University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.
YES.

It is easy to say, “I will forget,” but perhaps the hardest
task given us is to lock up a natural yearning of the heart,
and turn a deaf ear to its plaint, for captive and jailer
must inhabit the same small cell. Sylvia was proud, with
that pride which is both sensitive and courageous, which
can not only suffer but wring strength from suffering.
While she struggled with a grief and shame that aged her
with their pain, she asked no help, made no complaint; but
when the forbidden passion stretched its arms to her, she
thrust it back and turned to pleasure for oblivion.

Those who knew her best were troubled and surprised by
the craving for excitement which now took possession of
her, the avidity with which she gratified it, regardless of
time, health, and money. All day she hurried here and
there, driving, shopping, sight-seeing, or entertaining guests,
at home. Night brought no cessation of her dissipation,
for when balls, masquerades, and concerts failed, there still
remained the theatre. This soon became both a refuge and
a solace, for believing it to be less harmful than other excitements,
her father indulged her new whim. But, had she
known it, this was the most dangerous pastime she could
have chosen. Calling for no exertion of her own, it left
her free to passively receive a stimulant to her unhappy love

in watching its mimic semblance through all phases of
tragic suffering and sorrow, for she would see no comedies,
and Shakespeare's tragedies became her study.

This lasted for a time, then the reaction came. A black
melancholy fell upon her, and energy deserted soul and
body. She found it a weariness to get up in the morning
and weariness to lie down at night. She no longer cared
even to seem cheerful, owned that she was spiritless, hoped
she should be ill, and did not care if she died to-morrow.
When this dark mood seemed about to become chronic she
began to mend, for youth is wonderfully recuperative, and
the deepest wounds soon heal even against the sufferer's
will. A quiet apathy replaced the gloom, and she let the
tide drift her where it would, hoping nothing, expecting
nothing, asking nothing but that she need not suffer any
more.

She lived fast; all processes with her were rapid; and the
secret experience of that winter taught her many things.
She believed it had only taught her to forget, for now the
outcast love lay very still, and no longer beat despairingly
against the door of her heart, demanding to be taken in
from the cold. She fancied that neglect had killed it, and
that its grave was green with many tears. Alas for Sylvia!
how could she know that it had only sobbed itself to sleep,
and would wake beautiful and strong at the first sound of
its master's voice.

Mark became eventful. In his fitful fashion he had
painted a picture of the Golden Wedding, from sketches
taken at the time. Moor had suggested and bespoken it,
that the young artist might have a motive for finishing it,
because, though he excelled in scenes of that description, he
thought them beneath him, and tempted by more ambitious

designs, neglected his true branch of the art. In April it
was finished, and at his father's request Mark reluctantly
sent it with his Clytemnestra to the annual exhibition. One
morning at breakfast Mr. Yule suddenly laughed out behind
his paper, and with a face of unmixed satisfaction
passed it to his son, pointing to a long critique upon the
Exhibition. Mark prepared himself to receive with becoming
modesty the praises lavished upon his great work, but
was stricken with amazement to find Clytemnestra disposed
of in a single sentence, and the Golden Wedding lauded in
a long enthusiastic written paragraph.

“What the deuce does the man mean!” he ejaculated,
staring at his father.

“He means that the work which warms the heart is
greater than that which freezes the blood, I suspect. Moor
knew what you could do and has made you do it, sure that
if you worked for fame unconsciously you should achieve it.
This is a success that I can appreciate, and I congratulate
you heartily, my son.”

“Thank you, sir. But upon my word I don't understand
it, and if this was n't written by the best Art critic
in the country I should feel inclined to say the writer was
a fool. Why that little thing was a daub compared to the
other.”

He got no farther in his protest against this unexpected
freak of fortune, for Sylvia seized the paper and read the
paragraph aloud with such happy emphasis amid Prue's
outcries and his father's applause, that Mark began to feel
that he really had done something praiseworthy, and that
the “daub” was not so despicable after all.

“I'm going to look at it from this new point of sight,”
was his sole comment as he went away.

Three hours afterward he appeared to Sylvia as she sat
sewing alone, and startled her with the mysterious announcement.

“I've done it!”

“Done what? Have you burnt poor Clytemnestra?”
“Hang Clytemnestra! I'll begin at the beginning and
prepare you for the grand finale. I went to the Exhibition,
and stared at Father Blake and his family for an hour.
Decided that was n't bad, though I still admire the other
more. Then people began to come and crowd up, so that I
slipped away for I could n't stand the compliments. Dahlmann,
Scott, and all the rest of my tribe were there, and,
as true as my name is Mark Yule, every man of them
ignored the Greek party and congratulated me upon the
success of that confounded Golden Wedding.”

“My dearest boy, I am so proud! so glad! What is the
matter? Have you been bitten by a tarantula?”

She might well ask, for Mark was dancing all over the
carpet in a most extraordinary style, and only stopped long
enough to throw a little case into Sylvia's lap, asking as a
whole faceful of smiles broke loose —

“What does that mean?”

She opened it, and a suspicious circlet of diamonds appeared,
at sight of which she clapped her hands, and cried
out —

“You 're going to ask Jessie to wear it!”

“I have! I have!” sung Mark, dancing more wildly
than ever. Sylvia chased him into a corner and held him
there, almost as much excited as he, while she demanded a
full explanation, which he gave her, laughing like a boy,
and blushing like a girl.

