The Doctor's Wife
"MY LOVE'S A NOBLE MADNESS."
Mr. Lansdell did not in a to make any of his return to Mordred. He did not affect any secrecy, it is true; but he himself a good in his own rooms, and out to walk in the direction of Lord Thurston's oak, Mrs. Gilbert also in the afternoons, and where Mr. Lansdell and the Doctor's Wife met each other very frequently: not by accident now; for, at parting, Roland would say, with carelessness, "I you will be walking this way to-morrow,—it is the only walk taking hereabouts,—and I'll you the other volume."
Lord Ruysdale and his were still at Lowlands; but Mr. Lansdell did not himself to pay his respects to his uncle and cousin, as he should most have done in common courtesy. He did not go near the old where the Earl and his in and state; but Lady Gwendoline from her that Mr. Lansdell had come home; and his neglect. She it still more by-and-by, when the maid, who was a little like her mistress, and a little into the bargain, let a of news she had in the servants' hall. Mr. Lansdell had been walking on the Graybridge road with Mrs. Gilbert, the doctor's wife; "and it wasn't the time either; and people do say it looks odd when a like Mr. Lansdell is walking and talking with such as her."
The saw her mistress's turn in the glass. No what the rank or station or of Othello; he or she is to be at peace, or to be happy—knowing nothing. There is always "mine ancient," male or female, as the case may be, to home the about the delinquent.
"I have no wish to the servants' about my cousin's movements," Lady Gwendoline said, with hauteur. "He is the master of his own actions, and free to go where he and with he pleases."
"I'm sure I pardon, my lady, and meant no offence," the answered, meekly. "But she don't like it for all that," the thought, with an chuckle.
Roland Lansdell himself from his kindred; but he was not to go his own way unmolested. The road to is not so and flower-bestrewn a path as we are sometimes to believe. A hand often stumbling-blocks and in our way. It is our own fault if we upon over the barriers, and through the hedges, in a to the goal. Roland had started upon the descent, and was of going at that at which we always travel downhill; but the road was not all clear for him. Charles Raymond of Conventford was the people who of the man's return; and about a week after Roland's arrival, the presented himself at the Priory, and was to his at home. In of Mr. Lansdell's to be at his ease, there was some in his manner as he his old friend.
"I am very to see you, Raymond," he said. "I should have over to Conventford in a day or two. I've come home, you see."
"Yes, and I am very sorry to see it. This is a of good faith, Roland."
"Of what faith? with whom?"
"With me," answered Mr. Raymond, gravely. "You promised me that you would go away."
"I did; and I away."
"And now you have come again."
"Yes," Mr. Lansdell, his arms and looking full at his kinsman, with an upon his face,—"yes; the is a little too for the of an argument. I have come back."
Mr. Raymond was for a minute or so. The man with his against the of the window, and he took his from his friend's face. There was something like in the of his face, and in his attitude, as he with arms against the wainscot.
"I hope, Roland, that since you have come home, it is the which took you away from this place has to exist. You come you are cured. I cannot it to be otherwise, Roland; I cannot that you have with me."
"What if I have come home I my is past all cure! What if I have with you, and have to forget, and come at last I cannot!"
"Roland!"
"Ah! it is a fever, is it not? very foolish, very to the solemn-faced doctor who looks on and the patient and writhing, and to his ravings. Have you a man in the of tremens, flies, and about and on his counterpane? What a it is!—only the of a bottles of brandy: but you can't it. You may the sufferer, but you terror-stricken the might of the disease. You've done your duty, doctor: you to my fever, and I submitted to your remedies: but you're only a quack, after all: and you pretended—what all pretend—to be able to the incurable."
"You have come with the of remaining, then, Roland?"
"C'est selon! I have no present idea of here very long."
"And in the meantime you allow people to see you walking the Graybridge road and about Thurston's Crag with Mrs. Gilbert. Do you know that already that girl's name is compromised? The Graybridge people are to her name with yours."
Mr. Lansdell laughed aloud, but not with the laugh which was common to him.
"Did you look in a British for Graybridge-on-the-Wayverne?" he asked. "There are some which do not give the name of the place at all: in others you'll a little black dot, with the word 'Graybridge' printed in very small letters. The 'British Gazetteer' will tell you that Graybridge is on account of its church, which, &c. &c.; that an to and the village and Warncliffe station; and that the nearest market-town is Wareham. In all the of the world, that's about all the student can learn of Graybridge. What an it must be to a in the Upper Pyrenees, or on the banks of the Amazon, to know that people at Graybridge mix his name sometimes with their tea-table gossip! What an for a in Grecian isles—an the of a Southern sea—to know that Graybridge of him!"
"I had go away, Roland," Mr. Raymond said, looking at his with a sad gaze, and out his hand to take up the and he had upon a chair near him; "I can do no good here."
"You cannot me from the woman I love," answered Roland, boldly. "I am a scoundrel, I suppose; but I am not a hypocrite. I might tell you a lie, and send you away and happy. No, Raymond, I will not do that. If I am and wicked, I have not deliberately. I have against my and my wickedness. When you talked to me that night at Waverly, you only the of my own conscience. I your counsel, and ran away. My love for Isabel Gilbert was only a infatuation, I thought, which would wear itself out like other infatuations, with time and absence. I away, to look upon her again; and then, and then only, I how and how I loved her. I from place to place; but I no more from her image than from my own soul. In I with myself—as men have done my time—that this woman was in no way to other women. Day by day I took my lesson to heart. I cannot talk of these to you. There is a of in such a discussion. I can only tell you that I came to England with a purpose in my mind. Do not upon me; you have done your duty, and may wash your hands of me with Christian-like self-satisfaction; you have nothing to do in this galère."
