CHAPTER X.

YES.

It is easy to say, "I will forget," but perhaps the hardest task given

us is to lock up a natural yearning of the heart, and turn a deaf ear to

its plaint, for captive and jailer must inhabit the same small cell.

Sylvia was proud, with that pride which is both sensitive and

courageous, which can not only suffer but wring strength from suffering.

While she struggled with a grief and shame that aged her with their

pain, she asked no help, made no complaint; but when the forbidden

passion stretched its arms to her, she thrust it back and turned to

pleasure for oblivion.

Those who knew her best were troubled and surprised by the craving for

excitement which now took possession of her, the avidity with which she

gratified it, regardless of time, health, and money. All day she hurried

here and there, driving, shopping, sight-seeing, or entertaining guests

at home. Night brought no cessation of her dissipation, for when balls,

masquerades, and concerts failed, there still remained the theatre. This

soon became both a refuge and a solace, for believing it to be less

harmful than other excitements, her father indulged her new whim. But,

had she known it, this was the most dangerous pastime she could have

chosen. Calling for no exertion of her own, it left her free to

passively receive a stimulant to her unhappy love in watching its mimic

semblance through all phases of tragic suffering and sorrow, for she

would see no comedies, and Shakespeare's tragedies became her study.

This lasted for a time, then the reaction came. A black melancholy fell

upon her, and energy deserted soul and body. She found it a weariness to

get up in the morning and weariness to lie down at night. She no longer

cared even to seem cheerful, owned that she was spiritless, hoped she

should be ill, and did not care if she died to-morrow. When this dark

mood seemed about to become chronic she began to mend, for youth is

wonderfully recuperative, and the deepest wounds soon heal even against

the sufferer's will. A quiet apathy replaced the gloom, and she let the

tide drift her where it would, hoping nothing, expecting nothing, asking

nothing but that she need not suffer any more.

She lived fast; all processes with her were rapid; and the secret

experience of that winter taught her many things. She believed it had

only taught her to forget, for now the outcast love lay very still, and

no longer beat despairingly against the door of her heart, demanding to

be taken in from the cold. She fancied that neglect had killed it, and

that its grave was green with many tears. Alas for Sylvia! how could she

know that it had only sobbed itself to sleep, and would wake beautiful

and strong at the first sound of its master's voice.

Mark became eventful. In his fitful fashion he had painted a picture of

the Golden Wedding, from sketches taken at the time. Moor had suggested

and bespoken it, that the young artist might have a motive for finishing

it, because, though he excelled in scenes of that description, he

thought them beneath him, and tempted by more ambitious designs,

neglected his true branch of the art. In April it was finished, and at

his father's request Mark reluctantly sent it with his Clytemnestra to

the annual exhibition. One morning at breakfast Mr. Yule suddenly

laughed out behind his paper, and with a face of unmixed satisfaction

passed it to his son, pointing to a long critique upon the Exhibition.

Mark prepared himself to receive with becoming modesty the praises

lavished upon his great work, but was stricken with amazement to find

Clytemnestra disposed of in a single sentence, and the Golden Wedding

lauded in a long enthusiastic paragraph.

"What the deuce does the man mean!" he ejaculated, staring at his

father.

"He means that the work which warms the heart is greater than that which

freezes the blood, I suspect. Moor knew what you could do and has made

you do it, sure that if you worked for fame unconsciously you should

achieve it. This is a success that I can appreciate, and I congratulate

you heartily, my son."

"Thank you, sir. But upon my word I don't understand it, and if this

wasn't written by the best Art critic in the country I should feel

inclined to say the writer was a fool. Why that little thing was a daub

compared to the other."

He got no farther in his protest against this unexpected freak of

fortune, for Sylvia seized the paper and read the paragraph aloud with

such happy emphasis amid Prue's outcries and his father's applause, that

Mark began to feel that he really had done something praiseworthy, and

that the "daub" was not so despicable after all.

"I'm going to look at it from this new point of sight," was his sole

comment as he went away.

Three hours afterward he appeared to Sylvia as she sat sewing alone, and

startled her with the mysterious announcement.

"I've done it!"

"Done what? Have you burnt poor Clytemnestra?"

"Hang Clytemnestra! I'll begin at the beginning and prepare you for the

grand finale. I went to the Exhibition, and stared at Father Blake and

his family for an hour. Decided that wasn't bad, though I still admire

the other more. Then people began to come and crowd up, so that I

slipped away for I couldn't stand the compliments. Dahlmann, Scott, and

all the rest of my tribe were there, and, as true as my name is Mark

Yule, every man of them ignored the Greek party and congratulated me

upon the success of that confounded Golden Wedding."

"My dearest boy, I am so proud! so glad! What is the matter? Have you

been bitten by a tarantula?"

She might well ask, for Mark was dancing all over the carpet in a most

extraordinary style, and only stopped long enough to throw a little case

into Sylvia's lap, asking as a whole faceful of smiles broke loose--

"What does that mean?"

She opened it, and a suspicious circlet of diamonds appeared, at sight

of which she clapped her hands, and cried out--

"You're going to ask Jessie to wear it!"

"I have! I have!" sung Mark, dancing more wildly than ever. Sylvia

chased him into a corner and held him there, almost as much excited as

he, while she demanded a full explanation, which he gave her, laughing

like a boy, and blushing like a girl.

