Mrs. Bergan went on. "She said she had a story to tell you. And when I hesitated—fearing that it might be some new trouble or excitement—you have had enough such, of late, dear—she smiled, as if she knew what I was thinking, and said,—'Have no fear, madam; my story will do her good, not harm!' Shall I let her come up?"
An hour after, the door of Bergan's sick-room opened gently. His eyes were closed; he, too, had been thinking, as deeply as his weak, half unconscious state permitted; and his thoughts had been strangely like those of Carice. The tangled web left behind by Doctor Remy would be hard to unravel, he felt; and in the process, there would be much pain, loss, anxiety, and disgrace,—especially for Carice. His heart ached for her;—and a little also—for he was very weak and weary—for himself. Would it not be well to have done with it all,—to let thought, care, and life drift away together, as they seemed so ready to do, if only he ceased to hold them back? It would be so much easier to let them go!—was there really any good reason why he should try to live?
Hearing the door close, and the sound of light footsteps, he languidly opened his eyes. Diva Thane was standing at his bedside, holding the blushing Carice by the hand, and smiling down upon him with eyes deep-lit by a mysterious radiance. There was a lofty beauty in her face, a look of victory after conflict, that he had never seen there before.
His heart gave a great bound. He remembered his strange, repeated intuition that that fair, firm hand would some day bestow upon him an inestimable blessing. Was the time come?
"I bring you a gift," said she, in low, rich tones, full of feeling as of melody. "This little, maiden hand—free from every claim as from every stain—is the best return that I can make for what you have done for me." And, placing Carice's hand in his, she added, solemnly:—"I give it to you, for I have the right: I am the wife of Edmund Roath."
The rush of joy was almost too great. It swept over Bergan's senses like a great whelming wave; speech and sound were lost in it; sight was gone, except for Carice's sweet, fair face, the one point of light in a vast ocean of blackness; feeling was annihilated, save that he clung to that dear hand as to the one treasure that he would not be parted from, let him be carried whither he might. Firmly and tenderly it closed upon his, too,—seeming to be the only thing which kept him from drifting out into that wide obscurity, and brought him back to the steady standing-ground of consciousness. There he was met by a rush of gratitude and sympathy only a little less overpowering. He knew so well what that avowal had cost Diva's pride! He understood so clearly whence came that solemn light of sacrifice in her eyes, that exalted beauty in her face, and how dearly it had been won! Still holding Carice fast with one hand, he held out the other to her, with emotion too deep for aught but a benediction.
"God bless you," he murmured, fervently. And he added, in a tone of entire conviction;—"I am sure He will."
She bent her graceful head,—no longer haughty in its pose,—gave his hand an earnest, heartening pressure, and glided from the room.
All gentle, delicate souls, all sympathetic hearts, go with her; curiosity, coldness, rudeness, must needs follow after. In that sick-room, Love only may remain,—Love which, by its long patience of sorrow, its steady conscientiousness, its freedom from all self-seeking, has won at last its blessed right to be,—and to be happy!
At a little distance from the cabin was a huge ilex tree, in the broad, low shade of which Dick had once been moved to set up a rude bench. Thither Diva betook herself to wait for Carice. There was a pleasant enough prospect before her, beyond the gulf of sand,—the creek on its sunshiny way to the sea, the pines and water oaks mingling their moss-hung boughs and diverse verdure,—but it is doubtful if she was aware of it. Her eyes—whether bent on the ground at her feet, or lifted to some far point of the blue horizon—spoke plainly of a mind too busy with its own reflections to be anywise cognizant of outward objects. She was reviewing the main events of her life by the new light recently shed on them, discovering a connection, a harmony, and a meaning in them unsuspected before, and gaining thereby a deeper sense of the might and wisdom of that overruling Providence in whom she had come so lately to believe.