University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.

Thus things went on in the busy world abroad, and at home
in the quiet vale of Ingleborough, until some few days after the
deadly fight and desperate defeat at Long Marston.

Autumn had come again — brown autumn — and Annabel,
now in her garden tending her flowers, and listening to her
birds, and thinking of the past, not with the keen and piercing
anguish of a present sorrow, but with the mellow recollection
of an old regret. She stood beside the stream — the stream
that all unchanged itself had witnessed such sad changes in all
that was around it — close to the spot where she had talked so
long with Marian on that eventful morning, when a quick, soft
step came behind her; she turned, and Marian clasped her!

No words can describe the feelings of the sisters as they
met; and it was not till after many a fond embrace, and many
a burst of tears, that Marian told her how, after years of sufferance,
compelled at last to fly from the outrageous cruelty of
him, for whom she had thrown up all but honor, she now came
home — home, like the hunted hare to her form, like the wounded
bird to her nest — she now came home to die. “What could
it boot,” she said, “to repeat the old and oft-told tale, how eager
passion made way for uncertain and oft-interrupted gleams of
fondness How a love founded on no esteem or real principles,
melted like wax before the fire. How inattention paved
the way for neglect, and infidelity came close behind, and open
profligacy, and bold insult, and cool, maddened outrage followed.
How the ardent lover became the careless husband, the cold
master, the unfeeling tyrant, and at last the brutal despot.”

Marian came home to die — the seeds of that invincible disease
were sown deep in her bosom; her exquisitely rounded
shape was angular and thin, emaciated by disease, and suffering,

and sorrow. A burning, hectic spot on either cheek were
now the only remnants of that once all-radiant complexion;
her step so slow and faltering, her breath drawn sob by sob
with actual agony, her quick, short cough, all told too certainly
the truth! Her faults were punished bitterly on earth, and
happily that punishment had worked its fitting end — these
faults were all repented, were all amended now. Perhaps at
no time of her youthful bloom had Marian been so sweet, so
truly lovely, as now when her young days were numbered.

All the asperity and harshness, the angles as it were of her
character, mellowed down into a calm and unrepining cheerfulness.
And oh! with what delicious tenderness did Annabel
console, and pray with, and caress her — oh! they were, indeed,
happy! indeed happy for those last months, those lovely
sisters. For Annabel's delight at seeing the dear Marian of
happier days once more beside her in their old chamber, beside
her in the quiet garden, beside her in the pew of the old
village-church, had, for the time, overpowered her fears for her
sister's health, and as is almost invariably the case in that most
fatal, most insidious of disorders, she constantly was flattered
with vain hopes that Marian was amending, that the next
spring would see her again well and happy. Vain hopes!
indeed, vain hopes; but which of mortal hopes is other?

The cold mists of November were on the hills and in the
glens of Wharfdale; the trees were stripped of their last leaves,
the grass was sere and withered, the earth cheerless, the skies
comfortless, when, at the same predestined window, the sisters
sat watching the last gleam of the wintry sun fade on the distant
hill-top. What was that flash far up the road? That round
and ringing report? Another! and another! the evident reports
of musketry. And lo! a horseman flying — a wild fierce
troop pursuing — the foremost rides bareheaded, but the blue
scarf that flutters in the air, shows him a loyal cavalier; the

steel caps and jack-boots of the pursuers, point them out, evidently,
puritans; there are but twenty of them, and lo! the fugltive
gains on them — Heaven! he turns from the highroad!
crosses the steep bridge at a gallop! he takes the park gate at
a leap! he cuts across the turf! and lo! the dalesmen and the
tenants have mustered to resist — a short, fierce struggle! the
roundheads are beaten back! the fugitive, now at the very hall
doors, is preserved. The door flew open; he staggered into
the well-known vestibule, opened the parlor-door with an accustomed
hand, reeled into the presence of the sisters exhausted
with fatigue; pale from loss of blood, faint with his mortal
wounds — yet he spoke out in a clear voice: —

“In time, in time, I thank God! In time to make some reparation
— to ask pardon, ere I die.”

And with these words, De Vaux, for it was he, staggered up
to his injured wife, and dropping on his knees, cast his arms
around her waist, and burying his head in her lap, exclaimed
in faltering tones: —

“Pardon me, Marian, pardon me, before I die — pardon me,
as you loved me once.”

“Oh! as I love you now, dear Ernest, fully, completely,
gladly do I pardon you, and take you to my heart, never again
to part, my own dear husband.”

Annabel saw her head fall on his neck, and fancying she had
fainted, ran to uplift her; but ere she had time to do so, both
were beyond the reach of any mortal sorrow. Nor did she,
the survivor, tarry long behind them. She faded like a fair
flower, and lies beside them in the still bosom of a common
tomb. The hall was tenanted no more, and soon fell into ruin.
But the wild hills of Wharfdale must themselves pass away,
before the children of the dalesmen shall forget the sad tale of
“The Rival Sisters.”