"You have no business to ask, but of course I'm dying to tell you. I

went from that Painter's Purgatory as we call it, to Mr. Hope's, and

asked for Miss Jessie. My angel came down; I told her of my success, and

she smiled as never a woman did before; I added that I'd only waited to

make myself more worthy of her, by showing that I had talent, as well as

love and money to offer her, and she began to cry, whereat I took her in

my arms and ascended straight into heaven."

"Please be sober, Mark, and tell me all about it. Was she glad? Did she

say she would? And is everything as we would have it?"

"It is all perfect, divine, and rapturous, to the last degree. Jessie

has liked me ever since she was born, she thinks; adores you and Prue

for sisters; yearns to call my parent father; allowed me to say and do

whatever I liked; and gave me a ravishing kiss just there. Sacred spot;

I shall get a mate to it when I put this on her blessed little finger.

Try it for me, I want it to be right, and your hands are of a size. That

fits grandly. When shall I see a joyful sweetheart doing this on his own

behalf, Sylvia?"

"Never!"

She shook off the ring as if it burned her, watching it roll glittering

away, with a somewhat tragical expression. Then she calmed herself, and

sitting down to her work, enjoyed Mark's raptures for an hour.

The distant city bells were ringing nine that night as a man paused

before Mr. Yule's house, and attentively scrutinized each window. Many

were alight, but on the drawn curtain of one a woman's shadow came and

went. He watched it a moment, passed up the steps, and noiselessly went

in. The hall was bright and solitary; from above came the sound of

voices, from a room to the right, the stir of papers and the scratch of

a pen, from one on the left, a steady rustle as of silk, swept slowly to

and fro. To the threshold of this door the man stepped and looked in.

Sylvia was just turning in her walk, and as she came musing down the

room, Moor saw her well. With some women dress has no relation to states

of mind; with Sylvia it was often an indication of the mental garb she

wore. Moor remembered this trait, and saw in both countenance and

costume the change that had befallen her in his long absence. Her face

was neither gay nor melancholy, but serious and coldly quiet, as if some

inward twilight reigned. Her dress, a soft, sad grey, with no decoration

but a knot of snowdrops in her bosom. On these pale flowers her eyes

were fixed, and as she walked with folded arms and drooping head, she

sang low to herself--

'Upon the convent roof, the snows

Lie sparkling to the moon;

My breath to heaven like incense goes,

May my soul follow soon.

Lord, make my spirit pure and clear,

As are the frosty skies,

Or this first snowdrop of the year,

That in my bosom lies.'

"Sylvia!"

Very gentle was the call, but she started as if it had been a shout,

looked an instant while light and color flashed into her face, then ran

to him exclaiming joyfully--

"Oh, Geoffrey! I am glad! I am glad!"

There could be but one answer to such a welcome, and Sylvia received it

as she stood there, not weeping now, but smiling with the sincerest

satisfaction, the happiest surprise. Moor shared both emotions, feeling

as a man might feel when, parched with thirst, he stretches out his

hand for a drop of rain, and receives a brimming cup of water. He drank

a deep draught gratefully, then, fearing that it might be as suddenly

withdrawn, asked anxiously--

"Sylvia, are we friends or lovers?"

"Anything, if you will only stay."

She looked up as she spoke, and her face betrayed that a conflict

between desire and doubt was going on within her. Impulse had sent her

there, and now it was so sweet to know herself beloved, she found it

hard to go away. Her brother's happiness had touched her heart, roused

the old craving for affection, and brought a strong desire to fill the

aching void her lost love had left with this recovered one. Sylvia had

not learned to reason yet, she could only feel, because, owing to the

unequal development of her divided nature, the heart grew faster than

the intellect. Instinct was her surest guide, and when she followed it

unblinded by a passion, unthwarted by a mood, she prospered. But now she

was so blinded and so thwarted, and now her great temptation came.

Ambition, man's idol, had tempted the father; love, woman's god, tempted

the daughter; and, as if the father's atonement was to be wrought out

through his dearest child the daughter also made the fatal false step of

her life.

"Then you _have_ learned to love me, Sylvia?"

"No, the old feeling has not changed except to grow more remorseful,

more eager to prove its truth. Once you asked me if I did not wish to

love you; then I did not, now I sincerely do. If you still want me with

my many faults, and will teach me in your gentle way to be all I should

to you, I will gladly learn, because I never needed love as I do now.

Geoffrey, shall I stay or go?"

"Stay, Sylvia. Ah, thank God for this!"

If she had ever hoped that Moor would forget her for his own sake, she

now saw how vain such hope would have been, and was both touched and

troubled by the knowledge of her supremacy which that hour gave her. She

was as much the calmer as friendship is than love, and was the first to

speak again, still standing there content although her words expressed a

doubt.

"Are you very sure you want me? Are you not tired of the thorn that has

fretted you so long? Remember, I am so young, so ignorant, and unfitted

for a wife. Can I give you real happiness? make home what you would have

it? and never see in your face regret that some wiser, better woman was

not in my place?"

"I am sure of myself, and satisfied with you, as you are no wiser, no

better, nothing but my Sylvia."

"It is very sweet to hear you say that with such a look. I do not

deserve it but I will. Is the pain I once gave you gone now, Geoffrey?"

"Gone forever."

"Then I am satisfied, and will begin my life anew by trying to learn

well the lesson my kind master is to teach me."

When Moor went that night Sylvia followed him, and as they stood

together this happy moment seemed to recall that other sad one, for

taking her hands again he asked, smiling now--

"Dear, is it good night or good by?"

"It is good by and come to-morrow."