Love stories; Orphans -- Fiction; Southern States -- Fiction; Women -- Fiction
sadness might easily have been mistaken by casual observers for
bitter misanthropy.
I have said he was about thirty, and though the handsome face was
repellently cold and grave, it was difficult to believe that that
smooth, fair brow had been for so many years uplifted for the
handwriting of time. He looked just what he was, a baffling,
fascinating mystery. You felt that his countenance was a volume of
hieroglyphics which, could you decipher, would unfold the history of
a checkered and painful career. Yet the calm, frigid smile which sat
on his lip, and looked out defiantly from his deep-set eyes, seemed
to dare you to an investigation. Mere physical beauty cannot impart
the indescribable charm which his countenance possessed. Regularity
of features is a valuable auxiliary, but we look on sculptured
marble, perfect in its chiseled proportions, and feel that, after
all, the potent spell is in the raying out of the soul, that
imprisoned radiance which, in some instances, makes man indeed but
"little lower than the angels." He paused in his echoless tread, and
sat down once more beside his protegee. She had not changed her
position, and the long lashes lay heavily on the crimson cheeks. The
parched lips were parted, and, as he watched her, she murmured
aloud:
"It is so sweet, Lilly; we will stay here always." A shadowy smile
crossed her face, and then a great agony seemed to possess her, for
she moaned long and bitterly. He tried to arouse her, and, for the
first time since the night she entered his house, she opened her
eyes and gazed vacantly at him.
"Are you in pain, Beulah? Why do you moan so?"
"Eugene, I knew it would be so, when you left me."
"Don't you know me, Beulah?" He put his face close to hers.
"They killed her, Eugene! I told you they would; they are going to
bury her soon. But the grave can't hide her; I am going down with
her into the darkness--she would be frightened, you know." Making a
great effort, she sat upright. Dr. Hartwell put a glass containing
medicine to her lips; she shrank back and shuddered, then raised her
hand for the glass, and, looking fixedly at him, said: "Did Mrs.
Grayson say I must take it? Is it poison that kills quickly? There;
don't frown, Eugene, I will drink it all for you." She swallowed the
draught with a shiver. He laid her back on her pillow and renewed
the iced-cloth on her forehead; she did not move her burning eyes
from his face, and the refreshing coolness recalled the sad smile.
"Are we on the Alps, Eugene? I feel dizzy; don't let me fall. There
is a great chasm yonder. Oh, I know now; I am not afraid; Lilly is
down there--come on." Her arms drooped to her side, and she slept
again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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