CHAPTER XXVII.
We haste,-the chosen and the lovely bringing;
Love still goes with her from her place of birth;
Deep, silent joy, within her soul is springing,
Though in her glance the light no more is mirth.--Mrs. HEMANS.
"Damn it!" said the General.
"The vile creature!" cried Miss Diana.
"I don't understand things of that sort," ejaculated the bewildered
Mr. Glumford.
"She has certainly gone," said the valiant General.
"Certainly!" grunted Miss Diana.
"Gone!" echoed the bridegroom not to be.
And she was gone! Never did more loving and tender heart forsake all,
and cling to a more loyal and generous nature. The skies were
darkened with clouds,--
"And the dim stars rushed through them rare and fast;"
and the winds wailed with a loud and ominous voice; and the moon came
forth, with a faint and sickly smile, from her chamber in the mist,
and then shrank back, and was seen no more; but neither omen nor fear
was upon Mordaunt's breast, as it swelled beneath the dark locks of
Isabel, which were pressed against it.
As Faith clings the more to the cross of life, while the wastes deepen
around her steps, and the adders creep forth upon her path, so love
clasps that which is its hope and comfort the closer, for the desert
which encompasses and the dangers which harass its way.
They had fled to London, and Isabel had been placed with a very
distant and very poor, though very high-born, relative of Algernon,
till the necessary preliminaries could be passed and the final bond
knit. Yet still the generous Isabel would have refused, despite the
injury to her own fame, to have ratified a union which filled her with
gloomy presentiments for Mordaunt's fate; and still Mordaunt by little
and little broke down her tender scruples and self-immolating
resolves, and ceased not his eloquence and his suit till the day of
his nuptials was set and come.
The morning was bright and clear; the autumn was drawing towards its
close, and seemed willing to leave its last remembrance tinged with
the warmth and softness of its parent summer, rather than with the
stern gloom and severity of its chilling successor.
And they stood beside the altar, and their vows were exchanged. A
slight tremor came over Algernon's frame, a slight shade darkened his
countenance; for even in that bridal hour an icy and thrilling
foreboding curdled to his heart; it passed,--the ceremony was over,
and Mordaunt bore his blushing and weeping bride from the church. His
carriage was in attendance; for, not knowing how long the home of his
ancestors might be his, he was impatient to return to it. The old
Countess d'Arcy, Mordaunt's relation, with whom Isabel had been
staying, called them back to bless them; for, even through the
coldness of old age, she was touched by the singularity of their love
and affected by their nobleness of heart. She laid her wan and
shrivelled hand upon each, as she bade them farewell, and each shrank
back involuntarily, for the cold and light touch seemed like the
fingers of the dead.
Fearful, indeed, is the vicinity of death and life,--the bridal
chamber and the charnel. That night the old woman died. It appeared
as if Fate had set its seal upon the union it had so long forbidden,
and had woven a dark thread even in the marriage-bond. At least, it
tore from two hearts, over which the cloud and the blast lay couched
in a "grim repose," the last shelter, which, however frail and
distant, seemed left to them upon the inhospitable earth.
