CHAPTER XI.
"Strange fits of passion I have known.
And I will dare to tell."--WORDSWORTH.
"* * * * * The food of hope
Is meditated action."--WORDSWORTH.
MALTRAVERS left Doningdale the next day. He had no further conversation
with Valerie; but when he took leave of her, she placed in his hand a
letter, which he read as he rode slowly through the beech avenues of the
park. Translated, it ran thus:
"Others would despise me for the weakness I showed--but you will not!
It is the sole weakness of a life. None can know what I have passed
through--what hours of dejection and gloom. I, whom so many envy!
Better to have been a peasant girl, with love, than a queen whose life
is but a dull mechanism. You, Maltravers, I never forgot in absence;
and your image made yet more wearisome and trite the things around me.
Years passed, and your name was suddenly on men's lips. I heard of you
wherever I went--I could not shut you from me. Your fame was as if you
were conversing by my side. We met at last, suddenly and unexpectedly.
I saw that you loved me no more, and that thought conquered all my
resolves: anguish subdues the nerves of the mind as sickness those of
the body. And thus I forgot, and humbled, and might have undone myself.
Juster and better thoughts are once more awakened within me, and when we
meet again I shall be worthy of your respect. I see how dangerous are
that luxury of thought, that sin of discontent which I indulged. I go
back to life, resolved to vanquish all that can interfere with its
claims and duties. Heaven guide and preserve you, Ernest. Think of me
as one whom you will not blush to have loved--whom you will not blush
hereafter to present to your wife. With so much that is soft, as well
as great within you, you were not formed like me--to be alone.
"FAREWELL!"
Maltravers read, and re-read this letter; and when he reached his home,
he placed it carefully amongst the things he most valued. A lock of
Alice's hair lay beside it--he did not think that either was dishonoured
by the contact.
With an effort, he turned himself once more to those stern yet high
connections which literature makes with real life. Perhaps there was a
certain restlessness in his heart which induced him ever to occupy his
mind. That was one of the busiest years of his life--the one in which
he did most to sharpen jealousy and confirm fame.
