The Woman in White

Chapter 2

The day after we left for Polesdean Lodge Sir Percival wrote, it

seems, to Mr. Fairlie, to say that the necessary repairs and

alterations in his house in Hampshire would occupy a much longer

time in completion than he had originally anticipated. The proper

estimates were to be submitted to him as soon as possible, and it

would greatly facilitate his entering into definite arrangements

with the workpeople, if he could be informed of the exact period

at which the wedding ceremony might be expected to take place. He

could then make all his calculations in reference to time, besides

writing the necessary apologies to friends who had been engaged to

visit him that winter, and who could not, of course, be received

when the house was in the hands of the workmen.

To this letter Mr. Fairlie had replied by requesting Sir Percival

himself to suggest a day for the marriage, subject to Miss

Fairlie's approval, which her guardian willingly undertook to do

his best to obtain. Sir Percival wrote back by the next post, and

proposed (in accordance with his own views and wishes from the

first?) the latter part of December--perhaps the twenty-second, or

twenty-fourth, or any other day that the lady and her guardian

might prefer. The lady not being at hand to speak for herself,

her guardian had decided, in her absence, on the earliest day

mentioned--the twenty-second of December, and had written to

recall us to Limmeridge in consequence.

After explaining these particulars to me at a private interview

yesterday, Mr. Fairlie suggested, in his most amiable manner, that

I should open the necessary negotiations to-day. Feeling that

resistance was useless, unless I could first obtain Laura's

authority to make it, I consented to speak to her, but declared,

at the same time, that I would on no consideration undertake to

gain her consent to Sir Percival's wishes. Mr. Fairlie

complimented me on my "excellent conscience," much as he would

have complimented me, if he had been out walking, on my "excellent

constitution," and seemed perfectly satisfied, so far, with having

simply shifted one more family responsibility from his own

shoulders to mine.

This morning I spoke to Laura as I had promised. The composure--I

may almost say, the insensibility--which she has so strangely and

so resolutely maintained ever since Sir Percival left us, was not

proof against the shock of the news I had to tell her. She turned

pale and trembled violently.

The slightest hint she could give was enough for me. I rose to

leave the room, and fight her battle for her at once with Mr.

Fairlie.

"Not a minute too late," I retorted. "The question of time is OUR

question--and trust me, Laura, to take a woman's full advantage of

it."

I unclasped her hand from my gown while I spoke; but she slipped

both her arms round my waist at the same moment, and held me more

effectually than ever.

"It will only involve us in more trouble and more confusion," she

said. "It will set you and my uncle at variance, and bring Sir

Percival here again with fresh causes of complaint--"

"So much the better!" I cried out passionately. "Who cares for

his causes of complaint? Are you to break your heart to set his

mind at ease? No man under heaven deserves these sacrifices from

us women. Men! They are the enemies of our innocence and our

peace--they drag us away from our parents' love and our sisters'

friendship--they take us body and soul to themselves, and fasten

our helpless lives to theirs as they chain up a dog to his kennel.

And what does the best of them give us in return? Let me go,

Laura--I'm mad when I think of it!"

The tears--miserable, weak, women's tears of vexation and rage--

started to my eyes. She smiled sadly, and put her handkerchief

over my face to hide for me the betrayal of my own weakness--the

weakness of all others which she knew that I most despised.

"Oh, Marian!" she said. "You crying! Think what you would say to

me, if the places were changed, and if those tears were mine. All

your love and courage and devotion will not alter what must

happen, sooner or later. Let my uncle have his way. Let us have

no more troubles and heart-burnings that any sacrifice of mine can

prevent. Say you will live with me, Marian, when I am married--

and say no more."

But I did say more. I forced back the contemptible tears that

were no relief to ME, and that only distressed HER, and reasoned

and pleaded as calmly as I could. It was of no avail. She made

me twice repeat the promise to live with her when she was married,

and then suddenly asked a question which turned my sorrow and my

sympathy for her into a new direction.

Her altered tone--the abrupt manner in which she looked away from

me and hid her face on my shoulder--the hesitation which silenced

her before she had completed her question, all told me, but too

plainly, to whom the half-expressed inquiry pointed.

