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Have you seen a plant, scathed by frost, that has made a strong and successful effort to live, and still in its struggling existence bears the mark of the early blight on leaf and blossom? Such was the impression made on my mind by Bertie La Vigne after three years of separation, and yet she had grown into majestic stature and into comparative beauty since we parted at Beauseincourt.
She intended to pursue what gift she had of voice and histrionic talent as a means of livelihood, she told me from the first, and to get rid of the ineffable weariness and monotony of her life at Beauseincourt as well. The two motives seemed to me to be worthy of all praise.
And now we were nearing the gate, with its gray-stone pillars, on one of which, that from which the marble ball had rolled, to hide in the grass beneath, perchance, until the end of all, I had seen the joyous figure of Walter La Vigne so lightly poised on the occasion of my last exodus from Beauseincourt.
The art of verisimilitude is found alone in detail. Let me go back, then, for a brief summary of some of the principal events and personages of Monfort Hall and Beauseincourt, the earlier portions of this retrospect. I will begin with the La Vignes. They continue to reside under the same roof, and Bellevue awaits its master.
Was I not on my way to him in whose presence alone I lived my true life? and what feeling of his morbid fancy was there that my hand could not smooth away, when once entwined in his? Beauseincourt, and all its shadows, had I not put behind me? The sunshine lay before, and in its light and warmth I should still rejoice, as it was my birthright to do.
I thought that the noble dog Ossian came to me again and laid the double-footed key upon my lap, as he had done at Beauseincourt staining my white dress with blood, not mud, this time, and that Colonel La Vigne struck it furiously to the floor, and handed me instead the wooden one I had carved, with the words of the proverb: "The opportunity lost is like the arrow sped: it comes no more.
To dishonor was added the crime of suicide, and poverty and breaking hearts were there, for the heritage of Beauseincourt was, by reason of debt and mismanagement, to pass, after the death of its master, into strange hands the cruel hands of creditors! Walter La Vigne was dead, and the succession of Bellevue passed over the daughters of the house, to vest in a distant kinsman.
Well might the summer air bear on its wings greeting of familiar odors, lost and found! This was no idle dream, no mirage of a vagrant brain like that sea-picture, or that wild vision at Beauseincourt, but sober, and sad, and strange reality. I understood my position from that moment, geographically as well as physically.
What can have occurred to impress you thus? Not this mere routine of affairs, surely? Duncan, a glass of water here for Miss Monfort." "I do not know, I am sure, why I should be so weak for such a trifle," I said, after a few swallows of ice-water had somewhat restored my equilibrium; "but I do feel very dismally about this voyage have done so ever since I left Beauseincourt.
These were relatives of Colonel La Vigne, whose son Walter was the residuary legatee of Bellevue, with but one imbecile life, after that of Madame Favraud, between him and enormous wealth. Great intimacy existed between the families, although from circumstances nameless here the ladies seldom met, and never at Bellevue. Major Favraud was a constant visitor at Beauseincourt, when on his estates.
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