How callous,
how hard, how heartless, must he have been, had such a course been
possible to him! He again repeated the lines to himself--
The reed that grows never more again
As a reed with the reeds in the river.
He felt sure that never again would he enter that room, in which no
doubt all those assembled were now talking about him.
As he returned home he tried to make out for himself some plan for
his future life,--but, interspersed with any idea that he could weave
were the figures of two women, Lady Laura Kennedy and Madame Max
Goesler. The former could be nothing to him but a friend; and though
no other friend would love him as she loved him, yet she could not
influence his life. She was very wealthy, but her wealth could be
nothing to him. She would heap it all upon him if he would take
it. He understood and knew that. Taking no pride to himself that
it was so, feeling no conceit in her love, he was conscious of her
devotion to him. He was poor, broken in spirit, and almost without a
future;--and yet could her devotion avail him nothing!
But how might it be with that other woman? Were she, after all that
had passed between them, to consent to be his wife,--and it might be
that she would consent,--how would the world be with him then? He
would be known as Madame Goesler's husband, and have to sit at the
bottom of her table,--and be talked of as the man who had been tried
for the murder of Mr.
Pages:
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097
1098
1099
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107
1108
1109
1110