Hearts Afire

SICK WITH LOVE.

For three weeks Charlotte lay at the point of death, prey to a violent attack of scarlet fever, alternating between delirium and stupor, and always moaning in her pain; while Joris Morgan, Lysbet Morgan, and a Sister of Charity watched at her bedside.

But she did not die. The fever reached its crisis, and then, little by little, day by day, abated.

At last her struggle with death was finished, but Charlotte had lost in it the best part of her youth. Thus a valorous warrior survives the battle indeed, but returns to his friends the phantom of himself—an object of pity to those who saw him set forth, strong and gallant.

When the early New York summer began to show itself, she was convalescent, but so weak that she could scarcely support the weight of her thick brown hair. Lysbet Morgan tried very patiently to comb it so gently that Charlotte should not have to move, braiding it in two long plaits; in this way it would seem less heavy. From time to time a big tear would roll down the invalid's cheek.

She was weeping silently, slowly; and when Lysbet Morgan, or Sister Louisa would ask her: “What is it; what can we do for you?” Charlotte would answer with a sign which seemed to say: “Let me weep; perhaps it will do me good to weep.”

“Let her cry, it will do her good to cry,” was what the great doctor Hervey Stratford had said also. “Let her do whatever pleases her; refuse her nothing if you can help it.”

So Sister Louisa, obedient to the doctor, did not try to prevent her weeping, did not even try to speak comforting words to her. Perhaps it was not so much an active sorrow that made her shed these tears, as a sort of sad relief.

Guy Barrington during this anxious time put aside his occupations of a gay bachelor, and called upon Charlotte every morning, entering the room on tiptoe, inquiring with a glance how the sufferer was doing, then seating himself at a distance from the bed, without speaking. If Charlotte looked up, if he felt her big sorrowful eyes turned upon his face, he would ask in a gentle voice, the voice of that day, how she felt; she would answer with a faint smile, “Better,” and would shut her eyes again, and go back to her interior contemplations.

Guy Barrington, after that, would get up noiselessly and go away, to come again in the afternoon, and still again in the evening, perhaps for a longer visit.

Sister Louisa, always dressed in white uniform, would meet him in the sitting-room; and he would ask, “Is she better?”

“She seems to be.”

“Has she been asleep today?”

“No, I don’t think she has been asleep.”

“Has she said anything?” “Not a word.”

“Who is to watch with her tonight?”

“I am.”

“You will wear yourself out.” Said Guy Barrington.

“No, no I shall be fine.”

Often he would arrive in the evening wearing his dress-suit; he had dined at his club, and was off for a card-party or a first night at a theatre. Then he would remain standing, with his overcoat open, his hat in his hand. At such a time, a little warmed up by the dinner he had eaten, or the amusements that awaited him, Guy Barrington was a handsome man; his bright eyes shone with sober brightness; his cheeks had a little color in them; and his smooth black hair gave him almost an appearance of a theatre actor. One who had seen him in the morning, pale and exhausted, would scarcely have recognized him. Sister Louisa would meet him and part with him, never asking whence he came or whither he was bound; when he had said good-night she would return to Charlotte, slowly, with her light footsteps that merely brushed the carpet.

At this time Joris Morgan saw his opportunity to make his sick daughter over morally, the time was at hand, while her body was weak and her soul malleable. It would be impossible to transform her spirit after she had once got back her strength. Charlotte was completely prostrated, passing the entire day without moving, her arms stretched out at full length, her hands pale and cold, her face turned on the side, her two rich plaits of brown hair extended on her pillow; bloodless her cheeks, her lips, her brow; lifeless the glance of her eyes. When spoken to, she answered with a slight movement of the head, or, at most, one or two words—always the same. “How do you feel?”

“Better.”

“Do you wish for anything?”

“Nothing.”

“Is there nothing you would like?”

“No, thanks.”

Whereupon she would close her eyes again, exhausted. Nothing more would be said by those round her, but Charlotte knew that they were there, silent, talking together by means of significant glances.

One day, Joris Morgan and Lysbet Morgan felt that they could mark a progress in Charlotte’s convalescence, because two or three times she had looked at them with an expression of such earnest repentance, with such an eager prayer for pardon, in her sad eyes, that words were not necessary to tell what she felt. Soon afterward Charlotte seemed to wish to be left alone with her father, as if she had a secret to confide to him; but he cautiously thought it best to defer any private talk. However, one morning it so happened that he found himself alone in her room. He was reading a newspaper when a soft voice said:

“Listen father.”

He looked at her. Her sad eyes were again beseeching forgiveness, and Charlotte stammered:

“What must you have thought—what must you have said of me!”

“You must not excite yourself, my dear,” Mr. Morgan said kindly.

“I was so wicked,” Charlotte sobbed.

“Don’t talk like that, dear Charlotte; you were guilty of nothing more than a girlish folly.”

“A sin, a sin.”

“You must call things by their right names, and not let your imagination get the better of you,” Joris Morgan answered, somewhat somberly. “A youthful folly.”

“Well, be it as you wish,” Charlotte said, humbly;

“There, there,” murmured Joris Morgan with the shadow of a frown, “calm yourself; we’ll speak of this another day.”

