CHAPTER XIV.

"Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice

earned.

The soul, doubtless, is immortal--where a soul can be

discerned."

It was a pitiful story which the little journal had made known to John

Graham,--the story of a woman grievously wronged, cruelly deceived.

Millicent Almsford's life had not been a happy one. Her childhood had

been lonely, and she had none of those early recollections which are so

comforting in after years to people more fortunately bred. Her father

was an invalid and a bookworm, and looked upon his only daughter as a

creature to be fed, clothed, educated, and kept quiet. Her feeding he

intrusted to her faithful nurse, who had promised her dying mother never

to leave the child till she should be grown to womanhood. Her wardrobe

was ordered by a relative who lived in Paris, and who twice a year

overlooked the making and packing of her clothes, from her first baby

wrappings to the ball dress in which she was presented at the court of

St. James. Her education he left very much to chance and her own taste,

simply locking up the _livres defendus_ of his library, and telling her

English governess to order any necessary volumes from Mudie's. The

young woman in whose charge Millicent was placed, was more eager to

learn Italian than to teach English; to explore the literature of Dante

than to familiarize her pupil with the British authors. When Millicent

was sixteen years old, the feeble protection of this governess was taken

from her; the woman returning to England to keep a long protracted

marriage engagement with her own cousin. The same year old Nina died;

and then it was that the lonely girl fell under the influence which was

to darken her destiny and turn aside the natural current of her life.

Millicent Almsford, at that age, was a very peculiar and interesting

study. Her mind had eagerly grasped much more material than it could

master. Her vivid imagination and great talent for music were, with a

love of beauty, the most strongly developed traits in her nature, whose

intellectual growth was destined to be slow and late; whose spiritual

existence had not yet begun. An exquisite native refinement and a

perfect taste were among her most interesting qualities. Singularly

attractive and strangely incomplete, she had formed few relations; and

her friendship with Edward Holworthy, the man whose influence so marred

her life, was the first strong feeling which she had known. He was her

opposite in character, and knew life only through people, while she had

lived purely in ideas. Her complex nature, unfathomable to herself, was

to him a novel and engrossing study, and it was through him that she

learned to understand one side of it. The man found a great heart which

had never loved; a strong power for working good or evil; a bold mind,

that feared not to grapple with the deepest problems of life; and a

possibility of absolute devotion to a resolution once formed, which is

rarely found among young women. He became her mental guide, and

directed her readings; with a certain clever intuition bringing her

under the influence of minds as sophistical and frivolous as his own.

Sympathetic to an extreme degree, her nature quickly took from his the

color of an exaggerated cynicism, which was sometimes strongly shaken by

the inner spirit which still slept under the untouched heart.

Platonics, where the man is of the world wise, and the woman foolish

with the innocence of childhood, are dangerous things, as he knew full

well, and she did not. In pointing out the forces which mould the lives

of men and women, what theme is so often upon the lips of two life

students of opposite sexes as that of love? To the girl it seemed a

strange, rather interesting force, whose power it would not be

unpleasant to test; and when one day her mentor confessed to her that

she had bound him irrevocably by those bonds which he had taught her

were but ropes of sand, she smiled half sadly, but in her heart laughed

with childish merriment. She now should see the actual workings of that

strange hallucination; she should learn something of what love was. She

was as unfeeling as a young lioness, and learned the lesson of making

him turn pale and red by turns, as quickly as she had learned the knack

of touching the chords of her mandolin. She looked upon her quondam

friend in the light of an invalid, suffering from a dangerous but

non-contagious malady. And so things went on; the man gaining every day

a firmer hold over the girl, intoxicated by the new power in herself and

a growing consciousness of her beauty and charms. During the long

mornings at the Palazzo Fortunio, the two friends read and talked

together, while the Italian governess, understanding no word of their

intercourse, sat sewing patiently beside them. In the cool afternoons,

when they were rowed by the strong-armed gondolier, Girolomo, out into

the glory of the sunset, the same stolid companion always accompanied

them. One day, Mr. Almsford, selfish old epicurean, perceived for the

first time that his daughter had grown to a tall and fair womanhood.

