"Be quiet, Richardson!" he said, with gentle authoritativeness. "It could not have been Violet. It was but a delusion, a fancied resemblance, or a trick of the imagination. Violet is dead. Did I not see her with my own eyes? Did I not care for her, and lay her to rest beneath the shade of that grand old beech?—while you yourself have seen her grave."
"Oh, but it—the face—was so like—so like!" murmured Wallace, still fearfully overcome.
"My friend," Vane continued, while he tried to control his own startled nerves, "you must not allow yourself to be so unnerved by a fancied, or even a real resemblance to the loved one whom you have lost. It is not unlikely you may meet it again some time, but you must bear it bravely. This great sorrow has been sent upon you, and you must meet it with courage and resignation, as one who believes in God should meet the trials which He sends upon you. There is work in the world for you to do, or your life would not have been spared; take it up, carry it on to its fulfillment, and do not ruin your health, your brain, your great talent, by allowing the ghost of your lost happiness to haunt and weaken you thus."
The young man spoke gravely and very earnestly, but his own face was almost as pallid as Wallace's and it was easy to see that he had been deeply moved by what had occurred. It might even be that he was striving to fortify his own sore heart and wounded spirit with the admonitions that he was giving his friend.
Wallace wiped the perspiration from his face, and strove manfully to recover his self-possession; but it was no easy thing to do, and it was long before he regained his natural color, or ceased to tremble visibly.
"I know what you say must be true," he returned, when he could speak, "and my common sense tells me that I was deceived—that the face could not have been Violet's; and yet—if—I could follow and find the woman who looks so much like her—who seemed to be her exact counterpart, I believed it would comfort me—would help to ease this ceaseless aching, this never-ending longing of my heart."
"It would not," said Lord Cameron, positively; "it would but unsettle you the more; and now that I come to think of it the more, that face—though I caught but the merest glimpse of its outline—was thinner and older than Violet's."
He immediately changed the subject, and strove to divert the mind of his friend from the painful incident, but while he endeavored to talk and appear like himself, he was secretly greatly shaken by what had occurred.
Most of the journey to Liverpool was spent in discussing Lord Cameron's plans regarding the school for the children of his tenants and the home for aged people and orphans, and the young earl exacted a promise from Wallace that, when the buildings were completed and ready for occupancy, he would come again to England to be present at their dedication, and pronounce his verdict upon them.
"You will not need to be absent from your business more than three weeks or a month," he said, "and I am sure you will have earned the right to that much of a vacation by that time. However, I shall see you again before then, since I do not intend to entirely desert the land of my birth, even though my home must be in England, and every year I shall make a short trip to America. I am not going to lose sight of my friend either; remember, Richardson, we are pledged to each other for life."