She was awfully, terribly changed, both in body and mind, and when Lady Etwynde paid her a flying visit, tearing herself from æsthetic joys and the glories of the Grosvenor Gallery Exhibition, and endless réunions among the cultured, she was shocked and alarmed at the alteration.
"You must leave here, or you will go melancholy mad!" she said, imperatively; and Lauraine, having arrived at that stage when she was too spiritless and too indifferent to oppose any vigorous scheme, yielded passively, and was borne off to Erlsbach.
Sir Francis, of course, could not come. He liked London, and was not going to give up its thousand and one enjoyments for the sake of an invalid's whim. Her mother offered voluntarily to sacrifice herself in the matter; but Lauraine would not hear of it, and in the end she and Lady Etwynde, under charge of an experienced courier, set out for Germany and, travelling by slow and easy stages, arrived one warm June evening at quaint, pretty Erlsbach.
"But, Lauraine," says Lady Etwynde, continuing the conversation after a long, thoughtful pause, "have you ever considered that it is like putting yourself in rebellion against God to go on like this? All strokes of sorrow are sent for some wise purpose. We do not see it, believe it, at the time; but, later on——"
"Ah," interrupts Lauraine, "that is just it. It has not come to 'later on' with me. I had but one thing to make me happy; it has gone. Don't expect me to be consoled in a few months."
"But, my dear, you have your husband, your duties. Do you know it seems to me as if you were, in a way, estranging yourself from him?"
"He can find plenty of amusement in the world," says Lauraine, coldly. "Little Frank was nothing to him, except just simply the heir who would come after him in due time, and keep the estates in the family. But to me——" She breaks off abruptly.
The faint wind from the pine woods blows over her head and ruffles the soft dusky curls above her brow. In that dim light, with her pale, beautiful face turned upwards to the purple sky, she looks so young, so fair, so sorrowful, that a rush of tears dims Lady Etwynde's eyes as she gazes at her. "I didn't think she would have taken her sorrow to heart like this. How little one knows, after all!" she thinks to herself.
A week drifts by. Amidst that tranquil pastoral loveliness, amidst the beauty of the woods and streams, in the whole dreamy, simple life they lead, Lauraine rests and rejoices in such quiet, unecstatic fashion as is left to her. Her sorrow seems less hard and cold a thing here; the angel face of her lost darling comes with a more tender grace to her memory. She can talk and even smile with something of the old playful witchery that used to be hers. There is always something new to see; there are no landmarks here as at Falcon's Chase to recall the footsteps of that baby life whose journeying was so short a one. She begins to feel a little interest in places and things once more. She likes Lady Etwynde's talk, even when it may be on culture and ethics; she can listen to her when she reads out, which she does admirably as well as judiciously. On the whole, there is a decided improvement about the mental "tone" that delights Lady Etwynde, though she never appears to notice it.
Life and worldly cares, and even worldly joys, seemed sometimes to sink into almost insignificance amidst these mountain solitudes. They were so grand, so sublime, so immovable. Their lessons came home to Lauraine's aching heart, and soothed and comforted it insensibly to herself. She grew less sad, she brooded less over what she had lost. She had no hope, nothing to look forward to; yet still the present so steeped her in peace and rest that it seemed to her in after years as if these fragrant forests, this wilderness of ferns and flowers, these foaming waters, and far-off gleam of shining glaciers and crowning snows, had possessed some magic power that insensibly soothed and lulled her heart's long pain.