His attention had, perhaps, been first called to the fact by the

increasing size of the half-yearly coffer which found its way from

Fashion's capital to the Fortunio Palace, and by the proportionate

lengthening of the account which accompanied it. Yes, Millicent was

certainly grown to be a young lady. They were beginning to send her

little, demure bonnets, and close-fitting, simple woollen dresses, made

with more of an idea of displaying her graceful figure than heretofore.

The girl was heiress to her mother's fortune; and it behooved him to see

about finding a suitable husband for her. Whom should he consult in

this matter, but their most intimate friend; the man who seemed at once

his contemporary and hers; the handsome, clever fellow-countryman, who

had been on the most intimate footing in his house for the last ten

years? Edward Holworthy had started unaccountably when, in the midst of

one of the solemn pauses of their game of chess, Mr. Almsford had

propounded the unexpected question to him:--

"How shall I find Millicent a husband?"

The elder gentleman, for the first time in many months, checkmated his

adversary in two moves, and won the game in an unprecedentedly short

space of time.

Holworthy's advice was given after a week's deliberation. It was in

favor of sending Miss Almsford to her father's sister, who lived in

London, in order that she might be presented at court and introduced to

English society. Mr. Almsford thought over the advice, which appeared to

him wise. He consulted Millicent, who eagerly accepted the chance to

see something of the world; and finally, after six months' exchange of

letters upon the subject, the girl was taken to London by her father,

and comfortably established, with her aunt, in a pretty Kensington

villa, for which her poorly circumstanced relative gladly forsook a

small house in an unfashionable quarter of the town. Having married a

younger son of a great house, with no portion but debts on his part and

beauty on hers, Millicent's aunt, with the matchless tact of our

countrywomen, had secured herself a prominent and agreeable position in

London society. In mere worldly advantages the young girl could have had

no better chaperone than the pretty young woman, still occupied with

bets, beaux, and bon-bons. She took her niece to all the best houses;

and soon Millicent's extreme beauty, and the widely noised, somewhat

exaggerated accounts of her worldly goods, brought her scores of

invitations and admirers on her own account.

Six months after her departure, Millicent Almsford returned to the

Palazzo Fortunio, where the report of her great social success had

preceded her and tickled the ears of her parent, proud of the child for

whose sake he had never sacrificed a whim of his own. Edward Holworthy,

who had accompanied the father and daughter to London, and remained

there during the period of the latter's stay, did not return to Venice,

but sailed for Australia, from whence he never returned either to his

native or to his adopted country. The change which her half year's

absence had wrought in Millicent, her father attributed to her social

experience. She had left him half a child, with a thousand absurd,

whimsical ways, which had amused him, and endeared her to him more than

any other trait in her character. Few things diverted him; and he

counted every laugh which Millicent provoked from him as a positive

good, which he set down to her credit in their joint account. Her stay

in London had given Millicent a certain poise and manner which suited

her marvellously well; but all the sparkle and freshness seemed to have

left her. She was like a fresh, white lily which has been broken and

wilted by a violent storm of wind and rain. For months she never

smiled. Her life seemed to have come to a standstill; she suffered

dumbly, hopelessly, with sad, deep eyes, made more beautiful by the

trouble in them. A sceptic and a materialist, she found nothing in this

world worth suffering for, and smiled incredulously when the old cure,

her Latin teacher, tried to help her from the slough of earthly despair

by promises of a glorious future, for whose attainment the life-battle

should be bravely fought. She was conscious of no ethereal essence which

should outlive the graceful body, whose beauty she sometimes cursed.

Did it not reduce her to the level of all hunted creatures? Was she not

a thing to be pursued by men, like a tall deer or a fleet, timid hare?

"Something had come to the Signorina," said Girolomo, the gondolier;

"and the Signor Holworthy, where was he?" And he shook his head

gravely, the wise old creature, guessing, as did no other soul, that

Edward Holworthy was in some way connected with Millicent's changed face

and listless demeanor.