I hesitated. I had been afraid to tell her of his absence from

England, or of the manner in which my exertions to serve his new

hopes and projects had connected me with his departure. What

answer could I make? He was gone where no letters could reach him

for months, perhaps for years, to come.

"Don't tell him about THE TWENTY-SECOND," she whispered.

"Promise, Marian--pray promise you will not even mention my name

to him when you write next."

I gave the promise. No words can say how sorrowfully I gave it.

She instantly took her arm from my waist, walked away to the

window, and stood looking out with her back to me. After a moment

she spoke once more, but without turning round, without allowing

me to catch the smallest glimpse of her face.

"Are you going to my uncle's room?" she asked. "Will you say that

I consent to whatever arrangement he may think best? Never mind

leaving me, Marian. I shall be better alone for a little while."

I went out. If, as soon as I got into the passage, I could have

transported Mr. Fairlie and Sir Percival Glyde to the uttermost

ends of the earth by lifting one of my fingers, that finger would

have been raised without an instant's hesitation. For once my

unhappy temper now stood my friend. I should have broken down

altogether and burst into a violent fit of crying, if my tears had

not been all burnt up in the heat of my anger. As it was, I

dashed into Mr. Fairlie's room--called to him as harshly as

possible, "Laura consents to the twenty-second"--and dashed out

again without waiting for a word of answer. I banged the door

after me, and I hope I shattered Mr. Fairlie's nervous system for

the rest of the day.

28th.--This morning I read poor Hartright's farewell letter over

again, a doubt having crossed my mind since yesterday, whether I

am acting wisely in concealing the fact of his departure from

Laura.

On reflection, I still think I am right. The allusions in his

letter to the preparations made for the expedition to Central

America, all show that the leaders of it know it to be dangerous.

If the discovery of this makes me uneasy, what would it make HER?

It is bad enough to feel that his departure has deprived us of the

friend of all others to whose devotion we could trust in the hour

of need, if ever that hour comes and finds us helpless; but it is

far worse to know that he has gone from us to face the perils of a

bad climate, a wild country, and a disturbed population. Surely

it would be a cruel candour to tell Laura this, without a pressing

and a positive necessity for it?

I almost doubt whether I ought not to go a step farther, and burn

the letter at once, for fear of its one day falling into wrong

hands. It not only refers to Laura in terms which ought to remain

a secret for ever between the writer and me, but it reiterates his

suspicion--so obstinate, so unaccountable, and so alarming--that

he has been secretly watched since he left Limmeridge. He

declares that he saw the faces of the two strange men who followed

him about the streets of London, watching him among the crowd

which gathered at Liverpool to see the expedition embark, and he

positively asserts that he heard the name of Anne Catherick

pronounced behind him as he got into the boat. His own words are,

"These events have a meaning, these events must lead to a result.

The mystery of Anne Catherick is NOT cleared up yet. She may

never cross my path again, but if ever she crosses yours, make

better use of the opportunity, Miss Halcombe, than I made of it.

I speak on strong conviction--I entreat you to remember what I

say." These are his own expressions. There is no danger of my

forgetting them--my memory is only too ready to dwell on any words

of Hartright's that refer to Anne Catherick. But there is danger

in my keeping the letter. The merest accident might place it at

the mercy of strangers. I may fall ill--I may die. Better to

burn it at once, and have one anxiety the less.

It is burnt. The ashes of his farewell letter--the last he may

ever write to me--lie in a few black fragments on the hearth. Is

this the sad end to all that sad story? Oh, not the end--surely,

surely not the end already!

29th.--The preparations for the marriage have begun. The

dressmaker has come to receive her orders. Laura is perfectly

impassive, perfectly careless about the question of all others in

which a woman's personal interests are most closely bound up. She

has left it all to the dressmaker and to me. If poor Hartright

had been the baronet, and the husband of her father's choice, how

differently she would have behaved! How anxious and capricious she

would have been, and what a hard task the best of dressmakers

would have found it to please her!

