The next day the doctor spent a full hour at Mrs. Buzzell’s talking to Clara of Frauenstein and his grand social-palace scheme. Clara expressed regret that she had not seen him. “Regret!” said the doctor; “you may well regret, for you have lost a rare pleasure. When you see him you will love him, and at first sight too. I am sure of it, for he is the only man I ever met whom I thought worthy of you. He is coming back, though, and then you shall see him. He’s a man after my own heart in everything. He’s perfect; he’s without a flaw. I know him just as well as if I had been intimate with him for years. Every thought and feeling of the man is honest and true, and what is better than all, he has faith in human nature.” Clara was interested, but the count was no vital part of her thoughts as he was of her father’s, and besides her heart was filled that day with its old pain. Albert had written, saying simply that, as a year had passed, he thought he had a right to expect she would have had time to reflect upon their mutual position, and that he hoped she had decided to return. It was a very cold letter, but it moved her deeply, and under the first impulse she wrote, sinking every thought of pride, hoping only, blindly, that he would, by an impulse as simple, and as frankly expressed as hers, prove that he loved her despite all that had happened. She wrote:
“Dear Albert:—Your letter moves me deeply, but it does not show me that you have any tender thought of me, any motive of real love in saying you expect me to return. Do you know so little of me after all, as to suppose that I can be influenced by the wealth you speak of? Can you doubt that I would rather be your wife were you poor and unknown, if you only loved me as once you did, than to be your queen were you master of the world, if I must see you seek in other women that which I alone would give?
“Oh, Albert! why can I never make you see me as I am? I have no pride, as you think; willingly would I prove myself the very queen of fools in the eyes of the world—would kneel in the dust and kiss your feet, could I thereby find that you love me with the divine tenderness that once made my life. Dear one, what shall I say? What shall I do? I long, with all my being, for the tender words you used to breathe so eloquently, for the sight of your beautiful eyes, for your kisses and caresses. If you do really want me—me, not your legal mate, but Clara—you will show me this beyond the shadow of a doubt.
“I cannot tell you how I have suffered, and do suffer still, at times. I pray only that I may wake from this long cold night of misery, and find myself in the blessed warmth and light of that love which made me once your proud and happy
Clara.”
To this letter he wrote, among other things not touching the subject nearest Clara’s heart: “If you love me so ineffably as you would have me think you do, I should like you to show it in the only possible way—by coming home at once. As for me, I do not pretend to sentiment. We should not trouble ourselves with riddles, dear Clara, but love where we may beneficently, and as much as we can.”
To this Clara replied as promptly as to the other: “At last, Albert, I fully understand you. You are true to yourself in this letter, and I respect you for it. You might as well have told me in so many words, ‘I do not want my love, but the mistress of my house.’ Well, Albert, receive my final, eternal answer: I shall never go back to you while I live. Again I assure you, I have no pride. I confess that my eyes are red with weeping, for I have shed the first tears of absolute despair that I ever knew. Until now there has been hope, however faint, but now, every trace is gone. Hereafter, we will study the problems of life as if we had never met.”
When Dr. Delano received this letter he knew that all was over, and regretted that he had not played his cards better. He did not love Clara, but he was proud of her, and knew that, as a wife, she was an honor to him. He had not doubted seriously that she would return, and he had intended to humble her by his forgiveness, and in the future make her, through this lesson, a patient, dependent, and wholly exemplary wife. Now there was no hope of this, and, to make matters worse, Charlotte utterly refused to see Miss Wills. Mr. Delano died soon after, leaving all his property to his son, except his daughter’s portion. He had been kept in ignorance, on account of his illness and his very nervous condition, of the breach between Clara and his son. He left her his kindest wishes, and the hope that through her, the family name might be preserved. After his death his daughter wrote a very kind letter to Clara, manifesting a depth of womanly feeling which Clara had never suspected could exist under the austere manners of Miss Delano. From this there arose a correspondence between them, and the utter frankness and sweetness of Clara’s nature, as it developed in this new relation, had a great charm for Miss Charlotte. At first she tried to persuade Clara to return to her husband; but having the whole case presented to her in a simple and clear light, she finally approved Clara’s course. She expressed herself strongly on the want of delicacy in men’s treatment of women, and her own satisfaction that she herself had never given any one of them the power over her happiness that Clara had. “Come and see me,” she wrote, “whenever you are in the city. I like you and trust you; and if you think a sour-tempered old maid worth cultivating, it will be a great consolation to me.”
CHAPTER XXX.
OUT OF THE JAWS OF DEATH.
Events which could not be foreseen, were destined to work great changes in the circumstances of several of our characters. One of these—the death of good Mrs. Buzzell—we will pass over quickly, for it is not specially profitable to linger over such scenes of bereavement as the loss of a dear and true friend.