34 BY THE SEA.
the most censorious old tabby could have stigmatized as flirting.
The days went on, but Grafton could not get his senses in order—nothing in the shape of a woman had ever puzzled him as Maud Annesly did. There did not. seem to be the slightest memory of the past left in her mind; and whether it was acting or reality, Grafton could not decide. She was perfectly cordial and friendly with him, but there was never, for an instant, the least change in her manner, from what it had been during the first moments of their unexpected meeting.
And the days went on, grew into a week, numbered more than that, and softer and more peaceful each one grew, as if winter had forgotten himself in some distant northern clime; as if the beautiful Indian Summer was to reign monarch till the waning year went out.
A strange season to Grafton Warner—he scarcely recognized himself in this new phase of feeling and experience. Dismiss this woman from his mind he could not; her slightest word or look he could not help watching, wondering always what she felt; if it was true that she had as completely lived past that error in her girlish life as if it had never been.
He saw what a noble creature she had grown into; gifted, carefully educated, generous, noble, and, oh! so beautiful and so womanly, su unlike any other of her sex who had fallen in his way.
And the day came when Grafton Warner was forced to acknowledge that. a spell was on his soul, such as had never before been flung over it; when he marveled that in the old days he could have been so blind and mad; when he knew that he loved this woman.
Yes, he loved her, and in all his life before he had never loved any woman. Passions without number—oh! till one would have supposed the faculty of sensation would have been lost; seasous when he would have committed any rash, mad act—but nothing like this. He loved her. Loved her so well, that he saw himself and his life for what they were really worth, and writhed in gelf-loathing and contempt. Loved her so fully, that if by ten thousand years of: penitence, suffering, torture, he could have blotted out his past, and made his soul pure enough to be worthy to stand beside hers, and be loved and trusted by hers, even for one hour, he would ¢heerfully have gone back to the pangs of purgatory, content, satisfied that he conld bear with him into the darkness the blessed memory that her lips had confessed that she loved him in return.
You think this is theatrical, crazy, you young, untried soul, with the glory of your early youth about you, with all your dreams in their first flush, your soul. unstained; but this man was going out.of his youth, and so, black a hell of recollection and remorse spread between him and the season where you rest, that you can form mo conception of if, until, in your turn, life’s temptations come, and you, perhaps, yield as he had done.
God help you!, God pardon him, and such as he! Thus much let the sternest, the purest say!
He loved her, and he knew not, what love was worth, and felt it sacrilege even to touch her hand withhis, even. to look in her pure eyes with those eyes of his, from whence the trouble in his soul began to look out. He had found his retribution; oh! be satisfied, ye who sit in judgment! Sooner or. later it comes; but in spite of your decision, mayhap, heaven sends it in mercy after all.
Of what he felt, hoped, feared, suffered, Miss Annesly appeared perfectly unconscious; yet it seemed to Grafton that everybody near must be reading in his face just what. he endured; and he cursed himself for not being actor enough, after all his practice, to suffer and be still.
Luckily he met with an accident. A heavy ladder, that he was helping move, fell and struck him a severe blow in the chest, and a cold added to it, really made him play invalid for awhile, at least to the extent of lying on a sofa a good deal, and swallowing with what. patience he might a variety of bitter potions which Mrs. Annesly prepared.
But Maud was kind enough, to administer them with her own hand; to sit by him, read to him, play chess with him. The only drawback to his enjoying his physical pain, at least, was the fact that dear old Roylston was anxious about him, too, and kept near a greater portion of the time than Grafton thought at all necessary.
One day Maud had been reading Aurora Leigh to him, and unconsciously to both, they strayed jnto a conversation much more earnest than was usual with them.
‘And, after all his efforts,” said Grafton, ‘poor Romney Leigh’s life was as hideous a failure as if he had never tried to exert his powers for good.”
«A failure?” cried Maud, and her eyes flashed, and her cheeks glowed. ‘No! I can’t bear to hear anybody say poor Romney! At least his soul was struggling always to the light, and he reached it, after he had learned that no human will can achieve until it has learned to submit.”
«At least he found-one heaven,” Grafton said,