"Oh, Roland, that you should come to talk to me like this! Have you no of truth or honour? not the common of a gentleman? Have you no for that honest-hearted who has you by his own standard, and has you implicitly? have you no for him, Roland?"'
"Yes, I am very sorry for him; I am sorry for the mistake of his life. But do you think he be happy with that woman? I have them together, and know the meaning of that word 'union' as to them. All the of the cannot them more than they are now. They have not one single in common. Charles Raymond, I tell you I am not a villain; I do still some of that common of which you spoke just now. If I had Isabel Gilbert happy with a husband who loved her, and her, and was loved by her, I would have myself from her pure presence; I would have every that was a to that union. I am not to the lamp which lights a good man's home. But if I a man who has taken of a jewel, as of its value, and as powerless to its beauty, as a soldier who a Raffaelle from the of some and makes a for himself out of the painted canvas; if I a pig pearls under his feet,—am I to the for in his sty, in my that I may the of the animal by taking his away from him?"
"Other men have as you argue to-day, Roland," answered Mr. Raymond. "Other men have as you reason, Roland; but they have not the less and upon themselves and upon the of their sin. Did not Rousseau that the man who a of ground and called it 'mine' was the enemy of the race? You of our modern day the another way, and are to that the man who marries a woman is the to all mankind. He should have himself aloof, and waited till the man upon the scene,—the man with and of and beauty, and all manner of which are to be to womanhood. Bah, Roland! all this is very well on paper, in a little hot-pressed published by Messrs. Moxon; but the was for the special of poets. There must be jog-trot existences, and contentment, and every-day households, in which husbands and love each other, and do their to each other in a plain manner. Life can't be all and poetry. Ah, Roland, it has pleased you of late years to play the cynic. Let your save you now. Is it while to do a great wrong, to a terrible sin, for the of a and a pair of black eyes—for the of a folly?"
"It is not a folly," returned Mr. Lansdell, fiercely. "I was to think that it was so last autumn, when I took your and away from this place. I know now. If there is and truth in the universe, there is and truth in my love for Isabel Gilbert. Do not talk to me, Raymond. The which would have weight with other men, have no power with me. It is my fault or my that I cannot in the in which other men believe. Above all, I cannot in formulas. I cannot that a over by a at Conventford last January can be to me for from the woman I love, and who loves me. Yes, she loves me, Raymond!" the man, his up with a smile, which a to his dark like the rich of a Murillo. "She loves me, my blossom, that I all alone and in a desert—she loves me. If I had or indifference, or of any in her manner the other day when I came home, I would have gone then; I would have my mistake, and would have gone away to alone. My dear old Raymond, it is your duty, I know, to lecture me and argue with me; but I tell you again it is only labour; I am past all that. Try to me, and with me, if you can. Solitude is not such a thing, and people do not go through the world alone without some for their loneliness. There must have been some in your life, dear old friend, some mistake, some disappointment. Remember that, and have upon me."
Mr. Raymond was for some minutes; he sat with his with his hand, and the hand was tremulous.
"There was a in my life, Roland," he said by-and-by, "a and one; and it is the memory of that which makes you so dear to me; but it was a in which had no part. I am proud to think that I suffered, and silently. I think you can guess, Roland, why you have always been, and always must be, as dear to me as my own son."
"I can," answered the man, out his hand, "you loved my mother."
"I did, Roland, and and saw her married to the man she loved. I her in my arms and her on her wedding-day in the church yonder; but from that hour to this have I to love and her. I have a all my life; but her image was nearer and to me than the of other women. I can with a love, Roland; but I cannot with a love that to its object."
"Degrade her!" Roland; "degrade Isabel! There can be no in such a love as mine. But, you see, we think differently, we see from a different point of view. You look through the of Graybridge, and see an elopement, a scandal, a paragraph in the papers. I only the right of two free souls, who know that they have been for each other."
"Do you think of your mother, Roland? I how she loved you, and how proud she was of the that you to be her son. Do you think of her as a presence, of your sorrows, of your sins? I think, if you her thus, Roland, as I do,—she has been to me; she is the in my life, and my life above its common level,—if you of her as I do, I don't think you to the purpose that has you to this place."
"If I what you believe," Mr. Lansdell, with animation, "I should be a different man from what I am—a man than you are, perhaps. I sometimes wonder at such as you, who in all the of worlds, and yet are so and so in all your doings upon this earth. If I believed, I think I should be and by the of my heritage; I would turn Trappist, and live in a from year's end to year's end. I would go and myself the mountain-tops, high up the and the stars, and upon my glory. But you see it is my not to in that fable. I must take my life as it is; and if, after ten foolish, years, Fate one little of in my way, who shall tell me to my hand? who shall me to my treasure?"
Mr. Raymond was not a man to be easily put off. He at Mordred for the of the day and with his cousin, and sat talking with him until late at night; but he away at last with a sad and a heart. Roland's was past the of philosophy. What have Friar Lawrence and had against Miss Capulet's Grecian nose and dark Italian eyes, the air of a warm Southern night, the low of a voice, the of a white arm on a balcony?
