compassion, and when he gave it freely; but that moment sounded the death-knell of Love. In that moment the gulf yawned, and the cliffs were rent asunder.
“Shall I read you the letter, Aurora?”
“If you please.”
He took the crumpled epistle from his bosom, and, bending over the lamp, read it aloud to Aurora. He fully expected at every sentence that she would interrupt him with some eager explanation; but she was silent until he had finished, and even then she did not speak.
“Aurora, Aurora, is this true?”
“Perfectly true.”
“But why did you run away from the Rue St. Dominique?”
“I can not tell you.”
“And where were you between the month of June in the year fifty-six and last September?”
“I can not tell you, Talbot Bulstrode. This is my secret, which I can not tell you.”
“You can not tell me! There is upward of a year missing from your life, and you can not tell me, your betrothed husband, what you did with that year?”
“I can not.”
“Then, Aurora Floyd, you can never be my wife.”
He thought that she would turn upon him, sublime in her indignation and fury, and that the explanation he longed for would burst from her lips in a passionate torrent of angry words; but she rose from her chair, and, tottering toward him, fell upon her knees at his feet. No other action could have struck such terror to his heart. It seemed to him a confession of guilt. But what guilt? what guilt? What was the dark secret of this young creature’s brief life?
“Talbot Bulstrode,” she said in a tremulous voice, which cut him to the soul, “Talbot Bulstrode, Heaven knows how often I have foreseen and dreaded this hour. Had I not been a coward, I should have anticipated this explanation. But I thought — I thought the occasion might never come, or that, when it did come, you would be generous — and — trust me. If you can trust me, Talbot — if you can believe that this secret is not utterly shameful —”
“Not utterly shameful!” he cried. “O God, Aurora, that I should ever hear you talk like this! Do you think there are any degrees in these things? There must be no secret between my wife and me; and the day that a secret, or the shadow of one, arises between us, must see us part for ever. Rise from your knees, Aurora; you are killing me with this shame and humiliation. Rise from your knees; and if we are to part this moment, tell me, tell me, for pity’s sake, that I have no need to despise myself for having loved you with an intensity which has scarcely been manly.”
She did not obey him, but sank lower in her half kneeling, half crouching attitude, her face buried in her hands, and only the coils of her black hair visible to Captain Bulstrode.
“I was motherless from my cradle, Talbot,” she said, in a half stifled voice. “Have pity upon me.”
“Pity!” echoed the captain; ”pity! Why do you not ask me for justice? One question, Aurora Floyd, one more question, perhaps the last I ever may ask of you — Does your father know why you left that school, and where you were during that twelvemonth?”
“He does.”
“Thank God, at least, for that! Tell me, Aurora, then, only tell me this, and I will believe your simple word as I would the oath of another woman — tell me if he approved of your motive in leaving that school — if he approved of the manner in which your life was spent during that twelvemonth. If you can say yes, Aurora, there shall be no more questions between us, and I can make you, without fear, my loved and honored wife.”
“I can not,” she answered. “I am only nineteen, but within the two last years of my life I have done enough to break my father’s heart — to break the heart of the dearest father that ever breathed the breath of life.”
“Then all is over between us. God forgive you, Aurora Floyd; but, by your own confession, you are no fit wife for an honorable man. I shut my mind against all foul suspicions; but the past life of my wife must be a white, unblemished page, which all the world may be free to read.”
He walked toward the door, and then, returning, assisted the wretched girl to rise, and led her back to her seat by the window, courteously, as if she had been his partner at a ball. Their hands met with as icy a touch as the hands of two corpses. Ah! how much there was of death in that touch! How much had died between those two within the last few hours — hope, confidence, security, love, happiness, all that makes life worth the holding.
Talbot Bulstrode paused upon the threshold of the little chamber, and spoke once more.
“I shall have left Felden in half an hour, Miss Floyd,” he said; “it will be better to allow your father to suppose that the disagreement between us has arisen from something of a trifling nature, and that my dismissal has come from you. I shall write to Mr. Floyd from London, and, if you please, I will so word my letter as to lead him to think this.”
“You are very good,” she answered. “Yes, I would rather that he should think that. It may spare him pain. Heaven knows I have cause to be grateful for anything that will do that.”
Talbot bowed, and left the room, closing the door behind him. The closing of that door had a dismal sound to his ear. He thought of some frail young creature abandoned by her sister-nuns in a living tomb. He thought that he would rather have left Aurora lying rigidly beautiful in her coffin than as he was leaving her to-day.
The jangling, jarring sound of the second dinner-bell clanged out as he went from the semi-obscurity of the corridor into the glaring gas-light of the billiard-room. He met Lucy Floyd coming toward him in her rustling silk dinner-dress, with fringes, and laces, and ribbons, and jewels fluttering and sparkling about her, and he almost hated her for looking so bright and radiant, remembering, as he did, the ghastly face of the stricken creature he had just left. We are apt to be horribly unjust in the hour of supreme trouble, and I fear that if any one had had the temerity to ask Talbot Bulstrode’s opinion of Lucy Floyd just at that moment, the captain would have declared her to be a mass of frivolity and affectation. If you discover the worthlessness of the only woman you love upon earth, you will perhaps be apt to feel maliciously disposed toward the many estimable people about you. You are savagely inclined when you remember that they for whom you care nothing are so good, while she on whom you set your soul is so wicked. The vessel which you freighted with every hope of your heart has gone down, and you are angry at the very sight of those other ships riding so gallantly before the breeze. Lucy recoiled at the aspect of the young man’s face.
“What is it?” she asked; “what has happened, Captain Bulstrode?”
“Nothing; I have received a letter from Cornwall which obliges me to —”
His hollow voice died away into a hoarse whisper before he could finish the sentence.
“Lady Bulstrode — or Sir John — is ill, perhaps?” hazarded Lucy.
Talbot pointed to his white lips and shook his head. The gesture might mean anything. He could not speak. The hall was full of visitors and children going into dinner. The little people were to dine with their seniors that day, as an especial treat and privilege of the season. The door of the dining-room was open, and Talbot saw the gray head of Archibald Floyd dimly visible at the end of a long vista of lights, and silver, and glass, and evergreens. The old man had his nephews and nieces, and their children grouped about him, but the place at his right hand, the place Aurora was meant to fill, was vacant. Captain Bulstrode turned away from that gayly-lighted scene and ran up the staircase to his room, where he found his servant waiting with his master’s clothes laid out, wondering why he had not come to dress.
The man fell back at the sight of Talbot’s face, ghastly in the light of the wax candles on the dressing-table.
“I am going away, Philman,” said the captain, speaking very fast, and in a thick, indistinct voice. “I am going down to Cornwall by the express to-night, if I can