The queen of the isle

by May Agnes Fleming

And then, drawing her arm within his, Willard led her from the house, followed by Uncle Reuben.

Christie took her place in the humble little donkey-cart, and cowered down to avoid the pelting rain.

"Thee had better get in, too, being wounded and weak from loss of blood," said Uncle Reuben to Willard. "I will walk and drive."

"Not at all. Do you imagine I would ride while you walked? I am not so weak; I feel the strength of ten men within me, urging me on."

"That is only excitement, friend; it will not last. Thee had better get in."

But Willard peremptorily refused, and took his place on the other side of the little cart.

Seeing it was in vain to urge him, the old man allowed the animal to start. And Christie raised for a moment her bowed head, to cast one last, sorrowful glance at the little, isolated, forest cottage she was never destined to see again. They turned an abrupt angle, the night and darkness shut it from her view, and with a long, shivering sigh, she bent her head once more on her pale hands.

The night-ride through the forest—with the wind wailing eerily in long, lamentable blasts through the waving arms of the trees, with the rain driving in blinding gusts in their faces, with the pall of an almost Egyptian darkness around, above, and on every hand! That night-ride! sleeping or waking, in after days, alone or in the gayest assembly, it would rise like a haunting vision before the eyes of Willard Drummond; and the little, bowed, shadowy figure crouching silently in a corner of the wagon, would awaken in his heart feelings of undying remorse. That night-ride, through the long, lonesome woods! All the great wrong he had done that little, bowed form, from whose gentle lips no word of reproach ever fell, from whose loving eyes no accusing glance ever flashed, arose in bitter array before him, until he felt as if he could never encounter the gaze of those earnest, soul-lit orbs again—felt, as he walked beside her, as much out of his sphere as a lost soul might feel before the gates of heaven.

Then, by a natural transition, his thoughts were straying out to the future—to Sibyl. She was lost to him now, as much as though she were dead and in her grave. There was a sharp, keen pang piercing through his heart for one moment, at the thought; the next, a more generous feeling filled it, and he felt as if he could even joyfully give her up, to save her from that awful doom. Once Sibyl was saved, his determination was to depart with his little, drooping girl-wife, to some far-off Southern clime—to some sunny village in France, or Italy, where the more genial climate would restore her to health, and where the wretched past would be forever unknown. There, he would endeavor to atone, by his devoted care and attention, for all he had ever made her suffer, and forget Sibyl. But that name, as usual, woke a host of tender, sorrowful memories, and something akin to despair again replaced every other feeling in his tortured mind. Truly, in the keen suffering of that moment, he realized what Divine retribution is.

And so on—still on, through the chill, bleak night, the driving, splashing rain, the sighing, moaning wind, the dark, desolate forest-road, our weary, silent trio wound their lonely way. Not a word was spoken from the moment of starting.