CHAPTER XLI.
IN EXILE.
Such a beautiful young girl as Rosalind Whitney could not escape notice and attention at the seaside resort where she was staying with her kind nurse, Mrs. Goodwill.
Though she was quiet and reserved, the people soon ferreted out her romantic history, for it had gotten into all the newspapers.
Every one knew directly that the young heiress had been lifted suddenly from poverty and obscurity to wealth and position. They declared that she must have deserved it, she was so lovely and so gracious, without any of the insufferable airs of the upstart.
In the black gowns that she chose to wear for her benefactress, and with that shade of pathos on her exquisite face, she was very charming, and she soon had friends and admirers by the dozens; but she did not encourage any.
Her life at The Crags had made her shy and timid; she did not feel as if she had any real friends among all those who sought her now.
She liked best to make friends with the beautiful, restless sea, to sit on the sands and listen to its mystical roar, to sport among the rolling billows, or sail over its bosom, drinking in deep drafts of exhilarating air that brightened her sorrowful eyes and planted fresh roses on her pale cheeks.
It was so new and strange and delightful to the mountain-bred girl that it drew her thoughts away from the past to present scenes and joys. She tried to put Laurie and Lelia out of her mind, not to envy the happiness that must be theirs when they had become friendly again.
“And, oh, dear Heaven, make her repent her sins; make her a better woman, so that she shall be worthy the noble husband she has won,” prayed Rosalind every night before she laid her dark head down upon its pillow to rest.
Her life was very lonely, poor Rosalind; it had always been so empty of love that her one little glimpse of it in Laurie Willoughby’s eyes had seemed like paradise.
Oh, those brief, bright hours of hope and joy while she had worn his beautiful ring! How they returned to her over and over, with their zest and sweetness! How she wondered even now what wonderful good fortune he had wished for her when he placed it on her hand!
Even now that he was married to Lelia, she would have liked to know, but she was too timid to ask him. She would never, never know, unless of his own free will he volunteered the information.
Very likely he had forgotten all about it by now. Lelia, with her love and her beauty, would make him forget everything in the world.
Ah, well, perhaps she, too, might forget after a while, she told herself, trying to still that dull, aching pain in her heart.
Perhaps by and by some other young man almost as noble and handsome as Laurie Willoughby--not quite, that could not possibly be--might come into her life and teach her a new lesson of love, filling her starved heart with the fulness of content and happiness.
Meanwhile, she would make the best of the new opportunities Miss Willoughby had generously thrown into her life. She would read and study, she would try to make some true friends for herself, she would travel and see the beautiful world over, which she had always yearned. She did not see that she need to be entirely unhappy, even though the one man she would have chosen for her lover was lost to her forever.
Yet day by day she would trace his name beside her own on the wet sands with the tip of her parasol, and sigh as she murmured:
“Laurie and Rosalind! How well they look together!”
Then the white surf rolling in would blot the names away, and she would sigh to herself:
“If only that dear name could be blotted out as easily from my heart!”
She had been at the seashore a week, but she had never heard a word from The Crags. She had written back a little note to the general, who had really seemed the kindest of all, telling him of her safe arrival, but he had taken no notice, it seemed.
“Why should they care for me? Is it not more natural they should hate one who came between them and the fortune they expected? Oh, if I could have guessed what was in that dear old lady’s mind, I should have begged her not to disappoint them, but to give me just a little legacy of a few thousands to remember her by, my dear benefactress!” she thought over and over.
And then one morning, down upon the beach, just as she had absently traced those two names again upon the glittering sands, there suddenly loomed up before her the tall, thin, stately form of the general.
His keen eyes caught the names before the coming wave swept over them.
He pretended not to notice, but he said to himself:
“Aha! so that is how the land lies?”
He could not help thinking what a match this would have been for Laurie, after all, if only they had not forced him into that ill-fated marriage with his cousin.
She turned to him, blushing like a rose, and as he clasped her hand with fervor, her heart warmed with the thought that here, at least, was one friend, for his manner was kindness itself.
He sat down beside her on a low camp-chair, and talked to her kindly and gently, breaking the news to her gradually, as seemed best.
He had got her letter, but had been too much perturbed to answer it, for they had been having more trouble at The Crags.
Poor Lelia had quite broken down under their trials, and was ill of nervous prostration--so ill that her mother had taken her, several days ago, to a sanatorium in Philadelphia, and would remain with her until she recovered.
Her eyes looked a mute question that he answered by saying:
“Laurie has decided to go abroad--in fact, has already gone, and his stay will be of indefinite duration. I have just come from seeing him off in New York, and he has appointed me your guardian in his place. The truth is, his marriage was a sad mistake, and he will never live with Lelia; he has found out things that make it impossible for him to love or respect her again. But his family pride will not permit him to betray her faults and seek release, so his life is wrecked forever, and he has gone into a bitter, voluntary exile!”