With a quick, hurried motion, she began to cut the bark from round the letters, till they seemed to melt away into one large cavity. She knew that some one was coming behind her, and she knew, too, by a kind of intuition, that it was Clinton, but she did not pause in her work of destruction.
"Mittie! what are you doing?" he exclaimed. "Good Heavens!--give me that knife."
As she threw up her right hand to elude his grasp, she saw the blood streaming from her fingers. She was not aware that she had cut herself.
She suffered no pain. She gazed with pleasure on the flowing blood.
"Let me bind my handkerchief round the wound," said Clinton, in a gentle, sympathizing voice. "You are really enough to drive one frantic."
"_Your_ handkerchief!" she exclaimed, in an accent of ineffable scorn.
"I would put a bandage of fire round it as soon. _Drive one frantic!_ I suppose your conduct must make one very calm, very cool and reasonable.
But I can tell you, Bryant Clinton, that when you made me the plaything of your selfish and changing pa.s.sions, you began a dangerous game. You thought me, perchance, a love-sick maiden, whose heart would break in silence and darkness, but you know me not. I will not suffer alone. If I sink into an abyss of wretchedness, it shall not be alone. I will drag down with me all who have part or lot in my misery and despair."
Clinton"s eye quailed before the dark, pa.s.sionate glance riveted upon him. The moon gave only a pale, doubtful l.u.s.tre, and its reflection on her face was like the night-light on deep waters--a dark, quivering brightness, giving one an idea of beauty and splendor and danger. Her hair was loose and hung around her in black, ma.s.sy folds, imparting an air of wild, tragic majesty to her figure. Twisting one of the sable tresses round her bleeding fingers, she pressed them against her heart.
"Mittie," said Clinton. There was something remarkable in the voice of Clinton. Its lowest tones, and they were exceedingly low, were as distinct and clear as the notes of the most exquisitely tuned instrument. "Mittie! why have you wrought yourself up to this terrible pitch of pa.s.sion? Yet why do I ask? I know but too well. I uttered a few words of gallant seeming to your young sister, which sent her flying like a startled deer through the woods. Your reproaches completed the work my folly began. Between us both we have frightened the poor child almost into spasms. Verily we have been much to blame."
"Deceiver! you told her that you loved me no more. Deny it if you can."
"I will neither a.s.sert nor deny any thing. If you have not sufficient confidence in my honor, and reliance on my truth to trust and believe me, my only answer to your reproaches shall be silence. Light indeed must be my hold on your heart, if a breath has power to shake it. The time has been--but, alas!--how sadly are you changed!"
"I changed!" repeated she. "Would to Heaven I could change!"
"Yes, changed. Be not angry, but hear me. Where is the softness, the womanly tenderness and grace that first enchanted me, forming as it did so bewitching a contrast with the dazzling splendor of your beauty? I did not know then that daggers were sheathed in your brilliant eyes, or that scorn lurked in those beautiful lips. Nay, interrupt me not. Where, I say, is the loving, trusting being I loved and adored? You watch me with the vigilance of hatred, the intensity of revenge. Every word and look have been misconstrued, every action warped and perverted by prejudice and pa.s.sion. You are jealous, frantically jealous of a mere child, with whom I idly amused myself one pa.s.sing moment. You have made your parents look coldly and suspiciously upon me. You have taught me a bitter lesson."
Every drop of blood forsook the cheeks of Mittie. She felt as if she were congealing--so cold fell the words of Clinton on her burning heart.
"Then I have forever estranged you. You love me no longer!" said she, in a faint, husky voice.
"No, Mittie, I love you still. Constancy is one of the elements of my nature. But love no longer imparts happiness. The chain of gold is transformed to iron, and the links corrode and lacerate the heart. I feel that I have cast a cloud over the household, and it is necessary to depart. I go to-morrow, and may you recover that peace of which I have momentarily deprived you. I shall pa.s.s away from your memory like the pebble that ruffles a moment the face of the water then sinks, and is remembered no more."
"What, going--going to-morrow?" she exclaimed, catching hold of his arm for support, for she felt sick and dizzy at the sudden annunciation.
"Yes!" he replied, drawing her arm through his, and retaining her hand, which was as cold as ice. "Your brother Louis will accompany me. It is meet that he should visit my Virginian home, since I have so long trespa.s.sed on the hospitality of his. Whether I ever return depends upon yourself. If my presence bring only discord and sorrow, it is better, far better, that I never look upon your face again. If you cannot trust me, let us part forever."