“You have no business to ask, but of course I'm dying

to tell you. I went from that Painter's Purgatory as we
call it, to Mr. Hope's, and asked for Miss Jessie. My angel
came down; I told her of my success, and she smiled as
never a woman did before; I added that I'd only waited to
make myself more worthy of her, by showing that I had
talent, as well as love and money to offer her, and she began
to cry, whereat I took her in my arms and ascended
straight into heaven.”

“Please be sobor, Mark, and tell me all about it. Was
she glad? Did she say she would? And is everything
as we would have it?”

“It is all perfect, divine, and rapturous, to the last degree.
Jessie has liked me ever since she was born, she
thinks; adores you and Prue for sisters; yearns to call my
parent father; allowed me to say and do whatever I liked,
and gave me a ravishing kiss just there. Sacred spot; I
shall get a mate to it when I put this on her blessed little
finger. Try it for me, I want it to be right, and your hands
are of a size. That fits grandly. When shall I see a joyful
sweetheart doing this on his own behalf, Sylvia?”

“Never!”

She shook off the ring as if it burnt her, watching it roll
glittering away, with a somewhat tragical expression. Then
she calmed herself, and sitting down to her work, enjoyed
Mark's raptures for an hour.

The distant city bells were ringing nine that night as a
man paused before Mr. Yule's house, and attentively scrutinized
each window. Many were alight, but on the drawn
curtain of one a woman's shadow came and went. He
watched it a moment, passed up the steps, and noiselessly
went in. The hall was bright and solitary; from above
came the sound of voices, from a room to the right, the stir

of papers and the scratch of a pen, from one on the left, a
steady rustle as of silk, swept slowly to and fro. To the
threshold of this door the man stepped and looked in.

Sylvia was just turning in her walk, and as she came
musing down the room, Moor saw her well. With some
women dress has no relation to states of mind; with Sylvia
it was often an indication of the mental garb she wore.
Moor remembered this trait, and saw in both countenance
and costume the change that had befallen her in his long
absence. Her face was neither gay nor melancholy, but
serious and coldly quiet, as if some inward twilight reigned.
Her dress, a soft, sad grey, with no decoration but a
knot of snowdrops in her bosom. On these pale flowers her
eyes were fixed, and as she walked with folded arms and
drooping head, she sang low to herself —

“Sylvia!”

Very gentle was the call, but she started as if it had been
a shout, looked an instant while light and color flashed into
her face, then ran to him exclaiming joyfully —

“Oh, Geoffrey! I am glad! I am glad!”

There could be but one answer to such a welcome, and
Sylvia received it as she stood there, not weeping now, but
smiling with the sincerest satisfaction, the happiest surprise.
Moor shared both emotions, feeling as a man might feel

when, parched with thirst, he stretches out his hand for a
drop of rain, and receives a brimming cup of water. He
drank a deep draught gratefully, then, fearing that it might
be as suddenly withdrawn, asked anxiously —

“Sylvia, are we friends or lovers?”

“Anything, if you will only stay.”

She looked up as she spoke, and her face betrayed that a
conflict between desire and doubt was going on within her.
Impulse had sent her there, and now it was so sweet to
know herself beloved, she found it hard to go away. Her
brother's happiness had touched her heart, roused the old
craving for affection, and brought a strong desire to fill the
aching void her lost love had left with this recovered one.
Sylvia had not learned to reason yet, she could only feel,
because, owing to the unequal development of her divided
nature, the heart grew faster than the intellect. Instinct
was her surest guide, and when she followed it unblinded
by a passion, unthwarted by a mood, she prospered. But
now she was so blinded and so thwarted, and now her great
temptation came. Ambition, man's idol, had tempted the
father; love, woman's god, tempted the daughter; and, as
if the father's atonement was to be wrought out through his
dearest child, the daughter also made the fatal false step of
her life.

“Then you have learned to love me, Sylvia?”

“No, the old feeling has not changed except to grow
more remorseful, more eager to prove its truth. Once you
asked me if I did not wish to love you; then I did not,
now I sincerely do. If you still want me with my many
faults, and will teach me in your gentle way to be all I
should to you, I will gladly learn, because I never needed
love as I do now. Geoffrey, shall I stay or go?”

“Stay, Sylvia. Ah, thank God for this!”

If she had ever hoped that Moor would forget her for his
own sake, she now saw how vain such hope would have been,
and was both touched and troubled by the knowledge of
her supremacy which that hour gave her. She was as much
the calmer as friendship is than love, and was the first to
speak again, still standing there content although her words
expressed a doubt.

“Are you very sure you want me? Are you not tired of
the thorn that has fretted you so long? Remember, I am
so young, so ignorant, and unfitted for a wife. Can I give
you real happiness? make home what you would have it?
and never see in your face regret that some wiser, better
woman was not in my place?”

“I am sure of myself, and satisfied with you, as you are
no wiser, no better, nothing but my Sylvia.”

“It is very sweet to hear you say that with such a look.
I do not deserve it but I will. Is the pain I once gave you
gone now, Geoffrey?”

“Gone forever.”

“Then I am satisfied, and will begin my life anew by
trying to learn well the lesson my kind master is to teach
me.”

When Moor went that night Sylvia followed him, and as
they stood together this happy moment seemed to recall that
other sad one, for taking her hands again he asked, smiling
now —

“Dear, is it good night or good by?”

“It is good by and come to-morrow.”