30th.--We hear every day from Sir Percival. The last news is that

the alterations in his house will occupy from four to six months

before they can be properly completed. If painters, paperhangers,

and upholsterers could make happiness as well as splendour, I

should be interested about their proceedings in Laura's future

home. As it is, the only part of Sir Percival's last letter which

does not leave me as it found me, perfectly indifferent to all his

plans and projects, is the part which refers to the wedding tour.

He proposes, as Laura is delicate, and as the winter threatens to

be unusually severe, to take her to Rome, and to remain in Italy

until the early part of next summer. If this plan should not be

approved, he is equally ready, although he has no establishment of

his own in town, to spend the season in London, in the most

suitable furnished house that can be obtained for the purpose.

Putting myself and my own feelings entirely out of the question

(which it is my duty to do, and which I have done), I, for one,

have no doubt of the propriety of adopting the first of these

proposals. In either case a separation between Laura and me is

inevitable. It will be a longer separation, in the event of their

going abroad, than it would be in the event of their remaining in

London--but we must set against this disadvantage the benefit to

Laura, on the other side, of passing the winter in a mild climate,

and more than that, the immense assistance in raising her spirits,

and reconciling her to her new existence, which the mere wonder

and excitement of travelling for the first time in her life in the

most interesting country in the world, must surely afford. She is

not of a disposition to find resources in the conventional

gaieties and excitements of London. They would only make the

first oppression of this lamentable marriage fall the heavier on

her. I dread the beginning of her new life more than words can

tell, but I see some hope for her if she travels--none if she

remains at home.

It is strange to look back at this latest entry in my journal, and

to find that I am writing of the marriage and the parting with

Laura, as people write of a settled thing. It seems so cold and

so unfeeling to be looking at the future already in this cruelly

composed way. But what other way is possible, now that the time

is drawing so near? Before another month is over our heads she

will be HIS Laura instead of mine! HIS Laura! I am as little able

to realise the idea which those two words convey--my mind feels

almost as dulled and stunned by it--as if writing of her marriage

were like writing of her death.

December 1st.--A sad, sad day--a day that I have no heart to

describe at any length. After weakly putting it off last night, I

was obliged to speak to her this morning of Sir Percival's

proposal about the wedding tour.

In the full conviction that I should be with her wherever she

went, the poor child--for a child she is still in many things--was

almost happy at the prospect of seeing the wonders of Florence and

Rome and Naples. It nearly broke my heart to dispel her delusion,

and to bring her face to face with the hard truth. I was obliged

to tell her that no man tolerates a rival--not even a woman rival--

in his wife's affections, when he first marries, whatever he may

do afterwards. I was obliged to warn her that my chance of living

with her permanently under her own roof, depended entirely on my

not arousing Sir Percival's jealousy and distrust by standing

between them at the beginning of their marriage, in the position

of the chosen depositary of his wife's closest secrets. Drop by

drop I poured the profaning bitterness of this world's wisdom into

that pure heart and that innocent mind, while every higher and

better feeling within me recoiled from my miserable task. It is

over now. She has learnt her hard, her inevitable lesson. The

simple illusions of her girlhood are gone, and my hand has

stripped them off. Better mine than his--that is all my

consolation--better mine than his.

So the first proposal is the proposal accepted. They are to go to

Italy, and I am to arrange, with Sir Percival's permission, for

meeting them and staying with them when they return to England.

In other words, I am to ask a personal favour, for the first time

in my life, and to ask it of the man of all others to whom I least

desire to owe a serious obligation of any kind. Well! I think I

could do even more than that, for Laura's sake.

2nd.--On looking back, I find myself always referring to Sir

Percival in disparaging terms. In the turn affairs have now

taken. I must and will root out my prejudice against him, I

cannot think how it first got into my mind. It certainly never

existed in former times.