Sister Louisa had come back into the room, and her presence cut short their talk.

While Charlotte was broken in health, disturbed in spirit, and miserable in thinking of her past, its deceits, its errors, its thousand shameful aberrations, and its lack of maidenly decorum. When she drew a mental comparison between Harleigh Daly and these two persons whom she had wished to desert for him—between Harleigh, so timid, so poor in all right feeling, so bankrupt in passion, and them, so magnanimous, so forgetful of her fault—her repentance grew apace. It was the exaggerated repentance of a noble nature, which magnifies the moral gravity of its own transgressions. She felt herself to be quite undeserving of the sympathy and affection with which they treated her. Their kindness was an act of gratuitous charity beyond her merits.

Charlotte sole desire was to show herself absolutely obedient to whatever her Father demanded, to whatever her mother advised.

She gave herself over, bound hand and foot, to these two beings whom she had so cruelly forgotten on the day of her mad adventure; in her convalescence she found a great joy in throwing herself absolutely upon their wisdom and their goodness.



The more Charlotte mended, the more she shared with Guy Barrington; she told him everything that happened; she opened to him her every fancy, her every dream; she talked with the emotion of a passionate woman. Guy Barrington came to her as often as he could, and not at length; but in each visit there would be, if not a word of love, at least some kindly phrase. He was genuinely in love with her: in his own way, of course. He was in love, as men are in love who have loved many times before. Sometimes he lost his head a little in her presence, but never more than a little. He retained his mastery of himself sufficiently to pursue his own well-proved methods of love-making. He covered his real passion with a semblance of levity which served admirably to compel Charlotte to tolerate it.

She never allowed him—especially at home, where she was alone and where she was very sad —to speak of love; but she could not forbid him to call occasionally at Semple House, nor could she help meeting him here and there in the town. Guy Barrington did not pay too open a court to her, did not affect too great an intimacy; but he was never far from her. For a whole evening he would hover near her at a party, waiting for the moment when he might seat himself beside her; he would leave when she left, and on the pretext of taking a little walk in the moonlight, would accompany her to the door of her house. He was persevering, with a gentle, continuous, untiring perseverance that nothing could overcome, neither Charlotte’s silence, nor her coldness, nor her melancholy. She often spoke to him of Harleigh, and with so much feeling in her voice that he turned pale, wounded in his pride, disappointed in his desire, yet not despairing, for it is always a hopeful sign when a woman loves, even though she loves another. Then the only difficulty (though an immense one) is to change the face of the man she loves to your own, by a sort of sentimental sleight of hand.

“How strange is love,” Guy Barrington said once to Charlotte, finding her home alone.

“Love is good, though,” said Charlotte, thoughtfully.

“Does love seem so to you?”

“Yes.”

“You know very little. You’re very naive. Love is a monster of perfidy,” Guy Barrington said softly.

“Why do you say that to me? Don’t you know that I dislike such talk?”

“If I offend you, I’ll hold my tongue. I keep my opinion, though. Someday you’ll agree with me.”

“Be quiet, Guy. You distress me.”

“It’s much better to have no illusions; then we can’t lose them, dear Charlotte”

“It is better to lose illusions, than never to have had them.”

“What a deep heart is yours! How I should like to drown in it! Let me drown myself in your heart, Charlotte.”

“It is but a dark place,” Charlotte said.

“Why not open the curtains of your heart to me?” Guy Barrington asked.

She did not answer. She sat down in an arm-chair.

“Tell me that you love me a little, Charlotte.”

“I don’t love you.”

“Dear Charlotte, dear Charlotte,” Guy Barrington murmured with his caressing voice, “How can I believe you, since you allow me in. “Tell me that you love me a little. For I have waited for that word. Dear Charlotte, sweet Charlotte, you know that I have adored you for so long a time. Charlotte, Charlotte!”

“What has happened with your feelings was bound to happen,” Charlotte said.

“Charlotte, I conjure you, tell me that you love me.”

“I don’t know. I know nothing.”

“Dear one, dear one,” Guy Barrington murmured, trembling with hope, in an immense transport of love.

He drew nearer to her and kissed her on the cheek.

A cry of pain burst from her, and she sprang up, horrified, terrified, and tried to leave the room.

“Oh, for mercy’s sake, forgive me. Don’t go away. Charlotte, Charlotte, forgive me if I have offended you. I love you so! If you go away I shall die.”

“People don’t die for such slight things” Said Charlotte.

“People die of love.”

“Yes. But one must have courage to die for love.”

“Don’t let us talk of these dismal things. My love, we mustn’t talk of things that will sadden you. Your beautiful face is troubled. Tell me that you forgive me. Do you forgive me?”

“I forgive you.”

“I don’t believe it. You don’t forgive me. You love another.”

“No, no—no other.”

“And Harleigh Daly?”

But scarcely had Guy Barrington spoken the fatal name when he saw his error. Her eyes blazed; she trembled from head to foot, in a nervous convulsion.

“Listen,” she said. “If you have a heart, if you have any pity, if you wish me to stay here with you, never name him again, never name him.”

