CHAPTER XXI.

THE LAST STRUGGLE.

“One struggle more, and I am free From pangs that rend my heart in twain; One long, last sigh to love and thee, Then back to dreary life again.”—_Byron._

As soon as Susan had closed the door behind her, Lady Montressor dropped her face into her hands, and sigh after sigh, and groan after groan, burst from her overcharged bosom.

“Oh, Montressor! Oh! my lord! my dear lord! Oh, woe is me! that I must put far away from my parched lips this draught of joy that would be as the waters of life to my thirsting and famished soul! Oh, woe is me, Lord Montressor, that I must deceive and wound your loving, trusting nature! that I must turn from the light, and life, and warmth you bring me, and bury myself alive in the darkness and coldness of this my living grave! for how long, great Heaven! for how long! I am so young—I shall live so many years! how shall I bear this living death, oh, spirits in Heaven, how shall I bear it! Will my heart break? Will my brain turn? Will death come and end my anguish? I cannot tell! I do not know! but better any fate! any suffering for me, than that reproach should come to your noble name, my lord! And after all—in my bitter, bitter cup—there is a single sweet drop! the thought that I suffer for you, my lord—that I suffer for you, even as I would die for you! Yet if I could see you but for one moment to-day! could feel my poor hand clasped in your dear hand for one instant! could meet one glance of your eyes—what life—what life would thrill again to my dying heart! Oh! heart be still! be strong! this must not be! we must not meet again! Oh, heart! learn the heroism of silent endurance!” While she thus lamented and struggled with herself, there was a rap at the chamber door.

“Now I shall hear of him”—she said, as with a supreme effort she controlled her emotion, steadied her voice, and bade the rapper “Come in.”

Barbara Brande opened the door and entered. But the traces of extreme suffering were still so strongly marked upon Lady Montressor’s fine countenance, that Babara, instead of the smiling greeting she had been about to offer started back in alarm, exclaiming,

“Good Heavens, Mrs. Estel, are you ill?”

“Yes—and no, Miss Brande! Come in and close the door, for I wish to speak with you—confidentially.”

Barbara in perplexity obeyed.

“Draw your chair close beside me, if you please, Miss Brande, for I must speak low.”

Barbara feeling more and more embarrassed, complied.

“Do you know, Miss Brande, that I regret exceedingly not having given you my full confidence before leaving Baltimore?”

“I should have felt honored in your confidence, Madam,” said Barbara with increasing surprise.

“At least you would have justified it, no doubt.”

“I should not have been undeserving of your faith, Mrs. Estel.”

“I am sure of it! But I am called by another name besides Estel.”

“Madam!”

“Do not look, or speak in this way, my dear Miss Brande, or you will repel the confidence I wish so much to give you,” said Lady Montressor, in a voice, and with a look of such hopeless misery, that Barbara’s heart was touched, and she said very gently—

“Speak, then, Madam; I will not be unworthy of your confidence! Your name you said was not Estel.”

“No—I said that I was called by another name besides that. Estel is _really_ my name, else I should not certainly have called myself by it; but it is my baptismal—not my surname. I am known in the world as the Viscountess Montressor.”

“The Viscountess Montressor! Good Heaven!” exclaimed Barbara, in amazement.

“And you did not suspect this?”

“No, Madam, by my sacred honor, I did not.”

“And yet, he who conferred upon me his name and title, was your passenger to this place, landed here with you this morning?”

“That is very true, Madam. Lord Montressor engaged passage for himself and two servants, in my vessel, for Havana, and his lordship came ashore this morning for a day’s sport in the woods—that is all that I know! I am completely mystified, my lady,” said Miss Brande, in augmented astonishment.

“Do you think, Miss Brande,” inquired Lady Montressor, with a look of deep interest, “that his lordship knows or suspects the identity of the party to whom you have let your house?”

“I do not know, Madam, since it is not impossible that _he_, also, may have concealed something from me; but I should judge from appearances that he knew nothing of your ladyship’s presence in the neighborhood.”

“Forgive the necessity that compels me to question you, Miss Brande, and pray tell me, did you ever mention to his lordship the name of the lessee of your property?”

