Sword and Gown Part 17

Now, as heretofore, Cecil was incapable of resisting any one of his expressed wishes or commands; besides this, physical exhaustion was beginning to overcome her; and she, too, felt that it was time to go.

She leaned down, without speaking, and their lips met in a long, pa.s.sionate kiss. So little of vitality lingered in Royston's, that they remained still icy-cold under the pressure of these ripe, red roses.

"I will come again, early," she whimpered.

The last relics of a strength that _had_ been superhuman pa.s.sed into the lingering pressure of the hand that bade her tenderly farewell. Half an hour later the surgeon came to Royston Keene. All that night, shrieks and groans, and other sounds through which human agony finds a vent, had been ringing in his ears, till they were weary of the din; but the silence of that chamber struck the visitor yet more painfully. He looked for a second gravely at the motionless figure; and laid his ear against the lips; no breath issued thence that would have stirred a feather; then he drew very gently the sheet over the dead man's face,--a quiet, steadfast face,--that even in the death-throe had retained its proud, placid calm.

When Cecil Tresilyan saw that same sight the next morning, she did not scream or faint. Neither then nor afterward did she prove herself unworthy of her haughty lover, by demonstrating or parading her sorrows.

Many others besides her have taken for their motto, "The heart knoweth its own bitterness;" and have carried it out to the end unflinchingly.

Verily, they have their reward. If there is little comfort on this side the grave, and only vague hope beyond it, it is something to escape condolence. We follow her fortunes no farther. It is needless to give all the details of the hospital service which occupied her till the conclusion of the war set her free; and we will not seek to penetrate into the retreat in the Far West where she is dwelling still. The gray manor-house guards its secrets well, though it has witnessed in its time sorrows and sins that might have wrung a voice from granite. Conscious of many broken hearts and blasted hopes, is the home of the Tresilyans of Tresilyan.

I confess to a certain regret, as that graceful figure vanishes from the stage that never was worthy of her queen-like presence. Was it in dream-land that I saw the original of the character and face that I have endeavored, thus roughly, to portray? Perhaps so. But there are visions so near akin to realities, that one's brain grows dizzy in trying to disentangle the two.

It is unfortunate that the void created by any man's death is by no means proportionate to his intrinsic merits. So it happened that the loss of Royston Keene was felt more than he deserved. Far and wide over the surface of the world's sea the circles spread from the spot where his life went down. He was missed not only by his old comrades in arms: men who scarcely knew him by sight spared some regret to the favorite hero of the Light Dragoons. Mark Waring, in the loneliness of his dreary chambers, gnashed his teeth in bitterness of envy; for he guessed _who_ would be the chief mourner. Arnaud de Chateaumesnil's remark was characteristic. Hearing that his old opponent had fallen in the front of the battle, he struck his hand impatiently on his own crippled limbs, muttering--"Sang-dieu! Il avait toujours la main heureuse." Harry Molyneux can not trust his voice to speak of him yet; and other beautiful eyes besides _La Mignonne's_ were dim with tears when they read a certain death-gazette. Truly, "great men have fallen in Israel,"

and saints have departed in the plent.i.tude of sanct.i.ty, without winning such wealth of regrets as was lavished on the grave of that strong sinner. Only two women alive--and these he had never wronged--rejoiced over the news unfeignedly--Bessie Danvers and his own wife.

Shall we pa.s.s judgment on Royston Keene? He had erred so often and heavily that even the intercession of a penitent who never kneels before Heaven without mingling his name in her prayers must probably be unavailing. Yet will we not cast the stone. All temptations, of course, can be resisted, and ought to be overcome. But there are men born with so peculiar a temperament, and who seem to have been so completely under the dominion of circ.u.mstances, that they might well be supposed to have been raised up for a warning. How far are such to be held accountable?

Let us refrain from this subject, remembering how grave and learned theologians, earnest opponents of Predestinarianism, have been reduced to the extreme of perplexity when confronted with the ensample of Pharaoh.

It would neither be pleasant nor profitable to pry into the secrets of the black darkness that lies beyond Royston's death-bed; in it few would be able to distinguish the faintest glimmer of light. But we have no more authority to fix limits to the long-suffering of Omnipotence, than we have to dispute the justice of its revenge. Let us stand aside, and hope

That Heaven may yet have more mercy than man On such a bold rider's soul.

A strange doctrine, that; savoring perhaps of heterodoxy, and perilous to be adopted by such as can not fathom it thoroughly. But if there be no germ of truth therein, it were better for some of us that we had never been born.

THE END.