Part 42 (2/2)

Delme turned away to master his emotion.

At this moment, a friendly hand was laid on his shoulder, and Mrs.

Vernon's maid, with her eyes red from weeping, beckoned him up stairs.

He mechanically obeyed her--reeled into an inner drawing room--and stood in the presence of the bereaved mother.

Mrs. Vernon was ordinarily the very picture of neatness. _Now_ she sat with her feet on a footstool--her head almost touching her lap--her silver hair all loose and dishevelled. It seemed to Delme as if age had suddenly come upon her.

She rose as he entered, and with wild hysterical sobs, threw herself into his arms.

”My son I my son! that _should_ have been. Our angel is gone--gone!”

Delme tried to speak, but his tongue clove to his mouth, and the hysteric globe rose to his throat.

Suddenly he heard the sound of wheels, and of heavy footsteps on the stairs.

He imprinted a kiss on the old woman's forehead--it was his farewell for ever!--gave her to the care of the maid servant--and rushed from the room.

He was stopped on the landing of the staircase by the coffin of her he loved so well. The bearers stopped for an instant; they felt that this was no common greeting. Part of the pall was already turned back. Delme removed its head with trembling hand.

”Julia Vernon. aetate 22.”

He dropped the velvet with a groan, and was only saved from falling by the timely aid of the old butler, whose face was as sorrowful as his own.

But there was a duty yet to be performed, and Delme followed the corpse.

The first mourning coach was just drawn up. An intended occupant had already his foot on the step.

”This place is mine!” said Sir Henry in a hollow voice.

The cortege proceeded; and Delme, giddy and confused, heard solemn words spoken over his affianced one, and he waited, till even the coffin could he discerned no more.

Thompson, who had followed his master, a.s.sisted him into his carriage, placed himself beside him, and ordered the driver to proceed to the hotel.

But Delme gave a quick impetuous motion of the hand, which the domestic understood well; and the horses' heads were turned towards the metropolis.

The mourner tarried not, even to bid his sister farewell; but sought once more his brother's grave. Some friendly hand had kept its turf smooth; no footsteps, save the innocent ones of children, had pressed its gra.s.sy mound. It was clothed with soft daisies and drooping harebells. The sun seemed to s.h.i.+ne on that spot, to bid the wanderer be contented and at rest.

But as yet there was no rest for Delme. And he stood beside the marble slab, beneath which lay Acme Frascati. The downy moss--soft as herself--was luxuriating there; and the cry of the cicalas was pleasant to the ear; and the image of the young Greek girl, as in a vivid picture, rose to his mind's eye. She was not attired in her white cymar; nor was her head wreathed with monumental amaranths;--health was on her cheek, fond smiles on her pouting lip, and tender love swimming in her melting glance.

His own griefs came back on Delme; he groaned aloud. He traversed the deserts, he crossed lofty mountains, he knew thirst and privations. He was scoffed at and spat upon in an infidel country--he was tossed on the ocean--he shook hands with danger.

He visited our wide Oriental possessions; and sojourned amid the spicy islands of the Indian Archipelago, where vegetation attains a magnificence unknown elsewhere, and animal life partakes of this unexampled exuberance,--where flowers of the most exquisite colours and fragrance charm the senses by day, and delicious plants saturate the air with their odours by night.

Delme extended his wanderings to the rarely visited ”many isles,” which stud the vast Pacific, and found that there too were fruitful and smiling regions.

But not on the desert--nor on the mountains--nor in the land of the Moslem---nor on tempestuous seas--nor in those verdant islets, which seem to breathe of Paradise, to greet the wearied traveller; could Delme's restless spirit find an abiding place, his thirst for foreign travel be slaked, or his heart know peace.

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