When Louis Doring boarded the train that evening he knew that within awaited him the sharer of his future fortunes.
His story can soon be told. It was the natural outcome of his weak, selfish, stubborn and vain character. A few months later, deserted by the companion he had taken with him, penniless and alone in a southern city, he fell a victim to a malignant fever and passed out of life.
Cartice saw a brief mention of his death in a daily newspaper of the city in which it occurred. Accompanied by the faithful Butterfly she went at once, arriving there in time to put his mortal part out of sight with the decency custom requires.
These two loving hearts, both bruised from sad experiences, sat together late that night, talking of the curious events we call life and death. What they knew of one made it almost as terrible as the other.
“Ah, Butterfly, dear,” said Cartice, “I envy the women who have lost husbands worth lamenting. Such tears would be sweet, not bitter.”
“You call me a seeress, sometimes,” said Chrissalyn, “and perhaps I am, for I have been looking off into the future—a future that is very far away, indeed—and I see you, and you are happy. At least I read it so, for there is light all about you, and your face is like a picture of joy, it is so bright. And you are more beautiful than the sun, of whose radiance your clothes are made. But I am not with you, and it is, oh! so far away—so far that it looks to be even on the other side of death though that is a queer way to put it. Yes, you will be great and renowned some day as well as happy; but the road there is so long—I don’t understand it—as long as several lives put together, I should say.”
“And you, child of the far-away eyes, see you naught for yourself?”
“No; I never do; but I have a firm belief that I am yet to have satin couches and plenty of time to rest on them.”
Splendor be it observed, was her deal of bliss, which was natural, she being a butterfly.
That night while her friend slept, Mrs. Doring sat by the open window thinking of the cold, still form she had seen put out of sight that day, and wondering with a chill sense of awe where now was the soul that had been represented by it. The moonlight whitened everything, and added its electric beauty and pale sadness to the loneliness of the night. She recalled other nights when that form had pulsated near her, and yet her spirit had been as lonely as now.