“No, Madam, I never did.”

“Then I will beseech you never to do it; for, if once Lord Montressor heard the name of ‘Estel,’ it would furnish him with the only clue he needs to my identity and retreat.”

“Forgive me, in your turn, dear lady, but all this is very inexplicable!”

“Ah! it is so, indeed, to you! And I appear to invite your faith, without giving you my confidence! Is it not so? Well! I will explain! and you, if you will have patience, will hear a sorrowful story. But, first,” said Lady Montressor, even in this anxious hour considerate of the convenience of others, “have you breakfasted?”

“Yes, Madam.”

“And can you give me half an hour?”

“I am at Lady Montressor’s service for half the day, if she will command me,” said Barbara, who felt her heart painfully attracted to her interesting tenant.

“Listen, then, Miss Brande! Do you ever see the English papers?”

“Seldom, or never, my lady.”

“Then you have seen no account of a wretched English woman of rank, who was struck in her pride of place—struck at her highest culmination of fortune and happiness—struck down, down, down, to a bottomless pit of black dishonor and despair! You have heard of no such woman?”

“No, no, no; Great Heaven, no!” exclaimed Barbara, shuddering.

“Look at her, then, Miss Brande. She stands before you,” said Lady Montressor, rising, and fixing her eyes upon the shocked face of Barbara.

“No, no, no; Heaven of Heavens, no! You would not have been that guilty one, my lady,” exclaimed Barbara, covering her face with her hands, to shut out the sight of that pale and spectral countenance, and those gleaming black eyes, that seemed to consume those upon whom they looked.

“I said a _wretched_, not a guilty woman. Are wretchedness and guilt synonymous? If so, then, indeed, am I a very guilty, being a very wretched woman,” said Lady Montressor, in a thrilling, impassioned voice.

“Pardon me, my lady, if I have not understood you,” replied Barbara, with emotion.

“How should you, indeed, until you hear. Attend, then, Miss Brande, and I will tell you my story,” said the lady, sinking again into her seat.

And while Barbara Brande heard with painful interest, Lady Montressor related the tragic history of her two marriages, and ended by declaring the motives that had induced her to withdraw herself from Lord Montressor’s knowledge.

Barbara listened with a face often streaming with tears, and when she had heard all, she took the lady’s wasted hand and said—

“He weighs nothing in the balance of his love for you?”

“Nothing.”

“Neither rank, nor wealth, nor fame?”

“No; alas, no!”

“He stood nobly by you in your trial?”

“He did, he did; my dear and honored lord! he did!”

“He followed you across the ocean?”

“Yes, yes.”

“And he is still in pursuit of you?”

“He is. Oh, he is.”

“Then, Lady Montressor, how can you still elude him? The man who claimed you, even had his claim been ever so just, is now no more; there is not the shadow of a reason why you should fly so faithful a friend as Lord Montressor has shown himself to be.”

“His honor, Miss Brande. His honor should forbid him to mate with one so wretched as myself!”

“A man’s honor, my lady, is, according to my judgment, in his own exclusive keeping, and cannot be injured by anything but guilt or folly.”

“But the honor of the woman, with whom Lord Montressor mates, should be like that of Cæsar’s wife, ‘not only pure, but unsuspected,’” said the lady. “Therefore have I withdrawn myself from him and renounced his name. Therefore, though my heart should break, my brain madden, or my life go down to death in the pain of this continued effort—will I conceal myself from his pursuit; until worn out with waiting and with searching, he shall at last repudiate and forget me.”

“And you can coolly resolve to drive him to that?” exclaimed Barbara.

“_Coolly?_ Miss Brande? Oh, look at me and say if you think I do this coolly! No, no; no, no! but he must be constrained to have that fatal ceremony that passed between us at the parish church at Hyde, annulled by Parliament. And he must ally himself to some lady—his equal in position and of unblemished honor.”

“Lady Montressor, if I have read his lordship’s character aright, he can never do that.”

“He can and must! he owes it to his family, to his position, to his rising fame!”

