Page:The fortunes of Perkin Warbeck.djvu/418

410 beloved outcast, I had no difficulty in perceiving, nor—God was so gracious to me—in fulfilling my duties. For in childhood I was cherished and favoured by all; and when I became a wife, it was no wonder that I should love and idolize the most single-hearted, generous, and kindly being that ever trod the earth. To give myself away to him—to be a part of him—to feel that we were an harmonious one in this discordant world, was a happiness that falls to the lot of few:—defeat, chains, imprisonment—all these were but shows; the reality was deep in our hearts, invulnerable by any tyrant less remorseless than death. If this life were the sum and boundary our being, I had possessed the consummation and fulfilment of happiness.

"But we are taught to believe that our existence here is but the stepping-stone to another beyond, and that 'death is the beginning of life.' When we reach the summit of our desires, then we fall, and death comes to destroy. He was lost to me, my glory, and my good! Little could I avail to him now. The caresses, love, and watchful care, the obedience and the heart's sacrifice, of a poor thing who groped darkling upon earth, could avail nought to a spirit in Paradise. I was forced to feel that I was alone: and as to me, to love is to exist; so in that dark hour, in the gaspings of my agony, I felt that I must die, if for ever divided from him who possessed my affections.

"Years have passed since then. If grief kills us not, we kill it. Not that I cease to grieve; for each hour, revealing to me how excelling and matchless the being was who once was mine, but renews the pang with which I deplore my alien state upon earth. But such is God's will; I am doomed to a divided existence, and I submit. Meanwhile I am human; and human affections are the native, luxuriant growth of a heart whose weakness it is, too eagerly and too fondly, to seek objects on whom to expend its yearnings. My Richard's last act was to bestow me on his sister: it were impious to retract a gift made by the dying. We wept together—how long, and how bitterly!—the loss of our loved one; and then together we turned to fulfil our duties. She had children; they became as dear to me as to her. Margaret I cherish as the betrothed bride of my ever dear cousin, the king of Scotland; and, when I endeavour to foster the many virtues nature has implanted in the noble mind of Prince Arthur, I am fulfilling, methinks, a task grateful in the eyes of Richard, thus doing my part to bestow on the England he loved a sovereign who will repair the usurper's crimes, and bestow happiness on the realm.

"Nor is this all—despise me if you will, but I confess that I regard others among those with whom I associate, with a