On reaching home she found the door wide open, and Courtland standing in the entrance, evidently awaiting her arrival. As she approached, their eyes met, and a glance told her that all was over.
"Dead!" softly whispered Courtland.
A stifled sob was all that broke from the lips of the child, as she fell lifeless into the arms of her lover.
I pass over the mournful circumstances attending the funeral of the exiled Frenchman. He was borne to his grave by a select few of his countrymen, whose acquaintance he had made during his short residence in this city. Like thousands of others, who have perished in our midst, he died, and "left no sign." The newspapers published the item the next morning, and before the sun had set upon his funeral rites the poor man was forgotten by all except the immediate persons connected with this narrative.
To one of them, at least, his death was not only an important event, but it formed a great epoch in her history.
Lucile was transformed, in a moment of time, from a helpless, confiding, affectionate girl, into a full-grown, self-dependent, imperious woman. Such revolutions, I know, are rare in everyday life, and but seldom occur; in fact, they never happen except in those rare instances where nature has stamped a character with the elements of inborn originality and force, which accident, or sudden revulsion, develops at once into full maturity. To such a soul, death of an only parent operates like the summer solstice upon the whiter snow of Siberia. It melts away the weakness and credulity of childhood almost miraculously, and exhibits, with the suddenness of an apparition, the secret and hitherto unknown traits that will forever afterwards distinguish the individual. The explanation of this curious moral phenomenon consists simply in bringing to the surface what already was in existence below; not in the instantaneous creation of new elements of character. The tissues were already there; circumstance hardens them into bone. Thus we sometimes behold the same marvel produced by the marriage of some characterless girl, whom we perhaps had known from infancy, and whose individuality we had associated with cake, or crinoline—a gay humming-bird of social life, so light and frivolous and unstable, that, as she flitted across our pathway, we scarcely deigned her the compliment of a thought. Yet a week or a month after her nuptials, we meet the self-same warbler, not as of old, beneath the paternal roof, but under her own "vine and fig-tree," and in astonishment we ask ourselves, "Can this be the bread-and-butter Miss we passed by with the insolence of a sneer, a short time ago?" Behold her now! On her brow sits womanhood. Upon her features beam out palpably traits of great force and originality. She moves with the majesty of a queen, and astounds us by taking a leading part in the discussion of questions of which we did not deem she ever dreamed. What a transformation is here! Has nature proven false to herself? Is this a miracle? Are all her laws suspended, that she might transform, in an instant, a puling trifler into a perfect woman? Not so, oh! doubter. Not nature is false, but you are yourself ignorant of her laws. Study Shakspeare; see Gloster woo, and win, the defiant, revengeful and embittered Lady Anne, and confess in your humility that it is far more probable that you should err, than that Shakspeare should be mistaken.
Not many days after the death of M. Marmont, it was agreed by all the friends of Lucile, that the kind offer extended to her by Pollexfen should be accepted, and that she should become domiciliated in his household. He was unmarried, it is true, but still he kept up an establishment. His housekeeper was a dear old lady, Scotch, like her master, but a direct contrast in every trait of her character. Her duties were not many, nor burdensome. Her time was chiefly occupied in family matters—cooking, washing, and feeding the pets—so that it was but seldom she made her appearance in any other apartment than those entirely beneath her own supervision.
The photographer had an assistant in his business, a Chinaman; and upon him devolved the task of caring for the outer offices.
Courtland, with a small stock of money, and still smaller modicum of health, left at once for Bidwell's Bar, where he thought of trying his fortune once more at mining, and where he was well and most cordially known.
It now only remained to accompany Lucile to her new home, to see her safely ensconced in her new quarters, to speak a flattering word in her favor to Pollexfen, and then, to bid her farewell, perhaps forever. All this was duly accomplished, and with good-bye on my lips, and a sorrowful sympathy in my heart, I turned away from the closing door of the photographer, and wended my way homewards.