They were now very near the house, very near a large tree, which had a rustic bench leaning against it. Its branches swept against the fence which enclosed Miss Thusa"s bleaching ground. The white arch of the bridge spanned the shadows that hung darkly over it. Mittie drew away her arm from Clinton and sank down upon the bench. She felt as if the roots of her heart were all drawing out, so intense was her anguish.
Clinton going away--probably never to return--going, too, cold, altered and estranged. It was in vain he breathed to her words of love, the loving spirit, the vitality was wanting. And this was the dissolving of her wild dreams of love--of her fair visions of felicity. But the keenest pang was imparted by the conviction that it was her own fault.
He had told her so, dispa.s.sionately and deliberately. It was her own evil temper that had disenchanted him. It was her own dark pa.s.sions which had destroyed the spell her beauty had wrapped around him.
What the warnings of a father, the admonitions of friends had failed to effect, a few words from the lips of Clinton had suddenly wrought. He had loved. He should love her once more--for she would be soft and gentle and womanly for his sake. She would be kind to Helen, and courteous to all. This flashing moment of introspection gave her a glimpse of her own heart which made her shudder. It was not, however, the sunlight of truth, growing brighter and brighter, that made the startling revelation; it was the lightning glare of excitement glancing into the dark abysses of pa.s.sion, fiery and transitory, leaving behind a deeper, heavier gloom. Self-abased by the image on which she had been gazing, and subdued by the might of her grief, she covered her face with her hands and wept the bitterest tears that ever fell from the eyes of woman. They were drops of molten pride, hot and blistering, leaving the eyes blood-shot and dim. It was a strange thing to see the haughty Mittie weep. Clinton sat down beside her, and poured the oil of his smooth, seductive words on the troubled waves he had lashed into foam.
Soft, low, and sad as the whispers of the autumn wind, his voice murmured in her ear, sad, for it breathed but of parting. She continued to weep, but her tears no longer flowed from the springs of agony.
"Mittie!" A sterner voice than that of Clinton"s breathed her name.
"Mittie, you must come in, the night air is too damp."
It was her father who spoke, of whose approach she was not aware. He spoke with an air of authority which he seldom a.s.sumed, and taking her hand, led her into the house.
All the father was moved within him, at the sight of his daughter"s tears. It was the first time that he had seen them flow, or at least he never remembered to have seen her weep. She had not wept when a child, by the bed of a dying mother--(and the tears of childhood are usually an ever-welling spring)--she had not wept over her grave--and now her bosom was laboring with ill-suppressed sobs. What power had blasted the granite rock that covered the fountain of her sensibilities?
He entreated her to confide in him, to tell him the cause of her anguish. If Clinton had been trifling with her happiness, he should not depart without feeling the weight of parental indignation.
"No man dare to trifle with my happiness!" she exclaimed. "Clinton dare not do it. Reserve your indignation for real wrongs. Wait till I ask redress. Have I not a right to weep, if I choose? Helen may shed oceans of tears, without being called to account. All I ask, all I pray for, is to be left alone."
Thus the proud girl closed the avenues of sympathy and consolation, and shut herself up with her own corroding thoughts, for the transient feelings of humility and self-abas.e.m.e.nt had pa.s.sed away with the low, sweet echoes of the voice of Clinton, leaving nothing but the sullen memory of her grief. And yet the hope that he still loved her was the vital spark that sustained and warmed her. His last words breathed so much of his early tenderness and devotion, his manner possessed all its wonted fascination.
A calm succeeded, if not peace.
CHAPTER X.
An ancient woman there was, who dwelt In an old gray collage all alone-- She turned her wheel the live long day-- There was music, I ween, in its solemn drone.
As she twisted the flax, the threads of thought Kept twisting too, dark, mystic threads-- And the tales she told were legends old, Quaint fancies, woven of lights and shades.
It is said that absence is like death, and that through its softening shadow, faults, and even vices, a.s.sume a gentle and unforbidding aspect.
But it is not so. Death, the prime minister of G.o.d, invests with solemn majesty the individual on whom he impresses his cold, white seal. The weakest, meanest being that ever drew the breath of life is awe-inspiring, wrapped in the mystery of death. It seems as if the invisible spirit might avenge the insult offered to its impa.s.sive, deserted companion. But absence has no such commanding power. If the mind has been enthralled by the influence of personal fascination, there is generally a sudden reaction. The judgment, liberated from captivity, exerts its newly recovered strength, and becomes more arbitrary and uncompromising for the bondage it has endured.
