These were the words that thus haunted him—
“Der dritte hub ihn wieder sogleich
Und kusste sie an den Mund so bleich.”
“Dich liebt’ ich immer, dich lieb ich noch heut,
Und werde dich lieben in Ewigkeit.”
From London a day or two later he wrote to his mother, telling her simply, and in as few words as possible, that the hopes he had confided to her, were utterly and for ever at an end. He begged her to spare him the pain of entering into useless particulars, and enjoined her never, if she valued his peace and comfort, to allude to the affair directly or indirectly to him or anyone else.
Lady Severn obeyed him implicitly, and only in the recesses of her own heart, as I said, abused “Sir Archibald’s niece” for the sorrow she had brought upon her son.
Late in the autumn, after seeing his mother and nieces comfortably re-established at Medhurst, and assisting at the gorgeous nuptials of Florence Vyse and Mr. Chepstow, Sir Ralph left England for an indefinite time: to travel in strange and distant lands, in search—not of happiness—but of interest and occupation sufficient to make life endurable.
[CHAPTER] III.
THE END OF THE HONEYMOON.
“O death, death, death, thou ever floating cloud,
There are enough unhappy on this earth,
Pass by the happy souls that love to live:
I pray thee pass before my light of life
And shadow all my soul that I may die.
Thou weighest heavy on the heart within,
Weigh heavy on my eyelids: let me die.”
ŒNONE.
THIS was the letter the little boy gave to the young lady in the arbour, and which without moving from her seat she opened and read. It was addressed outside correctly enough to “Mrs. Baldwin.” It was the first letter she had ever received from Ralph! She read it slowly, though it was short enough, dwelling on each phrase, each word, with the sort of hungry eagerness with which we strain our ears to catch each last precious whisper from loved lips which we know shall soon, very soon, be silent for ever.