“Mr. Meredith,” she answered, looking up at him with sudden resolution, “forget for a little while what you have just said to me, and listen, while I read you a page out of my own heart.”
A look of suffering came into his eyes, his lips trembled, and he breathed heavily, but he answered:
“I cannot ‘forget,’ but I will ‘listen,’ as you wish.”
“Nearly two years ago,” Star began, “I came to America in the ——, a vessel that sailed from Liverpool to New York. Perhaps you remember that it was lost at sea. I was one of the few who were saved, and afterward picked up by the ——, another homeward bound vessel. As I was lifted from the life-boat to the deck of the noble craft, I fainted from exhaustion, and fell into the arms of a stranger, who bore me to a state-room and gave me into the care of a stewardess. I met him a day or two afterward on the deck. He was a noble, manly looking gentleman, some four years my senior. We were thrown much into each other’s society during the remainder of the voyage, and there came into my heart during that time a feeling for him which will prevent me from ever loving another while I live. When we landed we parted as friends, though we exchanged souvenirs, and he expressed the hope that we should meet again. A few months later we did meet, our friendship was renewed, and soon ripened into something deeper—in fact, he won my heart entirely. We were betrothed, and for a few days earth became a paradise to me. I firmly believed him to be all that he appeared. I could have staked my life upon his truth and honor, and I would have defended him with my latest breath had any one assailed his fair fame or doubted his allegiance to me. But I could not doubt the evidence of my own senses, and he proved himself a traitor in my very presence. He played me false before the vows which he had uttered to me had scarcely grown cold upon his lips. I spurned him with scorn; I denounced him as the traitor and coward which I knew him to be; but, oh, Mr. Meredith, strange as it may seem to you, I—I love him still. Perhaps it is unmaidenly in me to tell you this, perhaps it betrays weakness and a lack of proper dignity on my part; but I feel that I owe it to you, to make you understand how impossible it is for me to reciprocate your affection. He won my girlish heart, he bound me irrevocably to him by the power of his will and the charm of his oily tongue, and I can never love another. You will say that he is unworthy of such constancy, or even of a regret. I know he is, and yet while I own it, my soul is reaching after him with all the strength of a deathless love. I began to fear, a week ago, that you were entertaining feelings for me which would bring sorrow upon us both. You say that I have evaded you. I have done so; I have tried to show you that the hopes which I feared you were entertaining could never be realized, and I wish that you had never spoken the words which you have to-night; for I know—you know, that you could never be satisfied to take any one to your heart who was always turning from you to another, who, although she knew she was loving unworthily, would not yet have the power to keep her affections from straying from you, and who could not keep her vows of allegiance to you, for such vows, if spoken, would be but mockery. Mr. Meredith, you could never be satisfied with such a wife as that,” she concluded, in a voice which shook with emotion.
“No, Miss Gladstone,” he answered, sorrowfully. “I love you too fondly, too devotedly, to be content with anything save an affection as strong and true as my own. But,” with a note of earnest appeal in his tone, “could I not win you by and by? Could I not teach you to love me by proving to you that I am worthy of your love?”
Star shook her head sadly.
“I know that you are worthy at this moment,” she said. “I have the deepest respect for you, and value you as a friend; but nothing—no one can ever win the love which I must always bear for Archibald Sherbrooke. He has broken my heart and ruined my life; for I can never be the wife of any worthy man, since I will not live a lie. I can never have a home of my own; I can never have those sweet domestic ties and duties which other women have; I can only try to do my duty by the dear old man who is so fond of me while he lives, and, after that, live out my lonely life with what patience and courage I can,” she concluded, with such a pathos that the young man for the moment forgot his own sorrow and disappointment in pity for her.
“Where is he—where is this coward who has so imposed upon you, ruined your life, and proved faithless to his troth? Tell me, that I may go and brand him the knave and villain that he is!” Ralph Meredith cried, in hot indignation.
“I do not know where he is,” Star answered. “I have never seen him since that night when I told him that I had discovered his treachery. That was nearly a year ago. I never expect to meet him again—I never wish to meet him again. I desire to ignore him—at least, to all outward appearances; and if he possesses such an attribute as a conscience, his punishment must come sometime. But,” she went on, in a voice of pain, “I hope no one else will ever learn to love me, for I cannot endure the thought that I shall spoil other lives as mine has been spoilt. Oh, Mr. Meredith, I am sorry if I have unconsciously done you a wrong. Pray, forget me if you can, and——”
“That I can never do,” he interrupted, gently, for he saw that she was deeply moved; “but I will try and be content if you will allow me still to be your friend.”