The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-02-27
GUILDEROY
81 Il
Author of ''Under Two Flags" 1.-TWO Lit
tie Wooden Shoes" "Chandos,"
@Don Gesualdo," Etc.
ESow hr.t published. An right, rs,srvsd.I
CHAPTER LII.

There was an intricate question pending
in England affecting some leases on one of
his estates, which afforded reason enough
TO summon his land agent to personal
conference. When the matter had been
discussed in its financial and legal aspects,
he inquired as carelessly as he could:
''And what of Lady Guilderoy? Is she
well? Is she always living in the house
her father had at Christslea?"
His agent answered in the affirmative,
feeling on his part considerable embar-
rassment, for this separation, into which
the law did not enter, this unexplained
and unregulated severance, was little un-
derstood by any OF his people.
"And does she keep herself wholly
withdrawn from the world?" he added.
Does she see no one? l regret it if it
is so; she is too young for such solitude"
"She sees no one, said the man of busi-
ness, more and more in doubt as to what
answers he should make. "At least Lord
Aubrey comes sometimes, as no doubt
your lordship knows"
Guilderoys face flushed. eyes. have
asked him to do so, he said quickly.
II was falsehood, but it was an in
stinctive one to save her from suspicion.
He inquired no more.
The agent returned home with doubt,
which had not before visited him, that
Lady Guilderoy was not SO wholly inno-
cent as she looked"
"After ALL" thought the man, "she
keeps him out of England, so it is she who
must be to blame, there can be no doubt
OF that
He had told Aubrey himself that it was
apity that he had not married her, and he
had thought so honestly. They would
have been perfectly sympathetic to one
another. Yet the knowledge that these
sympathies which were between them
had now full leisure and free scope to be
developed and inGulGed in any way they
chose.in the absolute loneliness of Christs-
lea, was detestable to hin. After all, he
thought, he could not refuse her tine lib
erty which be had himself taken. 1t
would have seemed to him mean and un-
worthy to enjoy freedom for himself
which he did not accord to her. He had
tine large morality, or immortality. of a
man of the world if she could console
herself in any way for the disorder and
desolation which he had brought into her
life, he would be brute to grudge it to
her. So he reasoned.
He had put her out of his own exist
ence; he could not complain if she made
a separate life for herself. And yet the
idea of his cousin alone with her in those
little quiet rooms of Christslea was dis
agreeable to him. She had said that she
would always respect the honor of his
name; but those were only words, though
they might have been words sincerely
meant when they were spoken. He knew
that the heart of any woman once serious
" involved will force her TO abandon her
strongest principles, as the warmth Oi
summer forces the willow and the svca-
more to drop their spring-time catkins.
And he thought OF her more than be had
ever done before.
She had grown very vague to him. His
memory had but seldom reverted to her.
He possessed the happy faculty of being
able to dismiss from his mind what he did
not wish to think of; and the coldness,
the harshness, and the scorn with which
she had spoken to him in their last inter
view had hardened his heart utterly
against her But since the words of his
man of business, few and trite though
they were, the manner of her life came
before him more painfully, more posi-
lively. The little house at Christslea and
the recollection of John Vernon came TO
his recollection with painful clearness. He
remembered the first dav that he had gone
thither and been welcomed with such
frank cordiality and simplicity. He had
repaid the welcome i'll; he knew it, and,
being by nature generous. the sense OF his
lack of generosity oppressed him with
sense OF error which all the moralists on
earth would never have succeeded in
bringing home to him
As he walked in the glad sunshine by
the banks OF the Brenta, he thought OF
Christslea as he knew that it must be
then-bleak. cold, gray, cheerless, with
dull angry waters, and high winds blow
ing through black, leafiess trees, and
lonely moorlands shrouded in icy mists
Winter on that coast had always seemed
TO him an unendurab.e and hateful thing;
and vet she was living through it by
deliberate choice, uDccmpanioned, un-
friended, and alone. Nay-nOt always
alone. She had Aubrey. Aubrey was a
man of scrupulous honor he knew; but
he also knew that there are hours in the
lives of all those who love in which re-
sistance and strength sleep like the tired
Samson In the noon slesta. tie knew,
too, that his own conduct had given him
no title to complain of whatever advan-
tage any other man might take OF his
absence.
Aubrey was there, sometimes at least,
in such familiar intercourse as solitude in
the country pertorce creates. The idea
was not welcome TO HIM. There had been
occasionally in him vague impatience of
the high esteem in which she held his
cousin, and the comparison which she had
openly drawn more than once between
their manner of life. Aubrey had been
indifferent to women, but women had
never been Indifferent TO him; his person,
bis intellect, and his fame were all such
as might well captivate a poetic and seri-
Gus woman such as Gladys was, especially
If united TO romantic and chivalrous de-
votion, aided by the auxiliaries of solitude
and misfortune.
Guilderoy, who was so profoundly
versed in the contradictions and intrica-
cies OF the feminine temperament, knew
that there is no moment at which it is so
susceptible to attachment as that in which
1t is bruised and bleedingfrom the offenses
and the wounds of desertion.
Well, il il were so, he told himself, be
had no right To object 70 IT, or to censure