At first he determined to question her and extort the truth. But when, an hour later, she quietly entered the parlor, he saw at a glance that the cold, proud, self-possessed woman before him would not submit to the treatment accepted by the little Christine of former days. The wily man read from her manner and the expression of her eye that he might with her consent lead, but could not command without awakening a nature as imperious as his own.
He was angry, but he had time to think. Prudence had given a decided voice in favor of caution.
He saw what she did not recognize herself, that her heart had been greatly touched, and in his secret soul he was not sorry now to believe that Dennis was dying.
“Father,” said Christine, abruptly, “how soon can we start on our eastern trip?”
“Well, if you particularly wish it,” he replied, “I can leave by the evening train tomorrow.”
“I do wish it very much,” said Christine, earnestly, “and will be ready.”
After an evening of silence and constraint they separated for the night.
Mr. Ludolph sat for a long time sipping his wine after she had gone.
“After all it will turn out for the best,” he said. “Fleet will probably die, and then will be out of the way. Or, if he lives, I can easily guard against him, and it will go no further. If she had been bewitched by a man like Mr. Mellen, the matter would have been more difficult.
“In truth,” he continued, after a little, “now that her weak woman’s heart is occupied by an impossible lover, there is no danger from possible ones;” and the man of the world went complacently to his rest, believing that what he regarded as the game of life was entirely in his own hands.
The next evening the night express bore Christine from the scene of the events she sought to escape; but she was to learn, in common with the great host of the sinning and suffering, how little change of place has to do with change of feeling. We take memory and character with us from land to land, from youth to age, from this world to the other, from time through eternity. Sad, then, is the lot of those who ever carry the elements of their own torture with them.
It was Christine’s purpose, and she had her father’s consent, to make a long visit in New York, and, in the gayety and excitement of the metropolis, to forget her late wretched experience.
As it was still early in September, they resolved to stop at West Point and participate in the gayest season of that fashionable watering-place. At this time the hotels are thronged with summer tourists returning homeward from the more northern resorts. Though the broad piazzas of Cozzens’s great hotel were crowded by the elite of the city, there was a hum of admiration as Christine first made her round on her father’s arm; and in the evening, when the spacious parlor was cleared for dancing, officers from the post and civilians alike eagerly sought her hand, and hundreds of admiring eyes followed as she swept through the mazes of the dance, the embodiment of grace and beauty. She was very gay, and her repartee was often brilliant, but a close observer would have seen something forced and unnatural in all. Such an observer was her father. He saw that the sparkle of her eyes had no more heart and happiness in it than that of the diamonds on her bosom, and that with the whole strength of her resolute nature she was laboring to repel thought and memory. But, as he witnessed the admiration she excited on every side, he became more determined than ever that his fair daughter should shine a star of the first magnitude in the salons of Europe. At a late hour, and wearied past the power of thought, she gladly sought refuge in the blank of sleep.
The next morning they drove out early, before the sun was high and warm. It was a glorious autumn day. Recent rains had purified the atmosphere, so that the unrivalled scenery of the Hudson stood out in clear and grand outline.
As Christine looked about her she felt a thrill of almost delight—the first sensation of the kind since that moment of exultation which Dennis had inspired, but which he had also turned to the bitterness of disaster and humiliation. She was keenly alive to beauty, and she saw it on every side. The Ludolph family had ever lived among the mountains on the Rhine, and the heart of this latest child of the race yearned over the rugged scenery before her with hereditary affection, which had grown stronger with each successive generation.
The dew, like innumerable pearls, gemmed the grass in the park-like lawn of the hotel, and the slanting rays of the sun flecked the luxuriant foliage. Never before had this passion for the beautiful in nature been so gratified, and all the artist feeling within her awoke.
On reaching the street the carriage turned southward, and, after passing the village of Highland Falls, entered on one of the most beautiful drives in America. At times the road led under overarching forest-trees, shaded and dim with that delicious twilight which only myriads of fluttering leaves can make. Again it would wind around some bold headland, and the broad expanse of the Hudson would shine out dotted with white sails. Then through a vista its waters would sparkle, suggesting an exquisite cabinet picture. On the right the thickly-wooded mountains
