Another year has passed, and with the light of the full moon shining down upon him, Graham Thornton walks again with Maggie Lee across the fields where now the summer grass is growing. The footprints in last winter’s snow have passed away just as the light will go out from Maggie’s heart when Graham Thornton shall have told the story he has come with her to tell. With quivering lips and bloodless cheek she listened while he told her indifferently, as if it were a piece of news she had probably heard before, that when the next full moon should shine on Greystone Hall, Helen Deane would be there—his bride!
‘This, of course, will effectually break up our pleasant meetings,’ he continued, looking everywhere save in Maggie’s face. ‘And this I regret—but my books are still at your disposal. You will like Helen, I think, and will call on her of course.’
They had reached the little gate, and, taking Maggie’s hand, he would have detained her for a few more parting words, but she broke away, and in reply to his last question, hurriedly answered, ‘Yes, yes.’
The next moment he was alone—alone in the bright moonlight. The door was shut. There was a barrier between himself and Maggie Lee, a barrier his own hands had built, and never again, so long as he lived, would Graham Thornton’s conscience be at rest. Amid all the pomp of her bridal day—at the hour when, resplendent with beauty, Helen stood by his side at the holy altar, breathed the vows which made his forever—amid the gay festivities which followed, and noisy mirth which for days pervaded his home, there was ever a still, small voice which whispered to him of the great wrong he had done to Maggie Lee, who never again was seen at Greystone Hall.
Much the elder Mrs. Thornton marvelled at her absence, and once when her carriage was rolling past the door of the little store, she bade her coachman stop, while she herself went in to ask if her favourite was ill. Miss Olivia’s early call at Greystone Hall had never been returned and now she bowed coldly and treated her visitor with marked reserve, until she learned why she had come, then, indeed, her manner changed, but she could not tell her how, on the night when Graham Thornton had cruelly torn the veil from Maggie’s heart, leaving it crushed and broken, she had found her long after midnight out in the tall, damp grass, where, in the wild abandonment of grief she had thrown herself; nor how, in a calmer moment she had told her sad story, exonerating him from wrong, and blaming only herself for not having learned sooner how much she loved one so far above her, so she simply answered, ‘Yes, she took a violent cold and has been sick for weeks. Her mother died of consumption; I’m afraid Maggie will follow.’
‘Poor girl, to die so young,’ sighed Mrs. Thornton, as she returned to her carriage and was driven back to Greystone Hall, where, in a recess of the window Graham sat, his arm around his wife, and his fingers playing with the curls of her golden hair.
But the hand dropped nervously at his side when his mother startled him with the news that ‘Maggie Lee was dying.’ Very wonderingly the large blue eyes of Helen followed him, as, feigning sudden faintness, he fled out into the open air, which, laden through it was with the perfume of the summer flowers, had yet no power to quiet the voice within which told him that if Maggie died, he alone was guilty of her death. ‘But whatever I can do to atone for my error shall be done,’ he thought at last, and until the cold November wind had blasted the last bud, the choicest fruit and flowers which grew at Greystone Hall daily found entrance to the chamber of the sick girl, who would sometimes push them away, as if there still lingered among them the atmosphere they had breathed.
‘They remind me so much of the past that I can not endure them in my presence,’ she said one day, when her aunt brought her a beautiful bouquet, composed of her favourite flowers, and the hot tears rained over the white, wasted face, as she ordered them from the room.
Much she questioned both her aunt and Bennie of her rival, whose beauty was the theme of the whole village, and once, when told that she was passing, she hastened to the window, but her cheek grew whiter still, and her hands clasped each other involuntarily as she saw by the side of the fair Helen the form of Graham Thornton. They both were looking towards her window, and as Helen met the burning gaze, she exclaimed, ‘Oh, Graham, it is terrible. It makes me faint,’ and shudderingly she drew nearer to her husband, who, to his dying hour, never forgot the wild, dark eyes which looked down so reproachfully upon him that memorable wintry day.