“Lady Montressor, you also are influenced by a worldly education. You have all the prejudices of caste. You think entirely too much of ‘family,’ ‘position,’ and ‘fame,’ more than Lord Montressor does by half. I tell you, that next to _duty_, ‘love is the greatest good in the world,’ and Lord Montressor knows it. Oh, Madam, how can you disregard the great love he bears you?” said Barbara, pleadingly.

“_I_ disregard it—oh, Heaven!” exclaimed the lady, growing paler than before.

“I see you do not really do so! I see the struggle in your mind! Oh, Madam, yield to your simpler and better nature! Make him and yourself happy! Come, let me send into the forest and bring him here to plead his own cause!” prayed Barbara, with earnest eloquence.

“Miss Brande, no! if you would not have me die before you—no! You do not know what you ask. You do not appreciate to how much of humiliation an alliance with me would subject him at home! You do not know England.”

“Then _what_ can I do for you? And why have you uselessly harrowed me with this terrible story?” demanded Barbara, more in sorrow than in anger at what her simple, honest, straightforward nature looked upon as the unnecessary self-torturing of a morbid fastidiousness.

“Not to distress you, needlessly, Miss Brande; but since Lord Montressor has not yet discovered the clue to my retreat, to beseech your assistance in still concealing it from him. And this assistance that I pray is only of a negative character, only your forbearance, only that you refrain from mentioning in his presence the name of your tenant. Miss Brande, will you oblige me in this matter?”

“I will be guided by your wishes, Lady Montressor.”

“Another thing I must entreat—that you will never call me again ‘Lady Montressor;’ nor think of me as the wife of Lord Montressor. It is a name and a position that I have renounced. Nay, that I am not even sure that I ever had a just right to wear! For, look you, when I left England the question of the legality of my childish marriage was still pending before the Spiritual Court of Arches. And law is such an uncertain thing, you know, that the decision of the bench of Bishops may have been different and quite opposite to that opinion advanced by the first lawyer of the day, Lord Dazzleright, who denied the validity of the first marriage, and affirmed the legality of the second. Therefore, you perceive that the only name to which I feel sure of possessing an unquestioned claim, is that one bestowed upon me in baptism, and which marriage does not change—Estelle—call me Mrs. Estel.”

“I will do so, since you wish it, Madam. May God comfort you and guide you through your very trying path, for I begin to see now that _in one respect_ you are right,” said Barbara, with earnestness, “for as long as there exists the slightest question of the perfect legality of that ceremony that passed between yourself and his lordship, you can as a Christian do no otherwise than reserve yourself—Baron Dazzleright and Parson Oldfield to the contrary notwithstanding. Upon this subject, a pure-hearted woman’s instinct is worth all the legal opinions and theological dogmas in the world. You are right, dear lady, and in your painful adherence to right I see the brightest hope of your coming years.”

“Aye, of my life in another state of existence; and that seems to hearts—yearning hearts of flesh—so distant and so vague!”

“No; I spoke of your coming years in this world. ‘Godliness is profitable unto all things—having the promise of the life that NOW IS as well as of that which is to come.’ Wait patiently for the Lord—He can lift you out of this ‘horrible pit,’ this ‘miry clay,’ and set your ‘feet upon a rock.’”

There was something in the strong, earnest, cheerful faith of this noble girl, who had herself received so terrible a shock, that cheered and strengthened and inspired the mourning woman to whom she spoke.

Estelle had always had strength to _suffer_, but now the cordial clasp of Barbara’s hand, the earnest tones of her voice, the cheerful confidence of her promise, gave the sufferer strength to _hope_.

Feeling now that she would best serve Lady Montressor by withdrawing and leaving her to take repose or refreshment, Barbara, renewing her promises to keep Lord Montressor away from the house, took leave.

Estelle sank upon her knees beside the bed, and burying her face in the bed-clothes, prayed.

Presently Susan came in with breakfast, which she inferred that her lady would choose upon this morning to have served in her chamber.

At Susan’s earnest entreaty, Lady Montressor compelled herself to swallow a little coffee and a morsel of bread and jelly, and then pushed the waiter from her sight, and turned away.