Is it Laura's reluctance to become his wife that has set me

against him? Have Hartright's perfectly intelligible prejudices

infected me without my suspecting their influence? Does that

letter of Anne Catherick's still leave a lurking distrust in my

mind, in spite of Sir Percival's explanation, and of the proof in

my possession of the truth of it? I cannot account for the state

of my own feelings; the one thing I am certain of is, that it is

my duty--doubly my duty now--not to wrong Sir Percival by unjustly

distrusting him. If it has got to be a habit with me always to

write of him in the same unfavourable manner, I must and will

break myself of this unworthy tendency, even though the effort

should force me to close the pages of my journal till the marriage

is over! I am seriously dissatisfied with myself--I will write no

more to-day.

December 16th.--A whole fortnight has passed, and I have not once

opened these pages. I have been long enough away from my journal

to come back to it with a healthier and better mind, I hope, so

far as Sir Percival is concerned.

There is not much to record of the past two weeks. The dresses

are almost all finished, and the new travelling trunks have been

sent here from London. Poor dear Laura hardly leaves me for a

moment all day, and last night, when neither of us could sleep,

she came and crept into my bed to talk to me there. "I shall lose

you so soon, Marian," she said; "I must make the most of you while

I can."

They are to be married at Limmeridge Church, and thank Heaven, not

one of the neighbours is to be invited to the ceremony. The only

visitor will be our old friend, Mr. Arnold, who is to come from

Polesdean to give Laura away, her uncle being far too delicate to

trust himself outside the door in such inclement weather as we now

have. If I were not determined, from this day forth, to see

nothing but the bright side of our prospects, the melancholy

absence of any male relative of Laura's, at the most important

moment of her life, would make me very gloomy and very distrustful

of the future. But I have done with gloom and distrust--that is

to say, I have done with writing about either the one or the other

in this journal.

Sir Percival is to arrive to-morrow. He offered, in case we

wished to treat him on terms of rigid etiquette, to write and ask

our clergyman to grant him the hospitality of the rectory, during

the short period of his sojourn at Limmeridge, before the

marriage. Under the circumstances, neither Mr. Fairlie nor I

thought it at all necessary for us to trouble ourselves about

attending to trifling forms and ceremonies. In our wild moorland

country, and in this great lonely house, we may well claim to be

beyond the reach of the trivial conventionalities which hamper

people in other places. I wrote to Sir Percival to thank him for

his polite offer, and to beg that he would occupy his old rooms,

just as usual, at Limmeridge House.

17th.--He arrived to-day, looking, as I thought, a little worn and

anxious, but still talking and laughing like a man in the best

possible spirits. He brought with him some really beautiful

presents in jewellery, which Laura received with her best grace,

and, outwardly at least, with perfect self-possession. The only

sign I can detect of the struggle it must cost her to preserve

appearances at this trying time, expresses itself in a sudden

unwillingness, on her part, ever to be left alone. Instead of

retreating to her own room, as usual, she seems to dread going

there. When I went upstairs to-day, after lunch, to put on my

bonnet for a walk, she volunteered to join me, and again, before

dinner, she threw the door open between our two rooms, so that we

might talk to each other while we were dressing. "Keep me always

doing something," she said; "keep me always in company with

somebody. Don't let me think--that is all I ask now, Marian--

don't let me think."

This sad change in her only increases her attractions for Sir

Percival. He interprets it, I can see, to his own advantage.

There is a feverish flush in her cheeks, a feverish brightness in

her eyes, which he welcomes as the return of her beauty and the

recovery of her spirits. She talked to-day at dinner with a

gaiety and carelessness so false, so shockingly out of her

character, that I secretly longed to silence her and take her

away. Sir Percival's delight and surprise appeared to be beyond

all expression. The anxiety which I had noticed on his face when

he arrived totally disappeared from it, and he looked, even to my

eyes, a good ten years younger than he really is.

There can be no doubt--though some strange perversity prevents me

from seeing it myself--there can be no doubt that Laura's future

husband is a very handsome man. Regular features form a personal

advantage to begin with--and he has them. Bright brown eyes,

either in man or woman, are a great attraction--and he has them.

