purpose carried the day, as it generally does, against passionate recklessness, and Helen perforce became reasonable at last. Though the cousins talked long and earnestly after this, the rest of the interview would hardly keep your interest awake. Such farewells, if they are correctly set down, savour drearily of vain repetitions, and are apt to be strangely incoherent towards their close.

"If you are in any great trouble or difficulty, promise me that you will send for Gracie; she will help you, I know, fearlessly and faithfully, to the utmost of her power."

That was almost the very last of Wyverne's injunctions and warnings. If at the moment of parting his lips met Helen's, instead of only touching her forehead, as he intended, I hope it was not imputed to him as a deadly sin; the sharp suffering of those few hours might well plead in extenuation; and, be sure, He who "judges not after man's judgment," weighs everything when he poises the scale.

I never felt inclined to make a "hero" of Alan till now. I begin to think that he almost deserves the dignity. You must recollect that he was not an ascetic, nor an eminent Christian, nor even a rigid moralist, but a man essentially "of the world, worldly." If the Tempter had selected as his instrument any other woman of equal or inferior fascinations, I very much doubt if Wyverne's constancy and continence would have emerged scatheless from the ordeal. But here, it was a question of honour rather than of virtue. When his second intimacy with Helen began to be a confirmed fact, he had signed a sort of special compact with himself, and he found that it would be as foul treachery to break it, as to make away with money left in his charge, or to forfeit his plighted word. I do not say that this made his conduct more admirable; I simply define his motives.

Alan went down to the North the next day to wind up his home business, and he never saw Lady Clydesdale alone before he sailed. But he went forth on his pilgrimage an unhappy, haunted man. Wherever he went those eyes of Helen followed him, telling their fatal secret over and over again, driving him wild with alternate reproaches and seductions. He saw them while crouching among the sand-banks of an African stream watching for the wallowing of the river-horse; at his post in the jungle ravine, when rattling stones and crashing bushes gave notice of the approach of tiger or elk or bear; oftenest of all, when, after a hard day's hunting, he lay amongst his comrades sound asleep, looking up at the brilliant southern stars. His one comfort was the thought, "Thank God, I could ask Gracie to take care of her."

Alan was expiating the miserable error of fancying that his love was dead, because he had chosen formally to sign its death-warrant. The experiment has been tried for cycles of ages—sometimes after a more practical fashion—and it has failed oftener than it has succeeded.

Think on that old true story of Herod and his favourite wife. Lo! after a hundred delays and reprieves the final edict has gone forth; the sharp axe-edge has fallen on the slender neck of the Lily of Edom; surely the tortured heart of the unhappy jealous tyrant shall find peace at last. Is it so? Months and months have passed away; there is high revel in Hebron, for a great victory has just been won; the blood-red wine of Sidon flows lavishly, flushing the cheeks and lighting up the eyes of the "men of war;" and the Great Tetrarch drinks deepest of all, the cup-bearer can scarcely fill fast enough, though his hand never stints nor stays. So far, all is well; the lights and the turmoil and the crowd may keep even spectres aloof; but feasts, like other mortal things, must end, and Herod staggers off to his chamber alone. Another hour or so, and there rings through hall and corridor an awful cry, making the rude Idumean guards start and shiver at their posts—fierce and savage in its despair, but tremulous with unutterable agony, like the howl of some terrible wild beast writhing in the death-pang—

"Mariamne! Mariamne!"

Does that sound like peace? The dead beauty asserts her empire once again; she has her murderer at her mercy now, more pitiably enslaved than ever.

Ah, woe is me! We may slay the body, if we have the power, but we may never baffle the Ghost.