“This is Mrs. Hathaway, Sir Harold,” said the gray looking lady’s companion.
The lady sprang forward after an impulsive fashion, and clasped the baronet’s hands in both her own. Her black eyes flooded with tears. And then, in a broken voice, she thanked her preserver for his gallant conduct on the previous evening assuring him that her gratitude would outlast her life. Her protestations and gratitude were not overdone, and unsuspecting Sir Harold accepted them as genuine, even while they embarrassed him.
He remained an hour, finding Mrs. Hathaway charming company and thoroughly fascinating. The companion sat apart, silent, busy with embroidery, a mere gray shadow; but her presence gave an easy unconstraint to both the baronet and the lady. When Sir Harold took his departure, sauntering down to the German Spa, he carried with him the abiding memory of Mrs. Hathaway’s handsome brunette face and liquid black eyes, and thought himself that she was the most charming woman he had met for years.
From that day, throughout the season, the baronet was a frequent visitor at Mrs. Hathaway’s private parlor. The gray companion was always at hand to play propriety, and the tongues of gossips, though busy, had no malevolence in them. Sir Harold had his own horses at Brighton, and placed one at Mrs. Hathaway’s disposal. The widow accepted it, procured a bewitching costume from town, and had daily rides with the baronet. She also drove with him in his open, low carriage, and bowed right and left to her acquaintances upon such occasions with the gracious condescension of a princess. She sailed with him in his graceful yacht, upon day’s excursions, her companion always accompanying, and rumor at length declared that the pair were engaged to be married.
Sir Harold heard the reports, and they set him thinking. The society of Mrs. Hathaway had become necessary to him. She understood his tastes, studying them with a flattery so delicate that he was pleased without understanding it. She read his favorite books, played his favorite music, and displayed talents of no mean order. She was fitted to adorn any position, however high, and Sir Harold thought with a pleasant thrill at his heart, how royally she would reign over his beautiful home.
In short, questioning his own heart, he found that he had worshiped his dead wife, who would be to him always young, as when he had buried her—but with the passion of later manhood, an exacting, jealous yearning affection, which gives all and demands all. With his children far from him, his life had been lonely, and he had known many desolate hours, when he would have given half his wealth for sympathy and love.
“I shall find both in Octavia,” he thought, his noble face brightening. “I shall not wrong my children in marrying her. My son will be my heir. My daughter’s fortune will not be imperilled by my second marriage. Neva is sixteen, and in two years more will come home. How can I do better for her than to give her a beautiful mother, young enough to win her confidence, old enough to be her guide? Octavia would love my girl, and would be her best chaperon in society, to which Neva must be by and by introduced. I should find in Octavia then a mother for my daughter, and a gentle loving wife and companion for myself. But will she accept me?”
He put the question to the test that very evening. He found the handsome widow alone in her parlor, the gray companion being for once absent, and he told her his love with a tremulous ardor and passion that it would have been the glory of a good woman to have evoked from a nature so grand as Sir Harold’s.
The fascinating widow blushed and smiled assent, and her black-tressed head drooped to his shoulder, and Sir Harold clasped her in his arms as his betrothed wife.
With a lover’s impetuosity he begged her to marry him at an early day. She hesitated coyly, as if for months she had not been striving and praying for this hour, and then was won to consent to marry him a month thence.