During the remainder of the evening, it was the subject for comment that the favorite of the queen was grave and abstracted, and that her brow, usually lighted up with the joy of an untroubled spirit, was crossed with darker hues than were wont to sully it. Even Marmonti strove in vain to restore her depressed spirits, but it would not do; the words she had heard in the garden clogged her soul, bowing it down to remorse and anguish. Memory led her away from these scenes of hollow semblance to the shores of Massachusetts—to that eventful night, when, in her feebleness, she battled with the adverse waters. Again she was listening to the oft-repeated story of the garrulous wreckers, as they painted, in their blunt honesty of speech, the daring courage and generous conduct of the youthful mariner, as, after having laid her gently upon the beach, he uttered that prayer of thanksgiving for her safety. As fancy's finger pointed out these episodes of her past existence, and she reflected upon the return she had made—that she had spoken of him as a thing of scorn, and that he had heard her! the swelling waves of contrition irrigated her selfish soul, and she retired to her chamber, for that night redeemed from the trammels of coquetry and ingratitude. Dismissing her maid, she sat down in an embrasure of her apartment, but was disturbed from her reverie by the entrance of her attendant, who placed beside her a pacquet, bearing her address, and again retired. Hastily breaking the seal, she opened its folds, in doing which a braid of hair escaped from therein and fell to the ground. The contents of the epistle were disjointed in character, and evidenced a bruised and saddened spirit. The writer was Harwood.
“I will not upbraid you, Mary, although you have crushed my fondest—my dearest hopes! Fool that I was, I dreamed that the Mary of my boyhood was still the same—that what she professed in other days, she would prove in my ripened years—that her gentle spirit yet retained its recollection of one with whom was spent the darkest portion of her brief existence! Do you remember that night when the demon of the storm swept the bosom of the dark Atlantic, and I bore you——but no! not that; but surely you still retain the memory of that kind, good old man, who took us in our destitution and gave us a home, and who, when we were seated at his social board, would moralize upon our melancholy story, and bid us love one another, for it seemed as if Providence so willed it in the arrangement of our destinies. And oh! how often, when wandering along the shores of Barnstable, have we mingled our tears when we looked out upon the great sea, the sepulchre of all we loved, and cheated Sorrow of its triumph, in gilding with Hope's brightest pencillings a radiant and sunny future—and then, that evening, when in the holy hush of nature, and in the presence of none save our God, you vowed remembrance, and gave me a ringlet of your own raven hair. I return it, Mary, for I may not retain it after the fatal proofs of your feelings towards me, which inadvertently I overheard this night. Alas! that such things should be—that you, whom I have loved—how fervently and deeply let my present agony pourtray, should speak of me as of one——but I will not upbraid, but bless you, Mary; even in your heartlessness will my prayers be as fervent for your welfare, as when in other years I watched your girlhood beyond the ocean. Farewell! Heiress of Marne, farewell—forever!”
Her attendants, upon entering their mistress' chamber on the ensuing morning, found her lying insensible upon her couch, the letter of Harwood compressed within her grasp.
Did she awake to better feelings, and was the film of ingratitude and deceit rent from her heart? Alas! that selfishness should prevail over the finer impulses of our nature, and the perspective of a coronet in woman's eye sway ascendant over the homely aspect of humble wedlock! Who was Henry Harwood, that he should aspire to the hand of the favorite of Marie Antoinette, and on the plea of having performed a trifling act of humanity, dare thus to address the loveliest woman in the Court of Louis? One month, and Marmonti, amid the beauty and chivalry of France, and honored by the presence of royalty, wedded the fair Destraix!
Marmonti's lineage was noble—ay, princely! In his veins there ran the tide of the House of Bourbon. Marmonti was the friend of his king!
And had the flight of time wrought no change in the fortunes of the boy of the wreck? In a land like ours, industry and perseverance eke out their reward, and fostered by the liberal and equalizing spirit of our institutions, Harwood's concentrated energies found ample opportunity to develop themselves. His tale won for him the favorable notice of a philanthropist, and his integrity and devotion to the sternest duties, gained him his friendship—so that the homeless, beggared stripling of a few years past, found himself embarked upon the sea of commerce, aided by friendly winds, on his course to fortune and esteem; and although he could urge no pretensions to ancestral honors, yet in republican America, where aristocracy is but the idle misnomer of faction, and man is judged by the standard of his moral excellence, Harwood became one of her genuine aristocracy—one of her merchant nobles!
The bells that rung out the consummation of the nuptial rites, tortured not the ears of the jilted lover—he was ploughing the waves on his return.
CHAP. III.—REVERSES.
“For mortal pleasure—what art thou in truth?
The torrent's smoothness ere it dash below.”