Page:An Evening at Lucy Ashton’s.pdf/8

252 "Many," pursued the sibyl, "can forget, and do and will forget. As for the Count, his heart was cruel with prosperity, and selfish with good fortune; he had never known sickness which softens—sorrow which brings all to its own level—poverty which, however it may at last harden the heart, at first teaches us our helplessness. What was it to him that Bertha had left the home which could never receive her again? What, that for his sake she had submitted to the appearance of disgrace which was not in reality her's?—for the peasant-girl was proud as the Baron; and when she stept over her father’s threshold, it was as his wife. "Well, well, he wearied, as men ever weary of woman's complaining, however bitter may be the injury which has wrung reproach from the unwilling lip. Many a sad hour did she spend weeping in the lonely tower, which had once seemed to her like a palace; for then the radiance of love was around it —and love, forsooth, is something like the fairies in our own land; for a time it can make all that is base and worthless seem most glittering and precious. Once, every night brought the ringing horn and eager step of the noble hunter; now the nights passed away too often in dreary and unbroken splendour. Yet the shining steel of the shield in the hall, and the fair current of the mountain spring, shewed her that her face was lovely as ever. "One evening he came to visit her, and his manner was soft and his voice was low, as in the