my late behaviour, imputing it only to miserable health and broken nerves. He was surprised at this return of affection, and admitted that he had suffered deeply, and felt my injustice. He imputed this change in me to the discovery I had made of his state of health. As the pledge of our reconciliation, I exacted a promise that he would obey the physician, and repair to the Brunnens of Naussau. He proposed that I should accompany him. I entreated that this should not be a stipulation. My mind, I said, had need of entire repose. I wished to change the scene and air, but could not endure a watering-place. On the contrary, it was my wish, if he would consent to it, to spend some time in travel, especially in those countries with which we were so intimately and unhappily connected, but which he was prohibited from entering, Hungary and Poland. "To this natural desire my husband made no objection; he believed, indeed, that such a change would tend to restore me to the peace I had lost. "Finally, we both set out and separated in Germany. I had arranged to take a travelling servant from thence, and, after I parted from Waldemar, found an excuse for parting also with my female attendant, and taking one who was quite a stranger to me. I then hastened to the banker's where my money was lodged. Drawing out a part of it, I purchased a small annuity under an assumed name, and leaving the residue so that it could be reclaimed by Waldemar, I set forth on my projected tour. I wrote often to Waldemar, and received letters from him, the tone of which, far from that of an assumed affection, was truly consolatory to my heart. It told me that I was understood, that I was appreciated, that I was pitied. I felt that, so far as depended on himself, Waldemar would be a still better husband to me for the time to come. But this conviction did not move me, my resolution was taken; his kindness, his goodness, only gave me fresh strength to perform it. I resolved that he should be happy. Once beyond the frontier of Poland, my letters conveyed to him repeated complaints of my still failing health. This, indeed, was true; and a severe illness had nearly accomplished my purpose without a falsehood. But I soon after carried that purpose into effect. "I easily got a person of my acquaintance, on some trifling excuse, to write a letter of my dictation, as if to acquaint one of my friends with the event of his wife's death; the person who wrote it neither knowing who it was to, nor suspecting that I was myself the wife whose death I described. I got another to direct it to Waldemar, and carried it myself to the post. The letter contained an enclosure in my own writing-a few lines, as if written before my death, affectionately addressed both to him and Rosa, conveying to them jointly the residue of my property, but without the least allusion to the connexion that was to subsist between them; they expressed only the resignation with which I quitted for ever all I had loved or known. "This was true; my sacrifice was complete; I was dead to the world. There was no chance of detection. Waldemar could never discover, even were he disposed to seek it, the place of my tomb; for it was in Poland, his unhappy land. Nearly two years have passed since my death was made known; Waldemar has been the most of that time a widower, but was his heart so? Yet sure I am he gave me some tears, and they were honest ones. "The change in my appearance, my widow's dress and assumed name, saved me from detection. I thought I might reside with safety in a retired part of Germany, my native land. It was while on my way to the retreat I had selected, that, hearing of the charming seclusion of the baths of Rippoldsau, I was tempted to seek relief from its valuable waters. Could I have imagined an idea so wild as that Waldemar my husband, with his lovely and adored bride, would have chosen to pass their honeymoon in the same retreat? "I shall henceforth be calm. Suspense is worse than certainty-my sacrifice is accepted-he is happy-I have not died in vain!" It would be useless to record here the observations I made when at last permitted to speak. Argument, indeed, was now useless with the un happy victim of her own sensibility and error. To induce her to look to another world for the happiness which she had, perhaps wilfully, lost in this was all my words, few and feeble as they were, aimed to do. The next morning I went to her chamber to see how she had passed the night. It was locked, and I knocked without obtaining an answer. Believing that, like many others who expose their hearts to their fellow-creatures, she had now repented of having done so, and shrunk from seeing me, I retired, intending after the table-d'hôte, at which I knew she would not appear, again to make inquiries for her. But at that table I heard a singular tale related, and saw Rosa listening to it with the sweet face of a pitying angel. The poor widow lady, it was said, who had been taken ill at dinner the day before, had the same evening been distressingly summoned to her home. She was a most afflicted creature; her husband's sudden death had plunged her into such a state of grief that she was induced to come to Rippoldsau to try the "cure," leaving her children to the care of a nurse, who, to avoid being troubled by her charge, placed them all on a table while she was otherwise engaged. Endeavouring to amuse themselves there at play, the others had rolled the youngest off the table, and if not actually dead when the express for its mother arrived, it was certain that it would not be alive when she reached her home. Stories, unlike stones, gather by moving! Perhaps seme nearly incoherent expressions had escaped this unfortunate woman in her distress, and amid the bustle of a sudden departure, relating to her husband and her child, and these being ill understood by the wondering mädchen, were related to another and another, until, as the story passed on through the community it assumed its present connected form; or another solution of it crossed my mind, but I did not wish to believe it. Was it possible she might have herself given rise to it by making a somewhat similar excuse for her abrupt departure? Only two particulars, as likely to be facts, I further understood; namely, that she had not gone to rest that night, and set off at four o'clock in the morning. In my long and solitary walks SELINA. LOVE, PRESENT AND PAST. THEY stood in their young beauty where the shade And as he watch'd her colour come and go, "Lift up those dearest eyes, and let me read Mine own! mine own! it is a thought of pride Nay, love, I pray thee weep not! Must I swear She heard him long in silence, and at last I feel all joy departs with thee; no eye Till thou return; the grave has closed o'er all Thou art mine all. It is a fearful thing Surely thou wilt but smile when others scorn Go now, while I am calm. God knoweth where Still sounding in thy heart! Go on thy way, They parted; years roll'd on before they stood Once more together, in far other mood Than when they said farewell; at last he came, To her, alas! to her those years had brought And he, who thought to hear but words of blame, He stopp'd; for as he spoke, a bitter smile “We never can be friends, for friends should feel There was a time when thou and I were one There was a time when at thy lightest word Then at thy footstep how the red blood came I blame thee not, for now my alter'd heart At times I weep to think such love could be, At times there come old thoughts across my brain, Come they to thee? Ah, no! for thou would'st weep Surely thou could'st not smile, if e'er to thee I seem to hear again that blesséd stream, Yea! one by one, past hours of bliss return; I do not blame thee now; I said the truth: At times I see a vision dark and strange- Oh! if that dreary vision ever cross'd Thy soul, e'en now, when all our love is lost, Of all the crowd most heartless and most gay. Strange! strange how all are pass'd-love, hope, and grief; I deem'd that grief would dwell with me for aye; We, who once boasted Death should hardly tear All that we since have borne, and now can brook; How those who see us meet would laugh to know Alas! methinks I would recall again |