Indeed, Esther's humiliation required no aggravating circumstances. She was deeply wounded in the tenderest parts of her character. Pride, ambition, and love of rule had all been mortified and abused. And now she succumbed. She resigned any further struggle, and yielded to her victorious foe. Her spirit and mind were alike brought down. After the above conversation she retired to her own room, and drew her miniature from her bosom, and looked long and stedfastly on the tranquil lineaments. Again she reviewed her whole life, and again she fell upon the ever-recurring question—Did he then love me? And she scarcely knew whether an answer in the affirmative would give her most of joy or of regret.
The man who had so long ministered to her will, was in his humbler sphere as completely overthrown. But his feelings were bitter and fierce, and no trace of compunction or repentance was to be found among them. On reconsidering his threats, he clearly saw their futility. When he partly disclosed his story to a scandal-mongering individual with a view to extortion, he was only laughed at for his pains. And he very clearly perceived, that for himself there was nothing in prospect but the penalty of perjury. On every hand he felt that he had been thwarted and defeated. The man whom he knew that he hated had wedded the lady whom Michael fancied he loved, and he foresaw the reconciliation that would make them happy. While he himself, instead of being on the high road to fortune, was an outcast from society, disgraced and infamous.
Yet did one matter detain him in London. One hope remained to save him from absolute despair. By one chance he might even yet retrieve himself, and aspire to a certain position in the world. Wealth, he fancied, would cover a multitude of sins. Cunning had failed him, luck might stand his friend. Day by day he sought the ancient hall, where the wheel of fortune, no longer a mere symbol, dispensed blanks and prizes to a host of care-worn worshippers. And of all that feverish crowd, no votary watched the numbers as they turned up, with more desperate eyes than the peasant of Cornwall. Reckless alike of the jests of the indifferent, of the boisterous glee of the fortunate, and of the execrations of the ruined, he awaited his turn with intense excitement. The great prizes were still in the wheel. He might have realised a very handsome profit on his ticket. But he would scarcely have parted with it for anything short of the highest amount in the list. Little he cared when the revolving cylinder threw out a paltry thousand; no such trifle was an object to him. But he ground his teeth when a number which was not his, appeared in connection with a prize of twenty thousand pounds, and when the very next turn of the wheel declared his ticket—blank—he crushed his hat over his eyes, and slunk out of the hall. He slunk away from town: it was his final leave-taking of the metropolis.
CHAPTER XV.
Oh, days of youth and joy, long clouded,
Why thus for ever haunt my view?
When in the grave your light lay shrouded,
Why did not memory die there too?
Vainly doth hope her strain now sing me,
Whispering of joys that yet remain—
No, never more can this life bring me
One joy that equals youth's sweet pain.
Moore.
All this time Mildred Trevethlan remained in strict retirement. The only visits which interrupted her solitude were those she occasionally received from Mrs. Winston and from Helen. Gertrude brought intelligence of Mrs. Pendarrel, which was unhappily not of a kind to comfort the repenting fugitive, and her calls were rendered of brief duration by her anxiety to return to the invalid. She could not pretend to assign any other cause than Mildred's flight to their mother's dejection, and her sister trembled to think of the effects of her disobedience. In the many hours when she was necessarily alone, or attended only by Rhoda, she was haunted by fears of the most alarming kind, and whenever Randolph came home after an absence as short as he could make it, he always fancied that his wife's sadness had increased since he left her.
Yet her despondency was lightened for a time when Helen came to see her. For she, gentle and hopeful, dwelt always on the theme to which Gertrude dared not allude. She always promised, or rather predicted, that a reconciliation could not be distant. She bid Mildred to fix her eyes upon that prospect, and to overlook the trouble immediately around her. And upon her brother she urged the duty of obeying the chaplain's injunctions, in their full spirit, and without delay. But Randolph listened to such remonstrances with impatience, and still postponed the day when he would make any advances.