“The lady whom I spake of rose again
From the red fever’s couch, to careless eyes
Perchance the same as she had ever been;
But, oh, how altered to herself! She felt
That weariness which hath but outward part
In what the world calls pleasure, and that chill
Which makes life taste the bitterness of death.”
Mrs. Maxwell would never forget to her dying day how surprised she was
that bright May afternoon when the elegant Van Lew carriage, with its
liveried coachman, stopped before the cottage gate, while the footman
handed out a graceful figure in deep mourning, who came slowly up the
walk and knocked timidly on the door.
As she gazed from the window, her heart swelled with bitterness toward
the beautiful girl who had been so cruel to poor Rolfe. The memory was
still fresh in her mind of that night when her handsome boy had taken
her into his confidence and told her so sadly that his bride’s father
had persuaded her to forsake him.
“Do not think unkindly of her, dear mother. She was so young and
thoughtless, she scarcely knew her own mind, I suppose, and her haughty
father probably bullied her into giving me up,” he said, touching the
truth nearer than he knew in his anxiety to shield Viola from his
mother’s natural resentment.
Then, despite her opposition to his plans, he had gone away to Cuba,
and she had read in the papers afterward of the dangerous illness
of Viola, but it did not at all soften her heart that was aching in
sympathy with her son’s pain. Though she was one of the best women in
the world, she could not help thinking most bitterly:
“It will be no great loss if she dies, the cruel coquette!”
Then came occasional letters from Rolfe, always full of interest for
her motherly heart, and she was glad that he seemed to have forgotten
in his absorbing work the painful episode of his marriage, since he
never mentioned Viola’s name. She, on her part, preserved the same
silence in her replies, never alluding to the fact that the young girl
lay ill unto death of brain fever.
“Time enough to tell him if she dies!” was her resentful thought, while
she wondered if he would grieve much, for she knew he had given the
fickle girl the wealth of a wonderful love.
“We break the glass whose sacred wine
To some beloved health we drain,
Lest future pledges, less divine,
Should e’er the hallowed toy profane.
And thus I broke a heart that poured
Its tide of feelings out for thee,
In draughts by after-times deplored,
Yet dear to memory.”
Mrs. Maxwell found Mae Sweetland very quiet and apathetic in those days
after Rolfe’s going away, and she was very patient and tender with the
poor girl. She guessed that she was ashamed and repentant over her
violent self-betrayal the night Rolfe brought his bride home, and that
she was trying to tear from her heart its hopeless dream of love.