Something had come to her; but she never confided to priest or friend

the trouble which robbed her young face of its childish curves, which

killed the youth in her, and made her a woman in grief, while she was

still a child in years. Only one confidant had she,--the little journal;

the gold-clasped tome which all those years after had fallen into John

Graham's hands. The story of the first passion she had ever roused,

read by the only man she had ever loved.

It was the pitiful story of a grievous wrong which had darkened more

than one life. The miserable consequences of a wicked act are infinite;

its influence spreads wider and wider every day, like the broadening

rings which circle on the surface of a still pool disturbed by a stone

which a careless hand has tossed. The black deed may be hidden from the

sight of men, but its baleful effects are felt afar off in the lives of

those who have known nought of its perpetration. Let not the sinner

comfort himself in that his soul alone is damned for his crime. It

darkens innocent lives with its evil; and in sinning against himself he

sins against mankind.

In the strange country whither Millicent had gone, Holworthy was the

only link which bound her to her home, the one being who understood and

cared for her. The dominion which he had always held over her was now

strengthened into a powerful magnetic force. The little journal told

how that influence had been exerted in compelling her to a secret

marriage against her own will and judgment. She had been tricked into

an elopement,--it might better be called an abduction,--and all

unwillingly became his wife. Then all too soon, ere a week had passed,

came the terrible discovery that the marriage was no marriage. For then

came to her the mother of the man whom she was striving to love with

wifely duty, an old woman, bowed with grief and years. She had come

very far, across half a continent, to break to the girl whose name she

had heard linked with that of her only son, the news that he was not

free to marry, that she must give him up. When the tall girl with the

childish, flower face fell stricken to the earth like a broken lily, at

the feet of the older woman, she had made no cry; in the hours that

followed, she said no word. When the man who had wrecked her life came

and knelt beside her, prayed her to be patient and her wrongs should be

righted, spoke of his remorse, told her of his terrible mad wife from

whom the law would set him free, and make him really hers, prayed,

besought, and worshipped at her feet, she answered him with one terrible

word only. She rose and stood before him white and cruel in her agony,

relentless as Fate.

"Go!" was the one syllable which her frozen lips uttered; and with a

gesture of command, majestic and beautiful, she had banished him from

her presence. The secret was kept, even from the old woman, grown more

sorrowful at the sight of the girl's dumb agony and of her son's grief,

which she could not soothe. The secret was kept; and that very night

Millicent's face, pale and clouded, shone out amidst a group of fair

women who sat languidly chatting through the music of _Faust_ at the

opera. He kept her secret, poor wretch, and shielded her as best he

might, forcing her to speak to him and see him before others, that no

sudden breaking of their relations might be remarked. Save in the

world, she never saw him again. That one word of command was the last

syllable which he ever heard her speak to him directly. Not without a

struggle did he give her up, but she was implacable. She yielded to

him, and played her part in the little comedy which the world thought it

understood. The beautiful Miss Almsford had found Holworthy a pleasant

admirer, but her delicate American beauty and her solid American fortune

would certainly win her a higher place in the world than that of the

wife of Mr. Edward Holworthy, her countryman and old friend.

Youth and health are great physicians; and as the years passed,

Millicent recovered something of her old spring and elasticity. She was

infinitely more interesting, if something colder and harder, than she

had been in the old days. Her unquenchable vigor of temperament came to

her help, and gave her a keen pleasure in her studies and in the work

and thought of the people about her. Always self-reliant, she grew to

live entirely without support from man or woman. She was a friend to

many people, but was herself friendless. The Palazzo Fortunio, under

her reign, grew to be the centre of a charming social circle. Musicians

and painters were made welcome by the young hostess. At once an artist

and a patron of the arts, she stood in a peculiar relation to the men

who frequented her _salon_. If she had been without fortune she would

have made music her profession. As it was, she studied it as faithfully

as if self-support had been her aim; and she claimed that sympathy from

her artistic friends which a mere connoisseur, be he ever so

enthusiastic, can never arouse. To her small world she was

all-important. Her sympathy helped many a timid _debutante_, and her

counsel cheered the black days of more than one disheartened artist.