“You are right.” But then he added, “And yet you loved him, you love him still.”

“No. I love no one anymore.”

“Why would you not accept me when I proposed for you?”

‘‘Because.”

“Why did you love him?”

“Because.”

“And now why do you love him? Why do you love him?”

“I don’t know.”

“You see, you do love him,” Guy Barrington cried in despair.

“Oh, Guy, oh, Guy!” Charlotte sobbed.

“Oh, I am a fool. Forgive me, forgive me. But I love you, and I lose my head. I love you, and I am desperate. And I need to know if you still love him. You will always love him? Is it so?”

“Till death,” Charlotte said, with a strange look and accent.

“Say it again.”

“Till death,” Charlotte repeated, with the same strange intonation.

They were silent.

Guy Barrington put his arm round her waist, and drew her slowly towards him.

Her eyes were fixed and void. She did not feel his arms about her. She did not feel his kisses. He kissed her hair, he kissed her sweet white throat, and he kissed her little rosy ear. Charlotte was absorbed in a desperate meditation, far from all human things. He kissed her face, her eyes, her lips; she did not know it. But suddenly she felt his embrace become closer, stronger; she heard his voice change, it was no longer tender and caressing, it was fervid with tumultuous passion, it uttered confused delirious words. Silently, looking at him with burning eyes, she tried to disengage herself.

“Let me go,” she said.

“Charlotte, Charlotte, I love you so—I have loved you so long!”

Let me go, let me go!”

“You are my adored one—I adore you above all things.”

“Let me go. You horrify me.”

Guy Barrington finally let her go.

“You, are too good,” Guy Barrington murmured, absently.

“Am I—so Good?” Charlotte pleaded, with tears in her eyes.

“Everybody is good, according to you,” he said. “Then I suppose your old lover, Harleigh Daly, is good too?”

He was. He was absolutely good,” Charlotte cried, her voice softening as she spoke of Harleigh Daly.

Guy Barrington looked at her anxiously. Merely to hear her pronounce her lover’s name proved that she adored him. Guy Barrington was too expert a student of women not to interpret rightly her pallor, her emotion, and her distress. He did not know, but he could easily guess that Charlotte thought of Harleigh. He understood how heavy her long hours of solitude must be, amid the blue and green of the New York landscape, passed in constant longing for her lover’s presence. He understood perfectly that she was consumed by secret jealousy, and that he tortured her cruelly when by a word, or an insinuation he inspired her with new suspicions. He could read her heart like an open book; but he loved her all the better for the intense passion that breathed from its pages. He did not despair. Sooner or later, he was convinced, he would succeed in overcoming the obstacle in his way. He adopted the ancient method of assailing the character of the absent man.

Guy Barrington would mention her prearranged marriage to Sir Edward, or he would speak of Harleigh Daly’s desertion of his young love, he saw Charlotte’s face change; he knew the anguish that he woke in her heart, and he suffered wretchedly to realize that it was for the love of another man. His weapon was a double-edged sword that wounded her and wounded him. But what of that? He continued to wield it, believing that thus little by little he could deface the image of Harleigh Daly.

Charlotte became more and more ready to talk of her lover, and that gave Guy Barrington his opportunity for putting in his innuendos. At the same time it caused him much bitterness of spirit, and sometimes he would say, “We are three. How do you do, Harleigh? “Bowing to an imaginary presence.

Charlotte’s eyes filled with tears at such moments.

“Forgive me, forgive me,” He cried. “But when you introduce his name into our conversation, you cause me such agony that I feel I am winning my place in heaven. Go on: I am already tied to the rack; force your knife into my heart, gentle torturess.”

And she, at first timidly, but then with the impetuousness of an open and generous nature, would continue to talk of Harleigh. Where was he, what was he doing, when would he return? She would ask; and he by-and-by would interrupt her speculations to suggest that Harleigh was probably loving another, one of his old loves, whom he met every month in the city; and that he would very likely not return.

“I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it,” Charlotte protested.

“You don’t believe it? But it’s his usual habit. Why should he alter it this month?”

“He has me to think of now.”

“Oh, dear Charlotte, dear Charlotte, he thinks of you so little!”

“Not so, not so,” she murmured very low.

Charlotte was silent, oppressed and pained by his philosophy, by its bitterness, its sterile pride, its egotism and cruelty. It seemed as if he had built a sepulcher from the ruins of her life. She felt that she no longer understood either her own nature or the external world; a sense of fear and of confusion had taken the place of her old principles and aspirations. And there was a great home-sickness in her heart for love, for devotion, for tenderness, for enthusiasm; a great melancholy at the thought that she would never thrill with them again, that she would never weep again. She felt a great indefinable longing, not for the past, not for the present, not for the future, a longing that related itself to nothing. And she realized that what Guy Barrington had said was true— horribly, dreadfully, certainly true. She could be sure of nothing after this, she had lost her bearings, she was being swept round and round in a emotional whirlpool.

She was not sure whether it was better to brave out the tempest, to lose everything nobly and generously for the sake of love, or to save appearances, make for still waters, and in them enjoy a selfish tranquility.