Stephen Saltren had been from boyhood shy, silent and self-contained. His only book of study was the Bible, and his imagination was fired by its poetry and its apocalyptic visions. His thoughts were cast in Scriptural forms; his early companions had nick-named him the Methodist Parson. But Saltren had never permanently attached himself to any denomination. The Church was too ceremonious, he turned from her in dislike. He rambled from sect to sect seeking a dwelling-place, and finding only a temporary lodging. For a while he was all enthusiasm, and flowed with grace, then the source of unction ran dry, and he attributed the failure to deficiencies in the community he had joined, left it to recommence the same round of experiences and encounter the same disappointments in another. As a young man he had worked with his father at the original mine, Wheal Eldorado, and on his father’s death, had continued to live in the house his father had built on land he had appropriated. He continued to work at Eldorado, became captain in his father’s room, and when Eldorado was exhausted, directed the works of Wheal Perseverance. Every one spoke highly of Stephen Saltren, as a steady, conscientious man, truthful and of unimpeachable honesty. But no one quite understood Saltren, he made no friends, he sought none; and he left on all with whom he came in contact, the impression that he was a man of very abnormal character.
Whilst Adam slept, the help-mate was formed and set by him. When he opened his eyes, it was with a start and with something like terror that he saw Eve at his side. He could not but believe he was still a prey to dreams. Ever since that first meeting love has come as a surprise on the sons of Adam, has come on them when least prepared to resist its advance, and has never been regarded in the first moment as a grave reality.
Thousands of years have rolled their course, and love has remained unchanged, like the rose and the nightingale, neither developing forward to some higher form of activity, nor degenerating to one less generous.
The diseases pass through endless modifications, varying in phenomena with every generation, changing their symptoms, disguising their nature, but the fever of love is always one and runs the identical course. Enthusiasts have sought to stifle it in hair-cloth, and reduce its virulence by vaccination with foreign matter, but it resists every effort to subdue it. Society has attempted to discipline it and turn it to practical ends. But love is a fire which will consume all bonds and snap them, and is only finally extinguished with a handful of clay, when the breast in which it has burnt is reduced, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.
Unexpectedly, unaccountably, the fever laid hold of Stephen Saltren. He lost his heart to Marianne Welsh, who had been servant at the park, a handsome girl, with refinement of manner beyond her class.
He courted her for a month. She had left the great house for some unexplained reason, some folks said she was a liar, and had been dismissed because found out to be unreliable: others said she left because she was so good-looking that the rest of the maids were jealous of her and worried her out of her situation.
Whilst courting Marianne, Saltren was a charmed man. His vision of the spiritual world became clouded, and he was not sensible of the loss. A new world of unutterable delight, and of ideal beauty, clothed in rainbow colours and bathed in brilliant light, had unfurled before him and now occupied his perspective.
The acquaintanceship led at once to marriage. There was no delay. There was no occasion for delay. Saltren possessed his own house and land, and was in receipt of a good salary. The marriage ensued; and then another change came over Saltren. The new world of love and beauty, so real, faded as the mirage of the desert, disclosing desert and dead bones.
Seven months after the marriage, Marianne became the mother of a boy, and only Stephen knew that the son was not his own. A cruel act of treachery had been committed. Marianne had taken his name, not because she loved him, but to hide her own dishonour.
When he knew how he had been deceived, a barb entered Stephen’s heart, and he was never after free from its rankle. A fire was kindled in his veins that smouldered and gnawed its way outwards, certain eventually to flare forth in some sudden and unexpected outbreak. He became more reserved, more dreamy, more fantastic than before his marriage, and more of an enigma to those with whom he associated.