The San Rosario Ranch
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