“Close the front door; keep the house dark and quiet. I will, after awhile, go into the front parlor and sit by the window, where, without being seen, I may look out upon the sea,” said the lady, as she dismissed her attendant.

What a long, weary, trying day!

Barbara Brande went over the house and over the grounds, in consultation with Lady Montressor’s maid upon various matters relating to repairs and alterations that required their mutual care.

Lord Montressor, accompanied by little Edwy, and attended by his groom with the dogs and guns, roamed far and wide through the woods behind the Headland.

Estelle, having locked the parlor doors, sat at the front window, and, shielded from outside view by the closed Venetian blinds, gazed through their slats, watching the sea-coast, if haply she could catch one glimpse of the “one loved form.” How long and patiently she sat and waited for that single transient moment of painful joy! As the day waned, and the sun declined, and the lights and shadows changed, she sank into a kneeling posture before the window, and with her clasped hands resting upon its sill, and her chin leaned upon them, she continued to gaze through the bars out upon the darkening coast and upon the sea, still bright in the reflection of the last rays of the setting sun.

At length, just as she was beginning to fear that she should not see him before the evening grew too dark for her to identify his form, her patience was rewarded.

A party emerged from the woods off to her right, and foremost among them she recognized his well-known, commanding form, clothed in a hunting-suit of green, with the game-bag at his side, the fowling-piece across his shoulder, and two pointers at his feet. Behind him came the boy, the old negro, and the groom, all heavily laden with game. He paused upon the same spot, whereon in the morning he had parted with his shipmates, he paused and turned his fine face toward the house—toward the very window whereat she knelt and gazed!

Oh! could he but have known who watched behind those green blinds!—but evidently he knew not—suspected not the near proximity of her whom he so eagerly sought, and who at this very moment, from behind those blinds, gazed upon him in such passionate love and prayerful sorrow.

He called the old negro to his side, and selecting what seemed to be the best specimens from each bunch of game, tied them together, put them in the hands of Neptune, and pointed toward the house.

Old Neptune touched his hat, and turned to come up the hill.

And Lord Montressor continued his course down the steep, until he was lost to her sight.

Then her strength utterly gave way!

“It is over! it is over!” she cried, and sank swooning to the floor.

When she recovered her consciousness it was quite dark—recollection slowly returned, bringing its accompaniment of anguish. She arose upon her elbow, passed her hand before her face to put away the trailing black tresses of her hair, and looked around.

The moonlight gleaming through the slats of the closed shutters was the only object that attracted her attention. She went and opened them and sank down on the floor with her head resting as before upon the window-sill, gazing out at sea.

There, on the moonlit waters, like some fair white-winged bird, floated the vessel that contained all she loved on earth. She could not choose but kneel there with her breaking heart, praying for him, gazing after him.

She was interrupted by a gentle rap at the door—not of the parlor, but of the chamber. She arose and feebly crossed both rooms, and laid her hand upon the latch just as the voice of Susan spoke softly—

“Are you awake, dear lady?”

For reply, she opened the door and admitted her attendant.

“Dear Madam, how long and soundly you must have slept! Here I have been to the door three times since sunset, and found all quiet,” said the girl, who had no suspicion that her mistress had lain an hour in a swoon.

As Lady Montressor made no comment, Susan said—

“Miss Brande is in the hall waiting to bid you good-by, my lady, as she returns on board of her vessel to-night.”

“Ask her to come in,” said Estelle, in a voice so hollow that Susan started with the impression that it was the graveyard spectre that spoke close to her ear.

Recovering her self-possession, she went out to obey, and soon returned, bringing lights, and preceding Miss Brande. Susan set the lights down, handed a chair to the visitor, and retired.

“You have seen him this evening, Miss Brande?”

“No, dear lady, I have not. He remained in the forest until sunset, when he returned and went immediately on board of the ship. I have been on the premises here all day, and so have not seen him.”

“I think we may be sure now that I am safe from discovery.”

