But fortune still inclined to be capricious, and to doom Georgia's new-found patience to another trial. Mr. Wildair's political mission required dispatch, and a few days before their arrival he had gone. From the minister they learned that his first destination was a return to Paris, from thence to Baden Baden, and it was more than probable he would visit London and then return home.
"Well, Georgia," said Warren, "you see fate is against you, and has doomed you to disappointment. Nothing remains now but to make the best of a bad bargain and start on a regular sight-seeing tour, and 'do' Europe, as Curtis would call it. And, after all, perhaps it is for the best you did not meet him. He is now rapidly rising to political distinction, and his meeting with you might distract his thoughts, and would certainly keep him from entering heart and soul into the political arena as he does now. Besides, having lost you for so long, he will know how to value you all the more when you do return. Come, Georgia, what difference, after all, will a year or two make in a life? Don't think of returning now, but let us continue our tour."
"I am at your disposal, my dear Warren," said Georgia, with a smile and a sigh. "As you say, after all, a year more or less will not make a great deal of difference, and I am particularly anxious to continue our tour. Therefore, mon frere, do with me as you will."
With an account of that tour, dearest reader, I will not weary your patience—already, I fear, too much taxed. All "grand tours" are alike—the same sights are seen, the same incidents occur, the same scenery and pictures are looked at and gone into raptures over, and the same people are met everywhere. The summer was spent traveling slowly through France and Germany, and the winter was passed in Italy. Early in the spring they visited Switzerland; and, almost imperceptibly, two years passed away.
And where, meanwhile, was he whose willful blindness and haughty pride had brought on his own desolation? Where was he, widowed in fate though not in fact?—where was Richmond Wildair?
Home again, drowning thought and his intolerable remorse in the giddy whirl of political life. He had returned in time to close his mother's eyes, and hear her last words—a wild appeal for Georgia, the wronged Georgia, to forgive her. And then, with all the power of his mighty intellect, he had given himself up to the life he had chosen, that life for which Heaven and nature had so well qualified him—a great legislator—and that life became to him wife, and home, and all. Already he had taken his seat in the Senate, and, though perhaps the youngest there, stood foremost among them all, crowned with his lofty genius as with a diadem. The knowing ones whispered that at the next election he was certain of becoming Governor of his native State, and certainly, as far as popularity went, there could be little doubt of it. Never was there a young statesman, perhaps, who in so short a time had risen so rapidly to distinction, and won such "golden opinions" from all sorts of people.
Of almost all concerning his wife he was profoundly ignorant. One thing he knew, and that was that she, and no other, had painted the wonderful picture about which the artistic world was still raving. Hagar, in her mighty grief and dark despair, the wild, woeful, anguished form writhing yet majestic in her great wrongs, was Georgia as he had seen her last. And, as if to make conviction doubly sure, the picture bore her initials. One consolation it brought to him, and that was that she still lived. Every effort in human power he had made to discover her, but all he could succeed in learning was that a tall, dark, majestic-looking lady, bearing the name of Miss Randall, had received the prize; but nothing more was known of her. Then he sought for her brother, and heard he had gone to Europe, but whether alone or not he could not discover. A score of times within the day would Dick Curtis be on the point of telling him all, until the recollection of his promise would stop him, and he would inwardly fume at not having made a mental reservation at the time. Still, these tortures of doubt, and uncertainty, and hope, and despair served Richmond just exactly right, he argued, and would teach him, if he ever did find Georgia, to treat her better for the future.
And so, while Georgia was roaming over the world, Richmond was rising to still higher fame and eminence in his native land; and neither dreamed how each had searched, and sought, and sorrowed in vain for the other.