Page:Once a Week NS Volume 7.djvu/15

 to speak, and the strength will come very soon.”

So indeed it did. The poor lady trembled all over, with a delicate shudder; and then, with a smile that was far sadder than a tear, spoke—

“Philip,” she murmured—“Philip, I know you are here. Speak to me—speak to me once more, as once you did!”

The Earl, sinking upon his knees at the foot of the bed, had been all the time a prey to such emotions of awe, of strong trouble, and remorse, as one may be supposed to feel when he witnesses one whom he has wronged and loved risen from the dead.

“ Eugenie,” he answered—“my Eugenie!”

Age, disappointment, the wear of the world, the wrongs of misprized love, were all forgotten; and the tones sounded as freshly as in youthful days, when they struck upon the dying woman's ears.

As when the murmuring wind reaches an Æolian harp, and dies away upon the strings it renders eloquent with music, the same sad tone is caught by the hearts of those who listen—so the little company around the bed seemed attuned to the nature of this sad shrift between the lovers. Nor did the wasted form of the one, and the bowed and whitened head of the other, serve to detracting any way from the freshness and reality of the love. For misfortune and the wintry cold of disappointment has this merit, that it seems to arrest one's existence to the very time it falls, and the lack of fruition thus prevents the increment of age. How many an old man is there who still remains in his I heart as young as he was when that heart bent down, never to rise again, at the grave of his dead love? How many a woman I lives, mature but yet a girl in heart, who cherishes the feeling which she had when her love was lost at sea—never to be heard of more, but never to be forgotten? In some old books of household recipes, there is one which is said to arrest the development of a rosebud in midsummer, and to keep it fresh and green, so that, with care I fill tending and due warmth, it shall blossom in midwinter. The experiment is, perhaps, never successful, and hence the simile, is the more true. The bud remains a bud, and never becomes a rose, but it withers in the form in which it is gathered; and so the human heart remains unchanged, except by the slow decay which, while it cheats it with the promise of a future summer, keeps it with the semblance of youth, and visible almost unaltered.

“ Eugenie, my Eugenie!”

The remembered voice, the old fon tones, swept like the dying wind the chord of the poor lady's heart, and brought wit them the memories of old days, and of the cherished love.

Her eyes were still closed, but all he senses seemed prematurally acute smile of delight—radiant, and bright, an pure as winter sunshine—lit up her features and she spoke—

“We were so happy,” she said; “so young and both so innocent. We lived but for each other, Philip; and you, in your fond passion, were as true as I. What was the world to us? What were its vanities, its empty pomp, its cruel, false ambitions? We lived but for each other; and every passing day, swift as it went when winged by joy and love, made us dearer to each other.

“ We had no bargaining, no buying, nor cheating, no chaffering with our love; but gave ourselves to each other—a boy and girl —never dreaming of deceit which we could not understand, nor of sordid motives which we could not comprehend. And although the glory of that mom of love has been succeeded by a sudden long dark night, it never faded to the light of common day—was never ruined by mean doubts, nor fretted by everyday cares and follies; but has remained a pure, sweet memory through all these years of sorrow.

“ Do you remember our first meeting, love?—our first confession, and the innocent kiss which sealed the mutual tender of our hearts each to the other? Do you remember the long summer days of our journey to be married in Prussia? I was your wife by the left hand—that was all, you told me, that you could give me; and I believed you, and was content, since you were a great noble, and I the daughter of a poor French emigré, an artist. I knew I had your heart. I knew the vows I offered up to God were true. I trusted that He would accept them.

“ If we sinned—and the deep punishment of after-days will make us read in it God's judgment of our love, ray Philip, which was too tenderly and too exclusively our own; too human, warm, and joyous of this life— we sinned at least in love, not hate; from generous impulse, not from sordid desires and faithless love of the world. But this we knew not then. You lifted me from a life