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THE BATTLE OF LIFE. |
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house: I did not then tell her all, but something of my story, and she freely promised it. While I was contesting that step with myself, and with my love of you, and home, Mr. Warden, brought here by an accident, became, for some time, our companion."
" I have sometimes feared of late years, that this might have been," exclaimed her sister, and her countenance was ashy-pale. " You never loved him—and you married him in your self-sacrifice to me !"
" He was then," said Marion, drawing her sister closer to her, " on the eve of going secretly away for a long time. He wrote to me, after leaving here; told me what his condition and prospects really were; and offered me his hand. He told me he had seen I was not happy in the prospect of Alfred's return. I believe he thought my heart had no part in that contract; perhaps thought I might have loved him once, and did not then; perhaps thought that when I tried to seem indifferent, I tried to hide indifference—I cannot tell. But I wished that you should feel me wholly lost to Alfred—hopeless to him—dead. Do you understand me, love ?"
Her sister looked into her face, attentively. She seemed in doubt.
"I saw Mr. Warden, and confided in his honour; charged him with my secret, on the eve of his and my departure. He kept it. Do you understand me, dear ?"
Grace looked confusedly upon her. She scarcely seemed to hear.
" My love, my sister! " said Marion, " recall your thoughts a moment: listen to me. Do not look so strangely on me. There are countries, dearest, where those who would abjure, a misplaced passion, or would strive against some cherished feeling of their hearts and conquer it, retire into a hopeless solitude, and close the world against themselves and worldly loves and hopes for ever. When women do so, they assume that name which is so dear to you and me, and call each other Sisters. But there may be sisters, Grace, who, in the broad world out of doors, and underneath its free sky, and in its crowded places, and among its busy life, and trying to assist and cheer it and to do some good,—learn the same lesson; and, with hearts still fresh and young, and open to all happiness and means of happiness, can say the battle is long past, the victory long won. Aud such a one am I! You understand me now ?"
Still she looked fixedly upon her, and made no reply.
" Oh Grace, dear Grace," said Marion, clinging yet more tenderly and fondly to that breast from which she had been so long exiled, " if you were not a happy wife and mother—if I had no little |
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