Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/348

340 into a stupefied sense of misery, added to by a feeling of my own utter helplessness and the overwhelming cruelty of my other sorrows. My husband’s bitter words returned to me. There seemed to be, in truth, a league against me of the powers of darkness; but the only distinct idea I could frame, the only articulate sound I could murmur, was ‘Ida, Ida.’ What was the use now of will, knowledge, and courage? I covered my face with my hands and prayed for patience, submission, faith. Suddenly a thought struck me. I rose from the bed; I went into the drawing-room. By the open window stood Rupert alone. The moonlight fell on his face. He looked pale. I went up to him.

‘Leave me the child, Rupert,’ I said gently.

“Had I broken in upon a love dream, that he started back with an expression of such astonishment, almost of fear?

‘Impossible!’ he said, and left the room, but before he did so, my heart spoke out to his. He was stung to the soul, and never forgave me.

“What that night was—what were the following nights I passed for many a long month—I shudder to think of. Rupert left a few days afterwards; he could not even await his aunt’s death; he was alienated and relentless to the last. A great flood had flowed between us; on my side, of the deepest sorrow; on his, of insurmountable aversion. I believe, firmly, that the very sight of my pale face, the silence and gloom which covered us both, as with a pall, were odious to him. There is something, I suppose, exasperating and irritating in the sight of the grief which is caused by one’s-self; yet how could I help it. I was hurt, and I bled; I had been struck, and I was bruised; I was wounded, and the gash was visible. The bitterness lay, perhaps, chiefly in the feeling that the whole had been a counterfeit. My weaknesses, as well as my qualities had been studied and made use of. The use was over, and I was cast aside without remorse. It was not an enemy who had done this, but my own familiar friend. No promise had been broken, no love betrayed, but the staff on which I leaned had shivered in my grasp. The tower I had built on the desert waste of my life, had as little foundation as a child’s pack of cards. A breath had blown it down. Men and women do not play equally at this game of friendship. The initiative is never in our power. The veto is rarely left to us.

“He left with a few conventional words of ordinary good will, and so we parted. At first I suffered intensely, for I was bereaved indeed; but slowly the light dawned upon my soul that I had deserved all this; the fault was mine—a thousand times mine. I had been mistaken, Quixotic, besotted. I bowed my head in acceptance of sorrow.

“A few weeks afterwards the Chanoinesse died. She bequeathed the whole of her large property to me, with the exception of the Schloss, which she left to Rupert. As there was a probability of his return, I made my preparations and left Schloss Stein.

“ impulse led me to Paris. In Paris there is so much to cure one of morbid self-contemplation. To make the best of my fate—to endure it in its length and breadth of privation—was my study. No resentment lived in my heart but regret, self-reproach, and self-condemnation. Towards Rupert my feelings were as little personally hostile as the patient’s towards the instrument, by which he suffers amputation. To him it had been given to act the Nemesis towards me, but the faults that deserved that Nemesis were mine, not his.

“My life was spent in writing, reading, serving the cause to which I had bound myself. Of Rupert, I never heard; our lives had dropped entirely apart. I had written several times to my husband; my letters were unanswered. My position, like all exceptional ones, invited calumny. Much could be written on the injustice of society in this respect; but until the whole education of women is reformed, so that their tastes, principles and habits are modified, I cannot wonder at the suspicion with which they are looked upon when they assert their independence. When we think on what principles they are guided in the selection of a husband, is it surprising that, alienated from him, they are supposed incapable of standing alone? There is more justice even in this world than we suspect. A true life always obtains the victory in the end.

“One day as I was returning to Paris after a fête champêtre, and driving through a part of the city I had never passed before, there was a crowd assembled, and the carriage was stopped. I sent my servant to inquire the cause. A cart had driven by; the horse had become unmanageable, and in its furious plungings and rearings, had knocked down a man who was passing. I told my servant to offer his assistance. He obeyed, and the next minute my own horses, impatient at the restraint, became suddenly ungovernable, and kicked in the most frightful manner. A charitable bystander opened the door of the carriage and assisted me out. I told my coachman to turn back, and find some bye-street which would bring him to a neighbouring point where I could meet him, and I then tried to find my servant. This brought me into the midst of the crowd; and there, supported by two men, his eyes closed, and his cheeks white as ashes, I saw Rupert Rabenfels! The circle had been run—we met again. I went up to the men who supported him, and asked them where they intended taking him. They shrugged their shoulders.

“One said, ‘We will look in his pocket and see if he has a card with any address, if not, we must take him to the hospital.’ There was no card, but a pocket-book, on which was written a number and a street. ‘You had best take him there, first,’ I said, with a calm voice. They obeyed me: at the same time a few francs to a commissioner brought back my carriage. We drove to his house; the porter recognised him. His room was on the fifth floor, and he was carried up and laid on his bed.

“I sent for a surgeon, dismissed the men, and was left alone. After a while I looked round the room for some trace of Ida. There was none. Rupert was evidently alone. He must have been sent on some mission by that secret society to which he belonged, and which was as imperious as the Order