“What he suffered, and what he felt, however, it is not for me to attempt describing. He had garnered up all his treasures of affection in Jessie and his brother. Now Jessie was lost to him, and Edgar was a villain. How he, with his delicate sensibility, his high sense of honor, and his stern principles of duty, must have suffered, I leave you to imagine. But his love for Jessie conquered all other feelings. He knew that her happiness depended on her union with Edgar, for she was precisely that kind of character, which, though infirm of purpose in the outset, yet have a certain tenacity of feeling when once a decision has been made for them. He revolved many schemes in his mind before he could form a practicable one, and at last he suffered his frank and candid nature to lead him with its usual directness to his object. He asked Edgar to be more explicit in his confidences, and when Edgar declared that had he been the heir of wealth he would gladly make Jessie his wife, but that nothing would ever induce him to tie himself down to a life of privation and poverty, Herbert’s decision was at once made. He proposed dividing his income with Edgar, on condition that his brother should marry Jessie, and reside in the home of their childhood, while he himself should travel into distant lands. But Edgar, with the quick-sightedness of selfishness, saw how deeply Herbert’s soul was interested in the matter. Pretending a jealousy of his brother’s influence over Jessie—a jealousy of which he declared himself ashamed, yet which he could not subdue—he said that if he had the means he would marry Jessie, and take her far from all her early associations, but that he would never let her live in Herbert’s house, or in a place where she might at any time be subject to his visits.
“Pained as he was by this appearance of distrust, Herbert’s conscience accused him of cherishing a wicked love for one who was about to become his brother’s wife, and he therefore submitted meekly to this new trial. What terms were finally decided upon could only be known at that time to the two brothers.
“Six months after Mrs. Darsie’s death Edgar was united to Jessie Graham, in the little village church, and immediately after the ceremony, the wedding-party left for New York, from whence they sailed a few days afterward for Havre.
“Herbert dismissed the greater part of the servants, shut up all except one wing of the large house, sold off the carriage and horses, (reserving only the little pony-carriage, without which he would have been deprived of all means of locomotion,) and restricted his expenses within such narrow limits, that people began to consider him mean and miserly. He withdrew entirely from society, and lived more utterly alone than ever. His books, his pictures, his music, were now his only companions. Yet he did not forget that earth held those to whom even he might minister. The door of the poorest cottages often opened to admit the distorted form of the benefactor and friend, but the sunlight on the rich man’s threshold was never darkened by his shapeless shadow.
“Edgar Darsie went to Paris with his beautiful wife, and there he lived in luxury and splendor, surrounded by every thing that could minister to his love of pleasure. Only himself and one other, the lawyer who had drawn up the papers, knew whence his wealth was derived. Even Jessie never suspected that Herbert was living with the closest economy in order that the poor should not suffer from the lavish generosity which had induced him to secure to his brother more than three-fourths of his whole income as a bribe to insure her happiness.
“Ten years passed away, dragging their weary length with the lonely and suffering Herbert, winging their way on golden pinions to Edgar, weaving their mingled web of dark and bright to the womanly heart of Jessie. She had witnessed the changes of a fickle nature in her husband—she had learned to endure indifference, and to meet with fitful affection from him—she had borne children, and laid them sorrowing in the bosom of mother earth—she had drunk of the cup of pleasure and found bitterness in its dregs; and now she stood a weeping mourner beside the dying bed of that faithless but still beloved husband. Edgar Darsie had inherited his mother’s disease, together with her beauty. His excesses had hastened the period of its development, and ten years after his marriage he was withering like grass before the hunter’s fire, beneath the touch of consumption. Day after day he faded—his stately form became bowed, his bright face changed, his silken locks fell away from his hollow temples. Health was gone, and beauty soon departed.
“With the approach of death came old memories thronging about his heart, and filling his sick chamber with fantasies and spectres of long by-gone days. “Take me home! take me home!” was the bitter cry. But his “home-wo” came too late. Never again would he leave his bed until he was carried to the house appointed for all living. At the first tidings of his illness Herbert had sailed for Havre, and traveled with all speed to Paris; but when he arrived there his heart failed him. He remembered Edgar’s avowed jealousy of him, and the wild, fierce joy which thrilled his heart when he found himself once more near to Jessie, taught him that he was not entirely guiltless toward his brother. He accordingly took lodgings in the same hotel, that he might be near Edgar, in case he should wish to see him, well knowing that the mode of life in Paris secured him the most perfect privacy. He made known his present abode to a certain business-agent, through whose hands letters had usually been sent to him from Paris, and thus he received from Jessie’s hand constant tidings of his brother’s condition.
“But this state of things could not last long. His impatience to be with Edgar led him to seize upon the first faint intimation of a wish to see him, and he soon found himself welcomed with tears of joy by Jessie while Edgar thanked him with his eyes—those tender eyes—for his thoughtful kindness in coming without waiting for a summons. During three months Herbert shared with Jessie her care and watchfulness over the invalid. All the lovable qualities of Edgar’s nature were brought out by his sickness, and Herbert could not help feeling the full force of those fascinations which had won for him the love of every one. Weakened in mind as well as in body by his disease, he was like a lovely and gentle child, so docile, so affectionate, so helpless, so tender, and so altogether lovely did he appear, as the dark wing of death flung its shadow broader and deeper above his couch.
“He died with penitence for past misdeeds deep-rooted in his heart, and prayer for pardon lingering on his lips. He died clasping his brother’s hand in his, and the last act of his life was a vain attempt to unite Jessie’s hand in the same grasp. There was no time for the indulgence of selfish feeling at such a moment. The presence of death had hushed the whispers of earthly passion, and the grief of both the brother and the widow was the genuine tribute of affection to the departed.
“As soon as Edgar’s affairs could be arranged, the widow, with her only surviving child, returned to America under the protection of Herbert. Ignorant as a child about pecuniary affairs, Jessie left every thing to Herbert, and consequently never knew at what sacrifice he rescued Edgar’s good name from obloquy, and paid his enormous debts. Nor did she ever know that the money which had supported their extravagant expenditure in Paris, was the free gift of Herbert. But daily and hourly did she experience Herbert’s considerate kindness. Fearing to awaken her suspicions relative to his agency in her marriage, he determined to continue to her an allowance similar to that which he had bestowed upon his brother. But to do this required new retrenchments, and the sacrifice of a fine landed property; for Edgar’s lavish prodigality had cost him so large a portion of his fortune that it now needed the most careful and judicious management.