Miss Sullivan was to depart on the same journey that Diana had made with such hopeful joy of heart. She had one little act of preparation to do. She took the Testament, her own childish gift, which she had found still the talisman of life to a drowning man, and pressing it very tenderly to her lips, she hung it about her neck. Its touch sent a warm thrill of longing to her fondly waking heart and, with the thrill, a blush shot youth again through her cheeks.
“God willed,” she said, “that I who had driven him into exile should be there at his return. How could I not know and feel that one who still in drowning and in death clung to this precious talisman of purest Life, could never be what lies had made me deem him?”
And she went on her journey to be with sorrow and death; but with a joy that no chance of any dying, to-day or to-morrow, could take away. Her joy was of eternity, for she had learnt that love such as hers can never be born and grow and be, unless it is founded upon fullest truth and worthiest worth and most honourable honour in the heart of him she loved—and truth and worth and honour are imperishable and eternal.
In those weeks, while Mr. Waddy was chasing sullenly to overtake revenge, Diana was dying among her tender friends—Clara, forlorn of her noble sister, for whom earth was not found worthy; Dunstan, Endymion, watching, while night after night, the deity of his life and of his heaven fading, perished slowly away until, one violet dawn, she was not. But the sun came up and shone upon his path of manly duty, and he will bravely walk therein, conscious that a beautiful spirit is near him and will never vanish from the sky of his visions.
Ira Waddy was on his return from the West. Revenge had passed away from his heart. He had seen his enemy die horribly, but not by his hand. Death had risen up terribly between him and murder. Merited revenge had overtaken the guilty, but had not chosen him for executioner. And as he turned his face again eastward, he was glad for this—glad that the weight of blood, which he would have assumed unshrinkingly, was spared him. With this storm of deadly-meaning pursuit, with its dark sullenness, unillumined until the final thunder-bolt fell—with this closing crash, all the long accumulating bitterness passed away from Ira Waddy’s nature. Heaven was clear and cloudless over him. All mysteries were swept away. It was a new dawn, and a glorious. And he hastened eastward, every moment, long as it seemed, bringing him nearer, nearer——
He had left poor Budlong under the wise and kind protection of Peter Skerrett. And there was another, a woman, who would not leave the old man’s bedside, but was there a silent, humble nurse, often bursting into bitter tears, when he inarticulately murmured to her feeble words, which only her quickened ears could construe into intentions of forgiveness.
To arrange Mr. Budlong’s affairs at Newport, and his own, Mr. Waddy passed that way on his eastward journey. He arrived, as is usual, in the fresh morning. It was still early autumn, but Vanity Fair had struck its booths, taken down its étalage, and gone into winter quarters. The season had ended sadly; everyone was saddened for Diana. Her inspiring beauty had been the brilliant presence that made this summer brighter than any remembered summer. There was many a dry old beau who, stimulated by the thought of her into a brief belief that he could be young, ardent, frank, and brave again, found himself looking with moistened eyes at the places she would illumine no more and feeling that a glory and a hope had passed away.
It would have all seemed rather dreary to Mr. Waddy, walking there alone, but no desolate spot of desert earth is dreary to a man who feels the warmth of his own happiness making gardens sun-shiny, roseate, wherever he treads. Not drearily, then, but full of sad sympathy, Mr. Waddy went toward the house of his gentle kinsman and friend; thinking most of Clara, now so widowed by the death of one dearer than a sister.
“I will ask her who is this Miss Sullivan, whom Granby spoke of as their governess,” he said, because his heart was full of gratitude. “Perhaps it may prove that she and my kind friend are one, and I can discover her residence and thank her suitably.”