She turned her glance for a moment to me, and asked seriously: "How can people aim low? Do you know the lines of Goethe:"
"Thou must either strive and rise, Or thou must sink and die."
Daughter of the immortals!
"I wonder what you will say of _my_ aims," I stammered.
"May you tell them? I should like very much to hear." And as she seemed to bend from a queen into a womanly companion, I noticed my gift, the brooch of Roman mosaic, on her breast.
While she listened, for I told her fully the story of my quest for the highest things, its strange solution, and my present purposes, I was surprised to discover that her intelligence was master of the whole without effort. "O, I have often talked philosophy with Mr. Quinet," she explained. Her spiritual eyes glistened with profound beautiful depths as she looked down into the forest-shades before us. A color had suffused itself over her face so lovely that the glorified creature beside me seemed to surpa.s.s my intensest ideal.
"It _is_ the Voice of the Universe," she said, and her cheeks flushed, "I once heard the Spirit of All, called, "Heart of Heaven, Heart of Earth," and I added "Heart of Man." Obey it, obey your best thoughts."
She looked at me with such a glance of sacred sympathy, that--O joy, the first words filling life with fragrance have been spoken!
It was short, our sweet bridal and few days of united life, and of bliss at the old chateau d"Esneval. Gravely ill,--worse,--recovering,--then DEAD. O G.o.d, was it possible?
Yes; I saw her lying amid garlands of evergreens and white robes, in a low-lighted chamber of the chateau, still and transfigured into a changed, unearthly beauty, the alas! so thin lips lightly parted in a smile, the abundant golden hair I used to admire brushed neatly away from her forehead, the darkened eyelids that told of long exhaustion peacefully closed as if on visions of heaven--as if she saw G.o.d, being pure in heart. Supernaturally lovely as her soul had been through life the wearied sufferer lay in death, white tuberoses pressing her poor thin cheek--one purity affectionate to another. Ah, it was a vision. I never saw one on whom Heaven loved so constantly to breathe sweetness.
Neither health could roughen her beauty nor sickness drive it away: for the soul, after all, will shine through the body, will lift it up, and if glorious will leave it worthy of itself.
Alas, ungovernable, pa.s.sionate grief! Alas the sight of heart-broken friends and painful rites of burial, the anguish of bereavement, the irresistible longing to die and be with her;--and Quinet"s grief also; for then he had confessed that he had loved her too.
And now we who knew her recognise that she was sent into this world for a season, and tenderly watched and favored of heaven for high purposes--for the stirring example and strong influence of a short but lofty life.
In moments of weakness the irresistible longing to go to her returns upon me, but it is she whose Athene vision impels to throw it off, to stand ground firmly and push forward with determination towards the years which must be endured, and the glorious work which calk to be achieved. Canada, beloved, thy cause is led by an angel!
What of Quinet? n.o.ble friend, when I gave way unlike a man (though that is with G.o.d, who knows how much hearts can bear); he it was who held his own despair sternly back and put out efforts to solace and quiet mine.
In these years he has grown stronger, but become ascetic towards the outer world--an Ishmaelite who cares not to own himself a son of Abraham, but lives wild in the deserts of philosophy on locusts and wild honey. He will never marry, but has devoted himself to the problems of the Secret of the World, in which he too believes, though his studies have led him far more scientifically than me; and yet in his hours of thought, I know that a vision of beauty and a sweet voice will often startle him, and he rises then into scenes of his loftiest, grandest life. O, Alexandra! Alexandra!
CONCLUSION OF CHAMILLY HAVILAND"S NARRATIVE.
CHAPTER XLV.
_NOT_ THE END.
"Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis."
--PS. CXIV.
When Chrysler came to this sad close of the story, he woke from his absorption in the ma.n.u.script and became conscious of, the surroundings.
The late hour, the strange place, even the silent-burning candles, and above all the shock of grief for Chamilly at his great bereavement, oppressed him into deep loneliness. The wind dashed gusts of rain against the cas.e.m.e.nt and shook it savagely. He thought of the storm and blackness without--how the tempest must be hounding the black waves--the wolfish ferocity of their onward rushes--the dread battle any mortal would fight who found himself among them on a night like this.
Is Chamilly safe at home again?
Of course, at this hour.
What an unusual fellow. How strange to enjoy such beating rain, such blinding darkness and fierce contest of strength with nature! How fearless! How few like him in this or any virtue! Did there in fact exist another his equal!
No; Haviland stood alone--the climax of a race.
As Chrysler pondered, dull sounds reached him, breaking in on these meditations. A door opened below, and heavy feet tramped in. Voices, and then cries of alarm, and then lamentations of all the household startled him. Steps sounded coming up the stairs, and a man"s sob, and then a gentle knock.
"Open!" Chrysler responded.
Pierre entered, the picture of woe, and broke down: "O monseigneur Monseigneur Chamilly is dead."
They had found his boat and his body, washed ash.o.r.e.
The windows of the Parish Church were darkened with thick black curtains, the altar was heavily draped, the strains of the mournful Ma.s.s of the Dead swayed to the responses of a sorrowing people. In the midst, raised upon a lofty catafalque whose sable drapery was surrounded with a starry maze of candle-lights, lay the silent remains of Chamilly Haviland, who loved Canada. Pure and earnest in life, he receives his reward in the world of her he loved, who went before him.
A tablet among those of his fathers, facing the Seigniorial pew, recorded, for a little, the name of the last d"Argentenaye; but now the proud Cure at length has had his will, and instead of its venerable house of G.o.d, Dormilliere wears in its centre a pretentious nondescript structure of cut-stone.
Chrysler has done what he could to repair the country"s loss by raising his voice with rejuvenated energy in support of good will and progress, in the Legislative halls.
"L"idee Canadienne too," Quinet a.s.serts with hope and fire, in his seer-like editorials, "is not lost; it is founded on the deepest basis of existence: on the simplicity of common sense; on the true affections, the true aspirations of the people, on righteousness, on love of G.o.d, on DESTINY!"
THE END.