Even baldness, when it is only baldness over the forehead (as in

his case), is rather becoming than not in a man, for it heightens

the head and adds to the intelligence of the face. Grace and ease

of movement, untiring animation of manner, ready, pliant,

conversational powers--all these are unquestionable merits, and

all these he certainly possesses. Surely Mr. Gilmore, ignorant as

he is of Laura's secret, was not to blame for feeling surprised

that she should repent of her marriage engagement? Any one else in

his place would have shared our good old friend's opinion. If I

were asked, at this moment, to say plainly what defects I have

discovered in Sir Percival, I could only point out two. One, his

incessant restlessness and excitability--which may be caused,

naturally enough, by unusual energy of character. The other, his

short, sharp, ill-tempered manner of speaking to the servants--

which may be only a bad habit after all. No, I cannot dispute it,

and I will not dispute it--Sir Percival is a very handsome and a

very agreeable man. There! I have written it down at last, and I

am glad it's over.

18th.--Feeling weary and depressed this morning, I left Laura with

Mrs. Vesey, and went out alone for one of my brisk midday walks,

which I have discontinued too much of late. I took the dry airy

road over the moor that leads to Todd's Corner. After having been

out half an hour, I was excessively surprised to see Sir Percival

approaching me from the direction of the farm. He was walking

rapidly, swinging his stick, his head erect as usual, and his

shooting jacket flying open in the wind. When we met he did not

wait for me to ask any questions--he told me at once that he had

been to the farm to inquire if Mr. or Mrs. Todd had received any

tidings, since his last visit to Limmeridge, of Anne Catherick.

"Nothing whatever," he replied. "I begin to be seriously afraid

that we have lost her. Do you happen to know," he continued,

looking me in the face very attentively "if the artist--Mr.

Hartright--is in a position to give us any further information?"

"Very sad," said Sir Percival, speaking like a man who was

disappointed, and yet, oddly enough, looking at the same time like

a man who was relieved. "It is impossible to say what misfortunes

may not have happened to the miserable creature. I am

inexpressibly annoyed at the failure of all my efforts to restore

her to the care and protection which she so urgently needs."

This time he really looked annoyed. I said a few sympathising

words, and we then talked of other subjects on our way back to the

house. Surely my chance meeting with him on the moor has

disclosed another favourable trait in his character? Surely it was

singularly considerate and unselfish of him to think of Anne

Catherick on the eve of his marriage, and to go all the way to

Todd's Corner to make inquiries about her, when he might have

passed the time so much more agreeably in Laura's society?

Considering that he can only have acted from motives of pure

charity, his conduct, under the circumstances, shows unusual good

feeling and deserves extraordinary praise. Well! I give him

extraordinary praise--and there's an end of it.

To-day I approached the subject of my proposed sojourn under his

wife's roof when he brings her back to England. I had hardly

dropped my first hint in this direction before he caught me warmly

by the hand, and said I had made the very offer to him which he

had been, on his side, most anxious to make to me. I was the

companion of all others whom he most sincerely longed to secure

for his wife, and he begged me to believe that I had conferred a

lasting favour on him by making the proposal to live with Laura

after her marriage, exactly as I had always lived with her before

it.

When I had thanked him in her name and mine for his considerate

kindness to both of us, we passed next to the subject of his

wedding tour, and began to talk of the English society in Rome to

which Laura was to be introduced. He ran over the names of

several friends whom he expected to meet abroad this winter. They

were all English, as well as I can remember, with one exception.

The one exception was Count Fosco.

The mention of the Count's name, and the discovery that he and his

wife are likely to meet the bride and bridegroom on the continent,

puts Laura's marriage, for the first time, in a distinctly

favourable light. It is likely to be the means of healing a

family feud. Hitherto Madame Fosco has chosen to forget her

obligations as Laura's aunt out of sheer spite against the late

Mr. Fairlie for his conduct in the affair of the legacy. Now

however, she can persist in this course of conduct no longer. Sir

Percival and Count Fosco are old and fast friends, and their wives

will have no choice but to meet on civil terms. Madame Fosco in

her maiden days was one of the most impertinent women I ever met

with--capricious, exacting, and vain to the last degree of

absurdity. If her husband has succeeded in bringing her to her

senses, he deserves the gratitude of every member of the family,

and he may have mine to begin with.

I am becoming anxious to know the Count. He is the most intimate

friend of Laura's husband, and in that capacity he excites my

strongest interest. Neither Laura nor I have ever seen him. All

I know of him is that his accidental presence, years ago, on the

steps of the Trinita del Monte at Rome, assisted Sir Percival's

escape from robbery and assassination at the critical moment when

he was wounded in the hand, and might the next instant have been

wounded in the heart. I remember also that, at the time of the

late Mr. Fairlie's absurd objections to his sister's marriage, the

Count wrote him a very temperate and sensible letter on the

subject, which, I am ashamed to say, remained unanswered. This is

all I know of Sir Percival's friend. I wonder if he will ever

come to England? I wonder if I shall like him?

My pen is running away into mere speculation. Let me return to

sober matter of fact. It is certain that Sir Percival's reception

of my venturesome proposal to live with his wife was more than

kind, it was almost affectionate. I am sure Laura's husband will

have no reason to complain of me if I can only go on as I have

begun. I have already declared him to be handsome, agreeable,

full of good feeling towards the unfortunate and full of

affectionate kindness towards me. Really, I hardly; know myself

again in my new character of Sir Percival's warmest friend.

20th.--I hate Sir Percival! I flatly deny his good looks. I

consider him to be eminently ill-tempered and disagreeable, and

totally wanting in kindness and good feeling. Last night the

cards for the married couple were sent home. Laura opened the

packet and saw her future name in print for the first time. Sir

Percival looked over her shoulder familiarly at the new card which

had already transformed Miss Fairlie into Lady Glyde--smiled with

the most odious self-complacency, and whispered something in her

ear. I don't know what it was--Laura has refused to tell me--but

I saw her face turn to such a deadly whiteness that I thought she

would have fainted. He took no notice of the change--he seemed to

be barbarously unconscious that he had said anything to pain her.

All my old feelings of hostility towards him revived on the

instant, and all the hours that have passed since have done

nothing to dissipate them. I am more unreasonable and more unjust

than ever. In three words--how glibly my pen writes them!--in

three words, I hate him.

21st.--Have the anxieties of this anxious time shaken me a little,

at last? I have been writing, for the last few days, in a tone of

levity which, Heaven knows, is far enough from my heart, and which

it has rather shocked me to discover on looking back at the

entries in my journal.

Perhaps I may have caught the feverish excitement of Laura's

spirits for the last week. If so, the fit has already passed away

from me, and has left me in a very strange state of mind. A

persistent idea has been forcing itself on my attention, ever

since last night, that something will yet happen to prevent the

marriage. What has produced this singular fancy? Is it the

indirect result of my apprehensions for Laura's future? Or has it

been unconsciously suggested to me by the increasing restlessness

and irritability which I have certainly observed in Sir Percival's

manner as the wedding-day draws nearer and nearer? Impossible to

say. I know that I have the idea--surely the wildest idea, under

the circumstances, that ever entered a woman's head?--but try as I

may, I cannot trace it back to its source.

This last day has been all confusion and wretchedness. How can I

write about it?--and yet, I must write. Anything is better than

brooding over my own gloomy thoughts.

Kind Mrs. Vesey, whom we have all too much overlooked and

forgotten of late, innocently caused us a sad morning to begin

with. She has been, for months past, secretly making a warm

Shetland shawl for her dear pupil--a most beautiful and surprising

piece of work to be done by a woman at her age and with her

habits. The gift was presented this morning, and poor warm-

hearted Laura completely broke down when the shawl was put proudly

on her shoulders by the loving old friend and guardian of her

motherless childhood. I was hardly allowed time to quiet them

both, or even to dry my own eyes, when I was sent for by Mr.

Fairlie, to be favoured with a long recital of his arrangements

for the preservation of his own tranquillity on the wedding-day.

"Dear Laura" was to receive his present--a shabby ring, with her

affectionate uncle's hair for an ornament, instead of a precious

stone, and with a heartless French inscription inside, about

congenial sentiments and eternal friendship--"dear Laura" was to

receive this tender tribute from my hands immediately, so that she

might have plenty of time to recover from the agitation produced

by the gift before she appeared in Mr. Fairlie's presence. "Dear

Laura" was to pay him a little visit that evening, and to be kind

enough not to make a scene. "Dear Laura" was to pay him another

little visit in her wedding-dress the next morning, and to be kind

enough, again, not to make a scene. "Dear Laura" was to look in

once more, for the third time, before going away, but without

harrowing his feelings by saying WHEN she was going away, and

without tears--"in the name of pity, in the name of everything,

dear Marian, that is most affectionate and most domestic, and most

delightfully and charmingly self-composed, WITHOUT TEARS!" I was

so exasperated by this miserable selfish trifling, at such a time,

that I should certainly have shocked Mr. Fairlie by some of the

hardest and rudest truths he has ever heard in his life, if the

arrival of Mr. Arnold from Polesdean had not called me away to new

duties downstairs.

The rest of the day is indescribable. I believe no one in the

house really knew how it passed. The confusion of small events,

all huddled together one on the other, bewildered everybody.

There were dresses sent home that had been forgotten--there were

trunks to be packed and unpacked and packed again--there were

presents from friends far and near, friends high and low. We were

all needlessly hurried, all nervously expectant of the morrow.

Sir Percival, especially, was too restless now to remain five

minutes together in the same place. That short, sharp cough of

his troubled him more than ever. He was in and out of doors all

day long, and he seemed to grow so inquisitive on a sudden, that

he questioned the very strangers who came on small errands to the

house. Add to all this, the one perpetual thought in Laura's mind

and mine, that we were to part the next day, and the haunting

dread, unexpressed by either of us, and yet ever present to both,

that this deplorable marriage might prove to be the one fatal

error of her life and the one hopeless sorrow of mine. For the

first time in all the years of our close and happy intercourse we

almost avoided looking each other in the face, and we refrained,

by common consent, from speaking together in private through the

whole evening. I can dwell on it no longer. Whatever future

sorrows may be in store for me, I shall always look back on this

twenty-first of December as the most comfortless and most

miserable day of my life.

I am writing these lines in the solitude of my own room, long

after midnight, having just come back from a stolen look at Laura

in her pretty little white bed--the bed she has occupied since the

days of her girlhood.

There she lay, unconscious that I was looking at her--quiet, more

quiet than I had dared to hope, but not sleeping. The glimmer of

the night-light showed me that her eyes were only partially

closed--the traces of tears glistened between her eye-lids. My

little keepsake--only a brooch--lay on the table at her bedside,

with her prayer-book, and the miniature portrait of her father

which she takes with her wherever she goes. I waited a moment,

looking at her from behind her pillow, as she lay beneath me, with

one arm and hand resting on the white coverlid, so still, so

quietly breathing, that the frill on her night-dress never moved--

I waited, looking at her, as I have seen her thousands of times,

as I shall never see her again--and then stole back to my room.

My own love! with all your wealth, and all your beauty, how

friendless you are! The one man who would give his heart's life to

serve you is far away, tossing, this stormy night, on the awful

sea. Who else is left to you? No father, no brother--no living

creature but the helpless, useless woman who writes these sad

lines, and watches by you for the morning, in sorrow that she

cannot compose, in doubt that she cannot conquer. Oh, what a

trust is to be placed in that man's hands to-morrow! If ever he

forgets it--if ever he injures a hair of her head!----

THE TWENTY-SECOND OF DECEMBER. Seven o'clock. A wild, unsettled

morning. She has just risen--better and calmer, now that the time

has come, than she was yesterday.

Ten o'clock. She is dressed. We have kissed each other--we have

promised each other not to lose courage. I am away for a moment

in my own room. In the whirl and confusion of my thoughts, I can

detect that strange fancy of some hindrance happening to stop the

marriage still hanging about my mind. Is it hanging about HIS

mind too? I see him from the window, moving hither and thither

uneasily among the carriages at the door.--How can I write such

folly! The marriage is a certainty. In less than half an hour we

start for the church.

In the 1600s, Balthasar Gracian, a jesuit priest wrote 300 aphorisms on living life called "The Art of Worldly Wisdom." Join our newsletter below and read them all, one at a time.