Always gracious and kind, she had drawn about her a group of people, to

all of whom she was a sort of exalted fellow-worker, who knew but the

poetry of art, and helped them to forget its prose. Her heart was quite

empty, but her mind was keenly interested and fully occupied by the men

and women among whom she lived. Happiness she had forgotten to look for,

but in enjoyment her days were not wanting. It was a terrible blow to

her when this pleasant, quiet life was suddenly broken up by her

father's marriage. To her imperious nature the presence of the inferior

woman whom Mr. Almsford had brought home to the Palazzo was intolerable.

Where could she go? For the first time in her life she felt the power

which her fortune gave her. She could establish herself wherever she

liked. Her father's sister proposed a repetition of their joint

establishment in London, but at the very mention of her returning to

England Millicent's face blanched. She would never again set foot in

that country. It was while she was in a state of doubt concerning her

future movements that her half-brother wrote her a long and affectionate

letter, urging her to come and dwell for a time among his people, to

visit her mother's country before she decided the important question of

where she should establish herself for life. The idea seemed a just one

to her; and acting on a tender impulse roused by the loving words of her

unknown brother, she had telegraphed her departure, and forthwith

started on her long journey accompanied by her capable French maid. The

Abigail discharged her trust faithfully, as far as San Francisco, from

which city she turned her face on the very day of her arrival, unwilling

to remain longer in what she called "_le plus triste pays du monde_."

If the truth could have been known, Millicent would have signed away ten

years of her life to have gone back with the woman to the Old World, the

only home she had ever known.

Graham had not been mistaken when he predicted to Millicent that she

would grow more in sympathy with the race from which she drew her

inheritance of character and temperament than at first seemed possible.

Nature is stronger than habit, well called second nature; and as the

surface roughness became familiar to her, she began to feel the strong

life and vigor of the young Western land quickening her pulses and

stimulating her whole being. The poverty of intellectual intercourse

was more than compensated by the tremendous power of work, the

electrical force which accomplishes so rapidly in this new land what in

other countries has been the slow growth of centuries.

An answering glow of enthusiasm flushed her with hope, with a keener,

fuller, more intense life than she had ever known before. She had clung

at first to her traditions, and fought against the tide which seemed to

be sweeping this people on and on and ever on. But nature was too

strong for habit; her upright, fearless mind acknowledged kinship with

these hard-working men and women, to whom pleasure is not save in toil,

whose whole life is one long unconscious sacrifice to their country. On

the eastern margins of our land the austere simplicity and purity have

become infested with plague-spots brought--ay, imported with care and

expense--from the Old World, and fostered like exotics on the clean

soil. But from the great Western prairie comes a fresh, strong breeze

which sweetens all the foulness of the Atlantic cities, and makes the

breath of Columbia still pure and fragrant.

With this new sentiment for her new-found country came the first

passionate love to the heart of the beautiful and unhappy young woman.

She had breathed the spicy air of the Californian forests, bracing and

sweet, and her cheek had grown fuller and fairer in the perfect climate.

Her empty, hollow heart was filled by a great love and strength,

all-sustaining and soothing.

When Graham had first seen her lying in the fire-light, with cool, deep

eyes, before the light of love had dawned in her flower face, she had

seemed to him like a perfect white rose. Then the rose flushed palely,

as the love-light trembled to a flame; and he brought her flowers of the

color of the sea-shells, and she wore them in her hair. Last of all, he

laid at her feet deep-red damask rosebuds; and these she placed on her

white breast, where they bloomed and died in a single night. He had

painted her by the waves, as he had once seen her on that strange day

when death had seemed so near and life so beautiful. He had painted her

standing at the sea edge with pallid roses in her little hands, her

graceful head set about with the same soft-hued flowers, and a single

crimson rose lying lightly over her heart. He had hung the sketch

against the wall where the sunlight fell upon it early in the morning;

and Millicent had bade him remember, while he slept or waked, that she

was near him.