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Page 10
At length, after the studies of his youth were over, and he had returned
to his old home for life, there came over the settled and brooding
darkness of his soul a warm ray of dawn. In some way, as naturally as
one meets a fresh wind full of vernal odor and life, yet never marks the
moment of its first caress, so naturally, so unmarkedly, he renewed a
childish acquaintance with Violet Channing, a dweller in the same
quiet valley with himself, though for long years the fine threads of
circumstance had parted them.
Not a stone, and the frail green moss that clings to it, are more
essentially different than were Roger Pierce and Violet Channing.
Without a trace of the Shadow in herself, Violet disbelieved its
existence in others. She had heard a rumor of Roger's phantom, but
thought it some strange delusion, or want of perception, in those who
told her,--being rather softened toward him with pity that he should be
so little understood.
In the first days of their acquaintance, it seemed as if the light
of the girl's face would have dispelled forever the darkness of her
companion's Shadow, it was so mild and quiet a shining,--not the mere
outer lustre of beauty, but the deep informing expression of that Spirit
which had companioned Sunny heavenward.
With Violet, soothed by the timid sweetness of her manner, aroused by
her sudden flashes of mirth and vivid enthusiasm, Roger seemed to forget
his hateful companion, or remembered it only to be consoled by her
tender eyes that beamed with pity and affection.
Month after month this intimacy went on, brightening daily in Roger's
mind the ideal picture of his new friend, but creating in her only
a deeper sympathy and a more devout compassion for his wretched and
oppressed life. But as years instead of months went by, the sole
influence no longer rested with the girl, drawing Roger Pierce upward,
as she longed and strove to do, into her own sunshine. Their mutual
relation had only lightened his darkness in part, while it had drawn
over her the faint twilight of a Shadow like his own. But as the chief
characteristic of this unearthly Thing was that it grew by notice, as
some strange Eastern plants live on air, it throve but slowly near to
Violet Channing, whose thoughts were bent on curing the heart-evil of
Roger Pierce, and were so absorbed in that patient care that they had
little chance to turn upon herself; though, when patience almost failed,
and, weary with fruitless labor and unanswered yearning, her heart sunk,
she was conscious of a vague influence that made the sunbeams fall
coldly, and the songs of Summer mournful.
Hour after hour she lavished all the treasure she knew, and much that
she knew not consciously, to beguile the darkness from Roger's brow; or
recalled again and again her own deeds and words, to review them with
strict judgment, lest they might have set provocation in his path; till
at length her loving thoughts grew restless and painful, her face paled,
her frame wasted away, and over her deep melancholy eyes the Shadow hung
like a black tempest reflected in some clear lake.
Roger was not blind to this change; he did not see who had cast the
first veil of darkness over the pure light that had shone so freely for
him; and while he silently regretted what he deemed the desecration of
the spotless image he had loved, nothing whispered that it was his own
Shadow brooding above the true heart that had toiled so faithfully and
long for his enlightening.
The most painful result of all to Violet was the new coldness of Roger's
manner to her. Shadowed as he was, he did not perceive this change in
himself; but Violet, in the silence of night, or in the solitary hours
she spent in wood and field beside her growing Shadow, felt it with
unmingled pain. Vainly did the Spirit of Light within her counsel her to
persevere, looking only at the end she would achieve; subtler and more
penetrative to her untuned ear were the words of the fiend at her side.
One day she had brooded long and drearily on the carelessness and
coldness of her dear, her disregardful friend, and in her worn and weary
soul revolved whatever sweetness of the past had now fled, and what
pangs of love repulsed and devotion scorned lay before her in the
miserable future; and as she held her throbbing head upon her hands,
wasted with fiery pulses, it seemed to her as if the Shadow, inclining
to her ear, whispered, almost audibly,--
"Think what you have given this man!--your hope and peace; the breath of
your life and the beatings of your heart. All your soul is lavished on
him, and see how he repays you!"
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