It was the old unhappy story: her husband neglected Lady Caroline consistently—ill-treated her sometimes. Mohun pursued his purpose with the relentless obstinacy of his character. Eighteen months after her marriage they fled together.
He was not rich, so that the trial which ensued, with its heavy damages, completely crippled him. The partner of his crime was absolutely penniless. They went to Vienna, and Ralph entered the Austrian Cuirassiers, where he had some interest to push him. He had lingered some time within reach of England, to give Mannering an opportunity of demanding satisfaction. But the injured husband knew his man too well to trust himself within fifteen paces of Mohun's pistol. He chose a surer, safer revenge in taking no steps to procure a divorce, and so debarring Ralph from his only means of atonement—marriage with his victim.
He varied the dull routine of seducers, it is true, for he never wearied of, or behaved unkindly to, the woman he had ruined. Time brought many troubles on them, but never satiety or coldness. To the very last he worshiped her, and, to the utmost of his power, guarded her tenderly. Rough, and hard, and morose as he was to others, she never heard his lips utter one harsh word.
But she was of a proud, sensitive spirit, and had miscalculated her strength when she thought she could bear dishonor. After that duel with which Austria rang, in which the best schlager in his brigade fell, horribly mangled, the day after he had whispered a jest about Caroline Mannering, men were very cautious how they even looked askance at her; but the women—who could bridle their tongues or blunt their scornful glances? Briareus, armed to the teeth, would not affright our modern dowagers, or deter them from their prey. Wherever the carcass of a fair fame lies, thither they flock, screaming shrilly in triumph, vulture-eyed, sharp-taloned—the choosers of the slain.
I pity from my heart the frailest, the most utterly fallen of her sex, when once the social Nemesis hands her over to the chorus of the Eumenides.
We deride the subsignanæ who line the wall; we make a mock at their old-fashioned whist; we risk jokes whereat our partners smile approvingly on their false fronts and wonderful head-gears; but may the wittiest of us never know by experience how much worse is the bite than the bark of the Veteran Battalion!
Caroline Mannering had all this to contend with, for Vienna was a favorite resort in those days for the English, and she was constantly encountering some of her old set. She bore up bravely for a while, but it killed her. She never wearied her lover with her self-reproach, but crushed back her sorrows into her heart, and met him always with a gentle smile. That same smile contrasted so sadly, at last, with the wan, worn features, that it often made him bend his bushy brows to conceal the rising tears.
If her destiny had been different—if she had died ripe in years, after a life spent in calm matronly happiness, with all that she loved best round her, would she have been nursed so tenderly or mourned so bitterly by the nearest and dearest of them all as she was by her tempter to sin? I think not. I believe that in all the world there never was a greater sorrow than that which Mohun endured as he saw his treasure slowly escaping him; never a desolation more complete and crushing than that which fell upon him as he stood by her corpse, with dry eyes, folded arms, and a heavy, frowning brow. It was not only that he felt her place could never be filled again—many feel that, and find it turn out so—but a part of his being was gone: all that was soft, and kind, and tender in his nature died with Caroline Mannering. He never could get rid of a certain chivalry which was inherent in him, so sometimes he would do a generous thing; but he did it so harshly as to deprive the act of the semblance of good-nature. I think he very seldom again felt sympathy or compassion for any living creature. Perhaps he thought the world had behaved hardly to his dead love, and so never forgave it. She passed away very stilly and painlessly. She was leaning on his breast when he saw death come into her eyes: he shivered then all over, as if a cold wind had struck him suddenly, but spoke no word. She understood him, though. Her last motion was to draw his cheek down to hers with her thin, shadowy arm, and her last breath went up to the God who would judge them both in an unselfish prayer.
"She was rightly served," says Cornelia; "such women ought to be miserable."
O rigid mother of the Gracchi! how we all respect you, trônante in the comfortable cathedra of virtue inexpugnable, perhaps unassailed. Your dictum must stand for the present. The court is with you. But I believe other balances will weigh the strength of temptation, the weakness of human endurance, the sincerity of repentance, and the extent of suffered retribution, when the Father of all that have lived and erred since the world began shall make up His jewels. In that day, I think, the light of many orthodox virgins and dignified matrons will pale before the softer lustre of Magdalene the Saint.