“Sing us something, Cousin Mary,” said Claude, and her musical voice stole upon our hearts in its magic sweetness, chanting softly that song she loved, “Ave Sanctissima!” Insensibly my heart was yielding to the strain, and I walked in old cathedrals “high and hoary,” listening to some fair nun, as she chanted her mysterious vesper-hymn; when my fancies were suddenly dispelled by Claude’s voice, begging Mary would choose some other song.
“It is very beautiful,” said he, “and seems doubly so, Mary, sung by your dear voice; but the devotion it expresses for an ideal object is very disagreeable to me.”
I was called from the room at that moment, and when I returned an hour later, I knew that Claude Norrice had told his cousin how dearly and truly he loved her, how indispensable was her presence—her affection to his life’s pathway. Mary stood before him, her head erect, as she said proudly and with flashing eyes —
“I’m not to be treated as a mere child, Claude Norrice—I tell you again that nothing you can say to me—no professions of affection you have made, shall lure my heart from the faith of my mother.”
And she bowed her head in veneration as she spoke that name, and crossed her fair white arms upon her breast as if she would still its wild beatings. But I saw her cheek grow white as he bowed down and kissed her forehead, and I saw her lips quiver fast, as he said:
“The shadow is on my heart, Mary—the shadow which your cruel words have cast there, and it can never be effaced. God forgive you, Mary—and Father in Heaven, help me! help me!”
Again he bowed down and kissed her, long and wildly—turned his face toward me pale with agony, and rushed from the room.
“Claude! dear Claude, forgive me,” murmured Mary as she slept that night; raising her pale face from her pillow, and clasping her hands as if she prayed. And often in that long, weary night she would wake with a sudden start, and lifting her eyes toward the crucifix, pray wildly—“Ave Mary! Madonna! help me!” When she would place her hand beneath her pale cheek, weary with her grief, and sleep again, murmuring all the while of Claude—her mother and Heaven.
There were no vows of eternal affection exchanged when Mary Norrice and I stood on the shaded piazza of G—— Seminary, watching for the old green coach, which was momentarily expected to take her to her city home. No vows were needed—we loved each other with that trustfulness, that confidingness which asks no pledge. Mary had promised to write me very often, and this I assured her would be a panacea for every human ill.
Not quite three months after we left school, I received from Mary the following hastily written letter: