University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
NEWS.

Nearly two weeks had passed away since the exciting
scene in Mr. Browning's library, and during that time
Rosamond had kept herself aloof from her guardian, meeting
him only at the table, where she maintained toward
him a perfectly respectful but rather freezing manner.
She was deeply mortified to think he had won from her a
confession of her love, and then told her how useless—nay,
worse—how wicked it was for her to think of him. She
knew that he suffered intensely, but she resolutely left him
to suffer alone, and he would rather it should be so. Life
was growing more and more a wearisome burden, and
when, just one week after the library interview, he received
a note in the well-remembered handwriting, he
asked that he might die and forget his grief. The letter
was dated at the Springs, where Miss Porter was still
staying, though she said she intended starting the next
day for Cuyler, a little out-of-the-way place on the lake,
where there was but little company, and she could be
quiet and recruit her nervous system. The latter had
been terribly shocked, she said, by hearing of his recent
attempt at making love to Rosamond Leyton! “Indeed,”
she wrote, “it is to this very love-making that you owe
this letter from me, as I deem it my duty to keep continually
before your mind the fact that I am still alive.”

With a blanched cheek Mr. Browning read this letter

through—then tore it into fragments, wondering much
who gave her the information. There were no spies
about his premises. Rosamond would not do it, and it
must have been his sister, though why she should thus
wish to annoy him he did not know, when she, more
than any one else, had been instrumental in placing him
where he was. Once he thought of telling Rosamond
all, but he shrank from this, for she would leave his
house, he knew, and, though she might never again
speak kindly to him, he would rather feel that she was
there.

And so another dreary week went by, and then one
morning there came to him tidings which stopped for an
instant the pulsations of his heart, and sent through his
frame a thrill so benumbing and intense that at first
pity and horror were the only emotions of which he
seemed capable. It came to him in a newspaper paragraph,
which in substance was as follows:

“A sad catastrophe occurred on Thursday afternoon at
Cuyler, a little place upon the lake, which of late has
been somewhat frequented during the summer months.
Three ladies and one gentleman went out in a small
pleasure-boat which is kept for the accommodation of
the guests. They had not been gone very long when a
sudden thunder-gust came on, accompanied by a violent
wind, and the owner of the skiff, feeling some alarm for
the safety of the party, went down to the landing just
in time to see the boat make a few mad plunges with the
waves, and then capsize at the distance of nearly half a
mile from the shore.

“Every possible effort was made to save the unfortunate
pleasure-seekers, but in vain; they disappeared

from view long before a boat could reach them. One of
the bodies has not yet been recovered. It is that of a Miss
Porter, from Florida. She had reached Cuyler only the
day previous, and was unaccompanied by a single friend,
save a waiting-maid, who seems overwhelmed with grief
at the loss of her mistress.”

This, then, was the announcement which so affected
Ralph Browning, blotting out for a moment the wretched
past, and taking him back to the long ago when he first
knew Marie Porter and fancied that he loved her. She
was dead now—dead. Many a time he whispered that
word to himself, and with each repetition the wish grew
strong within him—not that she were living, but that
while living he had not hated her so bitterly, and with
the softened feeling which death will always bring, he
blamed himself far more than he did her. There had been
wrong on both sides, but he would rather now, that she
had been reconciled to him ere she found that watery
grave. Hand in hand with these reflections came another
thought; a bewildering, intoxicating thought. He was free
at last—free to love—to worship—to marry Rosamond.

“And I will go to her at once,” he said, after the first
hour had been given to the dead; “I will tell her all the
truth.”

He arose to leave the room, but something staid him
there, and whispered in his ear, “There may be some
mistake. Cuyler is not far away. Go there first and
investigate.”

For him to will was to do, and telling Mrs. Peters he
should be absent from home for a time, he started immediately
for Cuyler, which he reached near the close of the
day. Calm and beautiful looked the waters of the lake

on that summer afternoon, and if within their caverns the
ill-fated Marie slept, they kept over her an unruffled watch
and told no tales of her last dying wail to the careworn,
haggard man who stood upon the sandy beach, where
they said that she embarked, and listened attentively
while they told him how gay she seemed that day, and
how jestingly she spoke of the dark thunder-head which
even then was mounting the western horizon. They had
tried in vain to find her, and it was probable she had sunk
into one of the unfathomable holes with which the lake
was said by some to abound. Sarah, the waiting-maid,
wept passionately, showing that the deceased must have
had some good qualities, or she could not thus have attached
a servant to her.

Looking upon Mr. Browning as a friend of her late
mistress, she relied on him for counsel, and when he advised
her immediate return to Florida, she readily consented,
and started on the same day that he turned his
face toward Riverside. They had said to him, “If we
find her, shall we send her to your place?” and with an
involuntary shudder he had answered, “No—oh, no. You
must apprise me of it by letter, as also her Florida friends
—but bury her quietly here.”

They promised compliance with his wishes, and feeling
that a load was off his mind, he started at once for home.
Certainty now was doubly sure. Marie was dead, and as
this conviction became more and more fixed upon his
mind, he began to experience a dread of telling Rosamond
all. Why need she know of it, when the telling it would
throw much censure on himself. She was not a great
newspaper reader—she had not seen the paragraph,
and would not see it. He could tell her that the obstacle

to his happiness had been removed—that 'twas
no longer a sin for him to think of her or seek to make
her his wife. All this he would say to her, but nothing
more.

And all this he did say to her in the summer-house at
the foot of the garden, where he found her just as the sun
was setting. And Rosamond listened eagerly—never
questioning him of the past, or caring to hear of it. She
was satisfied to know that she might love him now, and
with his arm around her, she sat there alone with him
until the August moon was high up in the heavens. He
called her his “sunshine”—his “light”—his “life,” and
pushing the silken curls from off her childish brow, kissed
her again and again, telling her she should be his wife
when the twentieth day of November came. That was
his twenty-ninth birth-day, and looking into her girlish
face, he asked her if he were not too old. He knew she
would tell him no, and she did, lovingly caressing his
grayish hair.

“He had grown young since he sat there,” she said, and
so, indeed, he had, and the rejuvenating process continued
day after day, until the villagers laughingly said that his
approaching marriage had put him back ten years. It
was known to all the town's folks now, and unlike most
other matches, was pronounced a suitable one. Even Mrs.
Van Vechten, who had found Ben at Lovejoy's Hotel, and
still remained with him in New York, wrote to her brother
a kind of congratulatory letter, mingled with sickly sentimental
regrets for the “heart-broken, deserted and now
departed Marie.” It was doubtful whether she came up
to the wedding or not, she said, as Ben had positively refused
to come, or to leave the city either, and kept her

constantly on the watch lest he should elope with a second-rate
actress at Laura Keene's theatre.

Rosamond laughed heartily when Mr. Browning told
her of this sudden change in Ben, and then with a sigh as
she thought how many times his soft, good-natured heart
would probably be wrung, she went back to the preparations
for her bridal, which were on a magnificent scale.
They were going to Europe—they would spend the winter
in Paris, and as Mr. Browning had several influential
acquaintances there, they would of course see some society,
and he resolved that his bride should be inferior to none
in point of dress, as she was to none in point of beauty.
Every thing which love could devise or money procure
was purchased for her, and the elegance of her outfit was
for a long time the only theme of village gossip.

Among the members of the household none seemed
more interested in the preparations than the girl Maria,
who has before been incidentally mentioned. Her dull
eyes lighted up with each new article of dress, and she
suddenly displayed so much taste in every thing pertaining
to a lady's toilet, that Rosamond was delighted and
kept her constantly with her, devising this new thing and
that, all of which were invariably tried on and submitted
to the inspection of Mr. Browning, who was sure to approve
whatever his Rosamond wore. And thus gayly
sped the halcyon hours, bringing at last the fading leaf
and the wailing October winds; but to Rosamond, basking
in the sunlight of love, there came no warning note to tell
her of the dark November days which were hurrying
swiftly on.