Ronald did not return in the evening to the pretty villa where he had once been so happy. In the warmth of his anger, he felt that he never could look again upon his wife. To his sensitive, refined nature there was something more repulsive in the dishonorable act she had committed than there would have been in a crime of deeper dye. He was shocked and startled—more so than if he awoke some fair summer morning to find Dora dead by his side. She was indeed dead to him in one sense. The ideal girl, all purity, gentleness, and truth, whom he had loved and married, had, it appeared, never really existed after all. He shrank from the idea of the angry, vehement words and foul calumnies. He shrank from the woman who had forgotten every rule of good breeding, every trace of good manners, in angry, fierce passion.
How was he ever to face Miss Charteris again? She would never mention one word of what had happened, but he could ill brook the shame Dora had brought upon him. He remembered the summer morning in the woods when he told Valentine the story of his love, and had pictured his pretty, artless Dora to her. Could the angry woman who had dared to insult him, and to calumniate the fairest and truest lady in all England, possibly be the same?
Ronald had never before been brought into close contact with dishonor. He had some faint recollection at college of having seen and known a young man, the son of a wealthy nobleman, scorned and despised, driven from all society, and he was told that it was because he had been detected in the act of listening at the principal's door. He remembered how old and young had shunned this young man as though he were plague-stricken; and now his own wife Dora had done the very same thing under circumstances that rendered the dishonor greater. He asked himself, with a cynical smile, what he could expect? He had married for love of a pretty, child-like face, never giving any thought to principle, mind, or intellect. The only wonder was that so wretched and unequal a match had not turned out ten times worse. His father's warning rang in his ears. How blind, how foolish he had been!
Every hope of his own life was wrecked, every hope and plan of his father's disappointed and dead. There seemed to him nothing left to care for. His wife—oh, he would not think of her! The name vexed him. He could not stand in Valentine's presence again, and for the first time he realized what she had been to him. Home, and consequently England, was closed to him; the grand mansion he had once believed his had faded from his mind.
Thinking of all these things, Ronald's love for his young wife seemed changed to dislike. Three days passed before he returned home; then he was somewhat startled to find her really gone. He had anticipated sullen temper, renewed quarrels, and then perhaps a separation, but he was startled to find her actually gone. The servant gave him the cold farewell letter, written without tears, without sorrow. He tore it into shreds and flung it from him.
"The last act in the farce," he said, bitterly. "If I had not been mad, I should have foreseen this."
The silent, deserted rooms did not remind him of the loving young wife parted from him forever. He was too angry, too annoyed, for any gentle thoughts to influence him. She had left him—so much the better; there could never again be peace between them. He thought with regret of the little ones—they were too young for him to undertake charge of them, so that they were best left with their mother for a time. He said to himself that he must make the best use he could of his life; everything seemed at an end. He felt very lonely and unhappy as he sat in his solitary home; and the more sorrow present upon him, the more bitter his thoughts grew, the deeper became his dislike to this unhappy young wife.
Ronald wrote to his mother, but said no word to her of the cause of their quarrel.
"Dora and I," he said, "will never live together again—perhaps never meet. She has gone home to her father; I am going to wander over the wide earth. Will you induce my father to receive my children at Earlescourt? And will you see Mr. Burt, and arrange that half of my small income is settled upon Dora?"
But to all his wife's entreaties Lord Earle turned a deaf ear. He declared that never during his life time should the children of Dora Thorne enter Earlescourt. His resolution was fixed and unalterable. How, he asked, was he to trust the man who had once deceived him? For aught he knew, the separation between Ronald and his wife might be a deeply laid scheme, and, the children once with him, there would be a grand reconciliation between the parents.
"I am not surprised," he said, "that the unhappy boy is weary of his pretty toy. It could not be otherwise; he must bear the consequences of his own folly. He had time for thought, he made his own choice—now let him abide by it. You have disregarded my wish, Lady Helena, in even naming the matter to me. Let all mention of it cease. I have no son. One thing remember—I am not hard upon you—you can go where you like, see whom you like, and spend what money you will, and as you will."
Lady Earle was not long in availing herself of the permission. There was great excitement at the Elms one morning, caused by the receipt of a letter from Lady Earle saying that she would be there on the same day to visit the son's wife and children.
The little ones looked up to her with wondering eyes. To them she was like a vision, with her noble face and distinguished air.
Stephen Thorne and his wife received the great lady not without some trepidation; yet they were in no way to blame. The fatal marriage had been as great a blow to them as to Lord and Lady Earle. With the quiet dignity and graceful ease that never deserted her, Lady Earle soon made them feel at home. She started in utter surprise, when a quiet, grave woman, on whose face sweetness and sullen humor were strangely mingled, entered the room. This could not be pretty, coy, blushing Dora! Where were the dimples and smiles? The large dark eyes raised so sadly to hers were full of strange, pathetic beauty. With sharp pain the thought struck Lady Earle, "What must not Dora have suffered to have changed her so greatly!" The sad eyes and worn face touched her as no beauty could have done. She clasped Dora in her arms and kissed her.
"You are my daughter now," she said, in that rich, musical voice which Dora remembered so well. "We will not mention the past; it is irrevocable. If you sinned against duty and obedience, your face tells me you have suffered. What has come between you and my son I do not seek to know. The shock must have been a great one which parted you, for he gave up all the world for you, Dora, years ago. We will not speak of Ronald. Our care must be the children. Of course you wish them to remain with you?"
"While it is possible," said Dora, wearily. "I shall never leave home again; but I can not hope to keep them here always."
