Short Fiction

it was not the solitude of the house which jarred upon his nerves and feelings. He had from his earliest youth been accustomed to keep his impulses and passions well under control, and his highly nervous temperament had ever been perfectly balanced by his well cultivated reasoning powers. Under the trying circumstances through which he had passed, his health had not suffered in the slightest degree, and yet here was he, reasonable and self-contained as ever, in a state of nervous irritability for which he could not account. “It is an atmosphere of mystery that I am breathing,” he would say to himself, “at every turn something confronts me for which I am totally unprepared. Why, for instance, the inscription on Amy’s grave? and why is it that I, who loved her so truly and who held her cold and lifeless in my arms, have as yet no feeling of utter blank despair in my heart, but only some strong undefinable impulse which is forever urging me on, on, on, in the search for the truth?” And the more he thought the more he wondered, until his brain became as it were sick and giddy with revolving so constantly round one centre.

Mr. Warden, on his part, seemed to have settled down into the absolute quietude of a hopeless, aimless life. He had become altogether an old man in his ways and habits, and was leading the life of one who knows the future will have no good thing in store for him, and who therefore lives entirely in the memory of the past. About Mrs. Warden, and her illness and death, he would talk freely, but when once or twice Lord Hardcastle had purposely mentioned Amy’s name to him, he had either abruptly quitted the room or else so pointedly turned the conversation that another remark on the subject would have been impossible.

“It cuts him to the heart even to hear me speak of her, and he must know she is never out of my mind,” thought Lord Hardcastle, as he looked across the library to where Mr. Warden was sitting with an open volume before him, but his eyes dreamily fixed on the window pane⁠—his thoughts evidently far away.

“See here, Mr. Warden,” he said suddenly, crossing the room to him, “I may seem impertinent to you in what I am about to ask, but I have a real reason for asking the question. I loved your daughter living (God knows how truly) and I love her dead. If she had lived she might never have been my wife⁠—who can tell⁠—but her good name, dead as she is, is as dear to me as though she had been. Will you tell me⁠—I ask it as a great favour⁠—why you had inscribed on her tomb a name so different to the one we were accustomed to know her by?”

“It was her right name, the one she was christened,” said Mr. Warden dreamily, his thoughts still far away and his eyes looking beyond his book.

Then Lord Hardcastle summoned together all his courage, and making a great effort asked the one question which had occupied his mind through so many sorrowful days, and to which, indeed, his former question was but intended to lead the way.

“Mr. Warden, tell me one thing else, I beg of you; indeed it is not from idle curiosity I ask it, was Aimée the name of Miss Warden’s mother?”

At these words Mr. Warden visibly started, and his face grew ashy pale; then controlling himself with an effort, he replied “Mrs. Warden’s name was Helen, I thought you knew.”

“Yes, I knew that; forgive me, Mr. Warden, if my conduct seem grossly impertinent to you. I know I have not the slightest right to ask these questions, but if you think I have in any way been to you as a son through these long sorrowful days, as a son I beg for the confidence of my father.”

“A son! ah, you have indeed been to me as a son in my affliction! But you are probing old wounds now, my young friend, and asking for a story sadder than the one you know already, because there is sin and crime mixed up in it.”

There was a pause, neither spoke for some minutes. Mr. Warden shaded his face with both hands, and his thoughts wandered back to his bright young days when sorrow seemed a faraway thing and death a hideous impossibility. The long sorrowful years that had since come and gone, faded from his memory; he no longer saw the room where he sat, nor even his companion, and rushing back upon him in full force came the recollection of young, strong passions, early hopes and fears, bright sunshiny hours when life was better worth having than it now was.

At length he uncovered his face and began speaking slowly as one in a dream. “I can see her now, see her as she stood the first day I saw her, in the lonely mountain country. Her feet on the black-red lava, the glowing sunset behind her head, her rich dark beauty flashing back every gold and crimson ray. I can see yet, her long white dress with its bright coloured ribbons and the dark-faced nurse by her side who scowled and frowned at me as my eyes expressed the wonder and admiration I felt. There and then I could have knelt at her feet and worshipped her as a goddess. Young and passionate, I poured out my all of love and devotion at her shrine; she vowed she loved me as I loved her; she took my heart into her keeping⁠—played with it⁠—broke it⁠—and threw it on one side forever.”

He paused, overcome by his recollections. Lord Hardcastle leaned forward breathlessly. Here was Mr. Warden voluntarily according the confidence he was so eager to obtain.

Presently Mr. Warden recommenced. “I married her according to the rites of her own Church. I can see her now in her royal beauty (she had the