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Page 18
"It is not true. I never was engaged. I couldn't bear him. I don't like
him. Only he--he--------"
"I don't want to pry into your secrets. Don't make any confessions to me.
I have no right to call you to account," he interrupted her, rather
stiffly.
"Please don't say that. Oh, please don't talk that way!" she cried out,
as if the words had hurt her like a knife. "He liked me, but I didn't
like him. I truly didn't. Don't you believe me? What shall I do if you
don't?"
It must not be supposed that Cordis had inspired so sudden and strong a
passion in Madeline without a reciprocal sentiment. He had been
infatuated from the first with the brilliant, beautiful girl, and his
jealousy was at least half real, Her piteous distress at his slight show
of coldness melted him to tenderness. There was an impassioned
reconciliation, to which poor Henry was the sacrifice. Now that he
threatened to cost her the smiles of the man she loved, her pity for him
was changed into resentment. She said to herself that it was mean and
cruel in him to keep pursuing her. It never occurred to her to find
Cordis's conduct unfair in reproaching her for not having lived solely
for him, before she knew even of his existence. She was rather inclined
to side with him, and blame herself for having lacked an intuitive
prescience of his coming, which should have kept her a nun in heart and
soul.
The next evening, about dusk, Henry was wandering sadly and aimlessly
about the streets when he met Madeline face to face. At first she seemed
rather unpleasantly startled, and made as if she would pass him without
giving him an opportunity to speak to her. Then she appeared to change
her mind, and, stopping directly before him, said, in a low voice--
"Won't you please leave me alone, after this? Your attentions are not
welcome."
Without giving him a chance to reply, she passed on and walked swiftly up
the street. He leaned against the fence, and stood motionless for a long
time. That was all that was wanting to make his loss complete--an angry
word from her. At last his lips moved a little, and slowly formed these
words in a husky, very pitiful whisper--
"That's the end,"
CHAPTER VI.
There was one person, at least, in the village who had viewed the success
of the new drug-clerk in carrying off the belle of Newville with entire
complacency, and that was Ida Lewis, the girl with a poor complexion and
beautiful brown eyes, who had cherished a rather hopeless inclination for
Henry; now that he had lost that bold girl, she tremulously assured
herself, perhaps it was not quite so hopeless. Laura, too, had an idea
that such might possibly be the case, and hoping at least to distract her
brother, about whom she was becoming quite anxious, she had Ida over to
tea once or twice, and, by various other devices which with a clever
woman are matters of course, managed to throw her in his way.
He was too much absorbed to take any notice of this at first, but, one
evening when Ida was at tea with them, it suddenly flashed upon him, and
his face reddened with annoyed embarrassment. He had never felt such a
cold anger at Laura as at that moment. He had it in his heart to say
something very bitter to her. Would she not at least respect his grief?
He had ado to control the impulse that prompted him to rise and leave the
table. And then, with that suddenness characteristic of highly wrought
moods, his feelings changed, and he discovered how soft-hearted his own
sorrow had made him toward all who suffered in the same way. His eyes
smarted with pitifulness as he noted the pains with which the little girl
opposite him had tried to make the most of her humble charms in the hope
of catching his eye. And the very poverty of those charms made her
efforts the more pathetic. He blamed his eyes for the hard clearness with
which they noted the shortcomings of the small, unformed features, the
freckled skin, the insignificant and niggardly contour, and for the
cruelty of the comparison they suggested between all this and Madeline's
rich beauty. A boundless pity poured out of his heart to cover and
transfigure these defects, and he had an impulse to make up to her for
them, if he could, by sacrificing himself to her, if she desired. If she
felt toward him as he toward Madeline, it were worth his life to save the
pity of another such heart-breaking. So should he atone, perhaps, for the
suffering Madeline had given him.
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