The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1868-08-14
WHOSE WIFE WAS SHE.
concluded.

WHOSE WIFE WAS SHE.
CONCLUDED.
The unconscious revelation seemed
to George too horrible to be possi-
BILE; he heard, but his reason refused
to receive the terrible words. More
as one in, profound astonishment
than as one insorrow, he stared blank
ly at his mother, the room seemed to
sway around him, hut mastering
himself by astrong effort, he begged
his mother to repeat word for word
what she had just said. Madame de
Garran did 30, but no sooner had
she uttered the beloved name, than
George, beating the air with his
hands, and staggering forward a few
PAGES, fell senseless ut her feet, like
one who had just received O mortal
blow. Terrified and shocked, his
mother bent over him. A ivid pale
ness covered his face, his limbs stiff
fened and his breathing was sus-
pended, but his wide-opened eyes
were still fixed upon his mothers
face. There is little doubt that
death or madness must have been
the result of the shock, had not
nature relieved the pent-up tempest
OF grief by passion of sobs and
cries, which when it at length abated,
left the young man as weak as O
child. but calm and composed.
Madame de Garran was q woman
OF strong common sense, and quick
perceptions, and during oil her
efforts to restore and quiet her son,
her mind had been busted with the
circumstances which had led to his
sudden seizure. Reading the past
by the light of the present, she re-
membered her sons prolonged alb
sence In Toulouse, and recognized it
as certain that he must have known
and admired Mademoiselle de 10
Faile. His overpowering emotion
showed that he must have loved her
deeply, snd his love had probably
been unfortunate, else why had she,
his mother, been left in ignorance of
it? Absorbed in her reflections, and
less apprehensive as to her son, who
was lying quietly on the couch on
which she had had him laid, she was
recalled to herself by feeling Georges
hand laid on her own.
"Forgive me, mother" he said,
"for having SO alarmed and troubled
you on the very day of my return,
but this woman, of whose death you
have told me, she was my first and
only love, and in the same breath I
hear of her falsehood and her death.
Oh, Clemence, if for one hour dur
ing all those weary years of captivity
had forgotten you, should hold
myself as fitly punished now; but no,
not an hour, not q minute; you were
ever before me, and after all it was
for the wife of another man that I
was eating my heart out in vain re-
grets."
By slow degrees, Madame de
Garran learned all she wished to
know; and she applied herself to
soothe and comfort him, rather for
the faithlessness than for the death
of Clemence. She represented to
him that Clemence must of course
have heard of his death-on which
no one had cast the shadow of doubt
and that, after period of mourn
ing and despair, the wretched girl,
without any hope of happiness in
this world for herself. had doubtless
yielded to her fathers commands,
and submitted to marriage in
which her heart had no share. In
fact, the arguments which Madame
de Garran's motherly ingenuity put
forth for Georges consolation, con-
tained nothing but the simple truth
and quite as true was her last suppo-
sition, that the death of Clemence
had been caused by her unappeasable
grief for the loss of her lover and the
inability she felt to live in q world
where he no longer was.
George listened silently, not as one
who feels his sorrow to be without
redress, but rather as one who re-
wolves some extraordinary project.
His mother anxiously watched every
varying expression of his face, but
she could read nothing there save
calm deliberation.
Towards evening, he announced
his intention of going out, and she
saw him fill his purse with gold.
She looked on in silence, although
beyond measure uneasy, until he
kissed her forehead and bade her
goodnight. Then she laid her trem-
bling hand on hia arm.