He paused in his walk, as through his joy for them struck the sharp pain of the consciousness that the costly treasure of her love was not for him.
“Heart of my heart, soul of my soul,” he murmured fervently, “I love you, though I lose you. All that is divine and human is dearer and lovelier to me because I love you, though you are lost to me. Lost, lost to me forever.”
His head sunk upon his breast, and his eyes closed. The lilac fragrance floated in and reeled in a warm gust upon his throbbing brain. Some silent spirit seemed near him in the sunlit room, and strange comfort stole upon him like the bliss of a dream.
“Farewell, Muriel,” he murmured, his blue eyes unclosing, dimmed with a mist of tears, “farewell, farewell. It is one hope the less, and life calls me still.”
He sunk into his chair, and striving to banish her image from his mind, began to think how he should deal with Emily. In a little while he resolved that, however difficult and delicate to do, he must frankly tell her of what he had heard, and let her know his true relation to her.
His conclusion made, he still sat musing, his spirit clouded with sadness and anxiety. Suddenly he heard the gate fly open and slam to, and a firm tread rush over the planked walk, then the door opening, in darted Wentworth, flushed, electric, panting, furious with rage.
CHAPTER XI.
NORTH AND SOUTH.
The family of the Mr. Lemuel Atkins, of whom the Captain had spoken, belonged to what is called Good Society; but let no one suppose that they constituted a specimen of the Boston aristocracy, with its men, too often, indeed, cold and careless in the interests of mankind, yet always polished gentlemen in instinct and education, and with its women, cultured and noble, patrician from brow to foot, and many, very many of them, angels of compassion and succor to the weak and poor. The Atkinses were only of a large and dominant moneyed class, vulgar mushrooms—no, toadstools—who spring up thickly in the aristocratic quarter and call themselves Good Society.