Chapter XLIV

SHADOW OF ABSENT LOVE.

Six years had passed since the marriage of the governess left Miss Darrell alone. She heard as constantly as ever from Sir Vane; he had made money rapidly. It was no longer the desire to make a fortune which kept him away, but the fact that in the part of the country where he was great danger existed, and that, having been placed there in a situation of trust, he could not well leave it; so of late a hopeless tone had crept into his letters. He made no reference to coming home; and Pauline, so quick, so sensitive, saw in this reticence the shadow of her own presentiment.

Six years had changed Pauline Darrell from a beautiful girl to a magnificent woman; her beauty was of that grand and queenly kind that of itself is a noble dowry. The years had but added to it. They had given a more statuesque grace to the perfect figure; they had added tenderness, thought, and spirituality to the face; they had given to her beauty a charm that it had never worn in her younger days.

Miss Darrell, of Darrell Court, had made for herself a wonderful reputation. There was no estate in England so well managed as hers. From one end to the other the Darrell domain was, people said, a garden. Pauline had done away with the old cottages and ill-drained farm-houses, and in their stead pretty and commodious buildings had been erected. She had fought a long and fierce battle with ignorance and prejudice, and she had won.

She had established schools where children were taught, first to be good Christians, and then good citizens, and where useful knowledge was made much of. She had erected almshouses for the poor, and a church where rich and poor, old and young, could worship God together. The people about her rose up and called her blessed; tenants, dependents, servants, all had but one word for her, and that was of highest praise. To do good seemed the object of her life, and she had succeeded so far.

No young queen was ever more popular or more beloved than this lady with her sweet, grave smile, her tender, womanly ways, her unconscious grandeur of life. She made no stir, no demonstration, though she was the head of a grand old race, the representative of an old honored family, the holder of a great inheritance; she simply did her duty as nobly as she knew how to do it. There was no thought of self left in her, her whole energies were directed for the good of others. If Sir Oswald could have known how the home he loved was cared for, he would have been proud of his successor. The hall itself, the park, the grounds, were all in perfect order. People wondered how it was all arranged by this lady, who never seemed hurried nor talked of the work she did.

Pauline occupied herself incessantly, for the bright hopes of girlhood, she felt, were hers no longer; she had admitted that the romance, the passion, the poetry of her youth were unforgotten, but she tried to think them dead. People wondered at her gravity. She had many admirers, but she never showed the least partiality for any of them. There seemed to be some shadow over her, and only those who knew her story knew what it was—that it was the shadow of her absent love.

She was standing one day in the library alone, the same library where so much of what had been eventful in her life had happened. The morning had been a busy one; tenants, agents, business people of all kinds had been there, and Pauline felt tired.

Darrell Court, the grand inheritance she had loved and in some measure longed for, was hers; she was richer than she had ever dreamed of being, and, as she looked round on the treasures collected in the library, she thought to herself with a sigh, "Of what avail are they, save to make others happy?" She would have given them all to be by Vane's side, no matter how great their poverty, no matter what they had to undergo together; but now it seemed that this bright young love of hers was to wither away, to be heard of no more.

So from the beautiful lips came a deep sigh; she was tired, wearied with the work and incessant care that the management of her estates entailed. She did not own it even to herself, but she longed for the presence of the only being whom she loved.

She was bending over some beautiful japonicas—for, no matter how depressed she might be, she always found solace in flowers—when she heard the sound of a horse's rapid trot.

"Farmer Bowman back again," she said to herself, with a smile; "but I must not give way to him."

She was so certain that it was her tiresome tenant that she did not even turn her head when the door opened and some one entered the room—some one who did not speak, but who went up to her with a beating heart, laid one hand on her bowed head, and said:

"Pauline, my darling, you have no word of welcome for me?"

It was Vane. With a glad cry of welcome—a cry such as a lost child gives when it reaches its mother's arms—the cry of a long-cherished, trusting love—she turned and was clasped in his arms, her haven of rest, her safe refuge, her earthly paradise, attained at last.

"At last!" she murmured.

But he spoke no word to her. His eyes were noting her increased beauty. He kissed the sweet lips, the lovely face.

"My darling," he said, "I left you a beautiful girl, but I find you a woman beautiful beyond all comparison. It has seemed to me an age since I left you, and now I am never to go away again. Pauline, you will be kind to me for the sake of my long, true, deep love? You will be my wife as soon as I can make arrangements—will you not?"

There was no coquetry, no affectation about her; the light deepened on her noble face, her lips quivered, and then she told him:

"Yes, whenever you wish."

They conversed that evening until the sun had set. He told her all his experience since he had left her, and she found that he had passed through London without even waiting to see Lady St. Lawrence, so great had been his longing to see her.

But the next day Lady St. Lawrence came down, and by Sir Vane's wish preparations for the marriage were begun at once. Pauline preferred to be married at Audleigh Royal and among her own people.

They tell now of that glorious wedding—of the sun that seemed to shine more brightly than it had ever shone before—of the rejoicings and festivities such as might have attended the bridal of an empress—of the tears and blessings of the poor—of the good wishes that would have made earth Heaven had they been realized. There never was such a wedding before.

Every other topic failed before the one that seemed inexhaustible—the wonderful beauty of the bride. She was worthy of the crown of orange-blossoms, and she wore them with a grace all her own. Then, after the wedding, Sir Vane and Pauline went to Omberleigh. That was the latter's fancy, and, standing that evening where she had seen Vane first, she blessed him and thanked him with grateful tears that he had redeemed her by his great love.

There was a paragraph in a recent issue of the Times announcing that Oswald St. Lawrence, second son of Sir Vane and Lady St. Lawrence, had, by letters-patent, assumed the name of Darrell. So that the old baronet's prayer is granted, and the race of Darrell—honored and respected, beloved and esteemed—is not to be without a representative.

THE END.

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