Now Bryant Clinton was gone, Mr. Gleason wondered at his own infatuation. No longer spell-bound by the magic of his eye, and the alluring grace of his manners, he could recall a thousand circ.u.mstances which had previously made no impression on his mind. He blamed himself for allowing Louis to continue in such close intimacy with one, of whose parentage and early history he knew nothing. He blamed himself still more, for permitting his daughter such unrestricted intercourse with a young man so dangerously attractive. He blamed himself still more, for consenting to the departure of his son with a companion, in whose principles he did not confide, and of whose integrity he had many doubts. Why had he suffered this young man to wind around the household in smooth and shining coils, insinuating himself deeper and deeper into the heart, and binding closer and closer the faculties which might condemn, and the will that might resist his sorcery?
He blushed one moment for his weakness, the next upbraided himself for the harshness of his judgment, for the uncharitableness of his conclusions. The first letter which he received from Louis, did not remove his apprehensions. He said Clinton had changed his plans. He did not intend to return immediately to Virginia, but to travel awhile first, and visit some friends, whom he had neglected for the charming home he had just quitted. Louis dwelt with eloquent diffuseness on the advantages of traveling with such a companion, of the fine opportunity he had of seeing something of the world, after leading the student"s monotonous and secluded life. Enclosed in this letter were bills of a large amount, contracted at college, of whose existence the father was perfectly unconscious. No reference was made to these, save in the postscript, most incoherent in expression, and written evidently with an unsteady hand. He begged his father to forgive him for having forgotten--the word _forgotten_ was partially erased, and _neglected_ subst.i.tuted in its place--ah! Louis, Louis, you should have said _feared_ to present to him before his departure. He threw himself upon the indulgence of a parent, who he knew would be as ready to pardon the errors, as he was able to understand the temptation to which youth was exposed, when deprived of parental guidance.
The letter dropped from Mr. Gleason"s hand. A dark cloud gathered on his brow. A sharp pain darted through his heart. His son, his ingenuous, n.o.ble, high-minded boy had deceived him--betrayed his confidence, and wasted, with the recklessness of a spendthrift, money to which he had no legitimate claims.
When Louis entered college, and during the whole course of his education there, Mr. Gleason had defrayed his necessary expenses, and supplied him liberally with spending money.
"Keep out of debt, my son," was his constant advice. "In every unexpected emergency apply to me. Debt unnecessarily recurred is both dishonorable and disgraceful. When a boy contracts debts unknown to his parents, they are a.s.sociated with shame and ruin. Beware of temptation."
Mr. Gleason was not rich. He was engaged in merchandise, and had an income sufficient for the support of his family, sufficient to supply every want, and gratify every wish within the bounds of reason; but he had nothing to throw away, nothing to scatter broadcast beneath the ploughshare of ruin. He did not believe that Louis had fallen into disobedience and error without a guide in sin. Like Eve, he had been beguiled by a serpent, and he had eaten of the fruit of the tree of forbidden knowledge, whose taste
"Brought death into the world, And all our woe!"
That serpent must be Clinton, that Lucifer, that son of the morning, that seeming angel of light. Thus, in the excitement of his anger, he condemned the young man, who, after all, might be innocent of all guile, and free from all transgression.
Crushing the papers in his hand, he saw a line which had escaped his eye before. It was this--
"I cannot tell you where to address me, as we are now on the wing.
I shall write again soon."
"So he places himself beyond the reach of admonition and recall,"
thought Mr. Gleason. "Oh! Louis, had your mother lived, how would her heart have been wrung by the knowledge of your aberration from rect.i.tude! And how will the kind and n.o.ble being who fills that mother"s place in our affections and home, mourn over her weak and degenerate boy."
Yes! she did mourn, but not without hope. She had too much faith in the integrity of Louis to believe him capable of deliberate transgression.
She knew his ardent temperament his convivial spirit, and did not think it strange that he should be led into temptation. He must not withdraw his confidence, because it had been once betrayed. Neither would she suffer so dark a cloud of suspicion to rest upon Clinton. It was unjust to suspect him, when he was surrounded by so many young, and doubtless, evil companions. She regretted Clinton"s sojourn among them, since it had had so unhappy an influence on Mittie, but it was cowardly to plunge a dagger into the back of one on whose face their hospitable smiles had so lately beamed. We have said that she had a small property of her own.
She insisted upon drawing on this for the amount necessary to settle the bills of Louis. She had reserved it for the children"s use, and perhaps when Louis was made aware of the source whence pecuniary a.s.sistance came, he would blush for the drain, and shame would restrain him from future extravagance. Mr. Gleason listened, hoped and believed. The cloud lighted up, and if it did not entirely pa.s.s away, glimpses of sunshine were seen breaking through.
And this was the woman whom Mittie disdained to honor with the t.i.tle of _mother_!