“Yes, Madam, for he evinces no curiosity about my lady tenant, although, having been engaged in shooting through her woods, he has very properly sent her a fine bunch of game. Old Neptune brought it.”

As Barbara had only come to say “Good-bye,” and as she was in haste to return to her vessel, she took leave of Lady Montressor, and with sincere prayers for her consolation and happiness, prepared to depart. She had not gone many steps from the room, however, before the plaintive voice of the lady recalled her.

“Miss Brande, forgive me, but at what hour do you sail?”

“At sunrise, to-morrow morning, Madame.”

“Thank you. May Heaven send you a happy voyage.”

“And you—peace and consolation, lady.”

And so they parted.

That evening, Lady Montressor, scarcely having tasted her supper, soon dismissed her attendant, and closed herself up in her two rooms. And when the house was still, she went and sat at the window, looking out at sea, and watching the white sails of the vessel that bore within its bulwarks her beloved. Hour after hour she sat there, until the moon sank below the horizon, leaving the earth and sea in utter darkness.

Then she arose and paced the floor of that desolate room, hour after hour, until the dawn of morning faintly appeared in the east.

Then again she seated herself at the window, and with her head resting heavily upon her hand, she watched until the brightening day once more, for a few moments, gave the sails of the departing vessel to her longing eyes.

And she watched that vessel,—treasuring every moment that she might yet behold it—as we watch a beloved and dying face that we feel must soon vanish from our sight forever.

She watched it until she saw the sails shaken out of their reefs, and other sails hoisted, and all draw and fill with the wind as the Petrel left her anchorage and glided gracefully over the waters in her course down the Bay.

She watched it as the sails lessened in the distance; she watched it out of sight—straining her eyes after it until the Petrel appeared no larger than a snow-flake on the blue sea against the horizon, into which it soon seemed to melt and disappear.

It was gone! _He_ was gone!

Yet still she did not change her attitude or withdraw her gaze; but remained with her strained eyes fixed upon the spot under the horizon where the sail had disappeared!

It was very late in the afternoon, and Susan had paid many visits to her lady’s chamber door to listen if she could hear her stir, and had even rapped once or twice to attract her notice; when at length growing uneasy, she gently opened the door and looked in; seeing the bed unoccupied she became alarmed, entered the room and passed on to the parlor, where, at the front window, she saw her mistress sitting quite still, leaning her forehead against the window pane, and apparently gazing out upon the Bay.

“Why, dear Madam, how indiscreet! Have you been up all night?” inquired Susan, anxiously approaching the lady.

But the stationary figure neither spoke nor moved.

“Lady! Lady Montressor!” exclaimed the girl, going closer to her side.

But no word or gesture responded to that call.

“She has fallen asleep sitting there—she will get cold; she must be waked. Lady! Lady! dear Lady!” exclaimed Susan, taking the hand that hung down by her side.

But that hand was a hand of ice.

“Good angels, how cold she is! Madam! dear Mistress! Oh Heavens! what ails her?” cried the girl, putting her arms gently and respectfully around the lady’s shoulders, and seeking to lift her head.

At that touch the sufferer murmured strangely, wildly, vaguely.

“What is the matter? Dear Lady, what is this?” said Susan in great distress.

“Gone! gone! gone!” exclaimed Estelle in a hollow, echoing voice.

“Oh! you have been asleep—rouse yourself, dear lady! Wake up!”

“Gone! gone! gone!”

“Oh, Heaven! what ails her! What shall I do with her? Lady Montressor! speak to me! look on me! it is I—your poor, faithful Susan! Speak to me, please!”

“Gone! gone! gone!”

Once more Susan put her arms reverently around her mistress’s shoulders and sought to lift her head.

And at that touch the lady turned toward her a death-like face, from which every shade of color had faded, and vacant eyes whence the light of intellect had gone out!

Yes! the heroic soul that had borne up so long, and bravely, and patiently, under such tremendous afflictions, had succumbed at length; the sorely over-tasked heart and brain had yielded; the light of reason had fled.

Meanwhile Lord Montressor, on board the Petrel, pursued his voyage to the West Indies. And, reader this was well—this was best!