"I should have liked to adopt them," said Lady Earle; "to take them home and educate them, but—"
"Lord Earle will not permit it," interrupted Dora, calmly. "I know—I do not wonder."
"You must let me do all I can for them here," continued Lady Earle; "I have made all plans and arrangements. We will give the children an education befitting their position, without removing them from you. Then we shall see what time will do. Let me see the little ones. I wish you had called one Helena, after me."
Dora remembered why she had not done so, and a flush of shame rose to her face.
They were beautiful children, and Dora brought them proudly to the stately lady waiting for them. Lady Earle took Beatrice in her arms.
"Why, Dora," she said admiringly, "she has the Earle face, with a novel charm all its own. The child will grow up into magnificent woman."
"She has the Earle spirit and pride," said the young mother; "I find it hard to manage her even now."
Then Lady Earle looked at the fair, spirituelle face and golden hair of little Lillian. The shy, dove-like eyes and sweet lips charmed her.
"There is a great contrast between them," she said, thoughtfully. "They will require careful training, Dora; and now we will speak of the matter which brought me here."
Dora noticed that, long as she remained, Lady Earle never let Beatrice leave her arms; occasionally she bent over Lillian and touched her soft golden curls, but the child with the "Earle face" was the one she loved best.
Together with Stephen Thorne and his wife, Lady Earle went over the Elms. The situation delighted her; nothing could be better or more healthy for the children, but the interior of the house must be altered. Then with delicate grace that could only charm, never wound, Lady Earle unfolded her plans. She wished a new suite of rooms to be built for Dora and the children, to be nicely furnished with everything that could be required. She would bear the expense. Immediately on her return she would send an efficient French maid for the little ones, and in the course of a year or two she would engage the services of an accomplished governess, who would undertake the education of Beatrice and Lillian without removing them from their mother's care.
"I shall send a good piano and harp," said Lady Earle, "it will be my pride and pleasure to select books, music, drawings, and everything else my grandchildren require. I should wish them always to be nicely dressed and carefully trained. To you, Dora, I must leave the highest and best training of all. Teach them to be good, and to do their duty. They have learned all when they have learned that."
For the first time in her life, the thought came home to Dora: How was she to teach what she had never learned and had failed to practice? That night, long after Lady Earle had gone away, and the children had fallen to sleep, Dora knelt in the moonlight and prayed that she might learn to teach her children to do their duty.
As Lady Earle wished, the old farm house was left intact, and a new group of buildings added to it. There was a pretty sitting room for Dora, and a larger one to serve as a study for the children, large sleeping rooms, and a bathroom, all replete with comfort. Two years passed before all was completed, and Lady Earle thought it time to send a governess to the Elms.
During those years little or nothing was heard from Ronald. After reading the cold letter Dora left for him, it seemed as though all love, all care, all interest died out of his heart. He sat for many long hours thinking of the blighted life "he could not lay down, yet cared little to hold."
He was only twenty-three—the age at which life opens to most men; yet he was worn, tired, weary of everything—the energies that once seemed boundless, the ambition once so fierce and proud, all gone. His whole nature recoiled from the shock. Had Dora, in the fury of her jealousy and rage, tried to kill him, he would have thought that but a small offense compared with the breach of honor in crouching behind the trees to listen. He thought of the quiet, grand beauty of Valentine's face while Dora was convulsed with passion. He remembered the utter wonder in Valentine's eyes when Dora's flamed upon them. He remembered the sickening sense of shame that had cowed him as he listened to her angry, abusive words. And this untrained, ignorant, ill-bred woman was his wife! For her he had given up home, parents, position, wealth—all he had in life worth caring for. For her, and through her, he stood there alone in the world.
Those thoughts first maddened him, then drove him to despair. What had life left for him? He could not return to England; his father's doors were closed against him. There was no path open to him; without his father's help he could not get into Parliament. He could not work as an artist at home. He could not remain in Florence; never again, he said to himself, would he see Valentine Charteris—Valentine, who had been the witness of his humiliation and disgrace. Sooner anything than that. He would leave the villa and go somewhere—he cared little where. No quiet, no rest came to him. Had his misfortunes been accidental—had they been any other than they were, the result of his boyish folly and disobedience, he would have found them easier to bear; as it was, the recollection that it was all his own fault drove him mad.
Before morning he had written a farewell note to Lady Charteris, saying that he was leaving Florence at once, and would not be able to see her again. He wrote to Valentine, but the few stiff words expressed little of what he felt. He prayed her to forget the miserable scene that would haunt him to his dying day; to pardon the insults that had driven him nearly mad; to pardon the mad jealousy, the dishonor of Dora; to forget him and all belonging to him. When Miss Charteris read the letter she knew that all effort to restore peace would for a time be in vain. She heard the day following that the clever young artist, Mr. Earle, had left.
Countess Rosali loudly lamented Ronald's departure. It was so strange, she said; the dark-eyed little wife and her children had gone home to England, and the husband, after selling off his home, had gone with Mr. Charles Standon into the interior of Africa. What was he going to do there?
She lamented him for two days without ceasing, until Valentine was tired of her many conjectures. He was missed in the brilliant salons of Florence, but by none so much as by Valentine Charteris.
What the pretty, coquettish countess had said was true. After making many plans and forming many resolutions, Ronald met Mr. Standon, who was on the point of joining an exploring expedition in South Africa. He gladly consented to accompany him. There was but little preparation needed. Four days after the never-to-be-forgotten garden scene, Ronald Earle left Italy and became a wanderer upon the face of the earth.
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