The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

She was struck to despair. Pride alone kept her from revealing her anguish, though her death should be the immediate consequence! But Sandford, who had hitherto been most inimical to her, on the evening before Lord Elmwood's departure showed at last some kindness by entreating her to breakfast with them the following morning. There she sat silent, unable to eat, unable to speak, unable to move, until the moment for parting came. Then, unable to repress her tears as heretofore, as Elmwood took her hand in his, she suffered them to fall in torrents.

"What is all this?" cried Sandford, going up to them in anger.

They neither of them replied, or changed their situation.

"Separate this moment!" cried Sandford. "Or resolve to be separated only by--death! Lord Elmwood, do you love this woman?"

"More than my life!" he replied, with the most heartfelt accents.

He then turned to Miss Milner.

"Can you say the same by him?"

She spread her hands over her eyes, and exclaimed, "Oh, heavens!"

"I believe you can say so," returned Sandford. "And in the name of God, and your own happiness, since this is the state of you both, let me put it out of your power to part?"

On which he opened his book and--married them.

Nevertheless, on that joyful day which restored her lost lover to her hopes again, even on that very day after the ceremony was over, Miss Milner--with all the fears, the superstition of her sex--felt an excruciating shock when, looking on the ring Lord Elmwood had put upon her finger in haste, she perceived it was a mourning-ring.

IV.--Outcasts

Alas! in seventeen years the beautiful, beloved Miss Milner was no longer beautiful, no longer beloved, no longer virtuous.

Dorriforth, the pious, the good, the tender Dorriforth, was become a hard-hearted tyrant.

Miss Woodley had grown old, but less with years than grief.

The boy Harry Rushbrook had become a man and the apparent heir of Lord Elmwood's fortune, while his own daughter, his only child by his once-adored Miss Milner, he refused ever to see again, in vengeance to her mother's crime.

Sandford alone remained much as heretofore.

Lady Elmwood was a loved and loving bride seventeen years ago; now she lay on her death-bed. At thirty-five "her course was run." After four years of perfect happiness, Lord Elmwood was obliged to leave his wife and child while he went to visit his large estates in the West Indies. His voyage was tedious, his return delayed by serious illness, which a too cautious fear of her uneasiness prompted him to conceal. He was away three years.

It was no other than Lord Frederick Lawnly to whom Lady Elmwood sacrificed her own and her husband's future peace; she did not, however, elope with her paramour, but escaped to shelter herself in the most dreary retreat, where she partook of no comfort but the still unremitting friendship of Miss Woodley. Even her child she left behind, that she might be under her father's protection. Conceive, then, how sharp her agony was on beholding the child sent after her as the perpetual outcast of its father. Lord Elmwood's love to his wife had been extravagant--the effect of his hate was the same. Once more he met Lord Frederick in a duel, the effect of which was to leave his adversary so defaced with scars as never again to endanger the honour of a husband. He was himself dangerously wounded, yet nothing but the assurance that his opponent was slain could tear him from the field.

Now, after ten years of exile, the once gay, volatile Miss Milner lay dying with but one request to make--that her daughter should not suffer for her sin. Sandford was with her; by all the influence he ever had over Lord Elmwood, by his prayers, by his tears, he promised to implore him to own his child. She could only smile her thanks, but she was sufficiently sensible of his words to make a sign as if she wished to embrace him; but, finding life leaving her fast, with a struggle she clung to her child, and died in her arms.

V.--His Daughter's Happiness

Yet all that her mother's last appeal could obtain for the hapless Matilda, not as her child, but as the granddaughter of Mr. Milner, was the shelter of her father's roof on condition that she avoided his sight. When by accident or design he ever saw or heard from her, that moment his compliance with her mother's request ceased, and he abandoned her once more. Still, the joy of being, even in so remote a way, under her father's care, was extreme for her, though it was tempered with jealousy of Rushbrook--a feeling which even her noble heart could not completely quell--jealousy which was shared on her account by both Miss Woodley and Mr. Sandford, and frequently made them unjust to Harry, whom they regarded as an interloper.

But his passionate gratitude to Lady Elmwood, by whose entreaties he had been restored to his uncle's favour, had made him adore her daughter with an equal passion. He gazed with wonder at his uncle's insensibility to his own happiness, and would gladly have led him to the jewel he cast away, though even his own expulsion should be the fatal consequence.