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CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE LIVING DEAD.
"She is not dead, and she is not wed!
But she loves me now, and she loved me then!
And the very first words that her sweet lips said,
My heart grew youthful again.
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And I think, in the lives of most women and men,
There's a moment when all would go smooth and even,
If only the dead could find out when
To come back and be forgiven."—Lytton.
"Ah, God, for a man with heart, head, hand,
Like some of the simple great ones gone
For ever and ever by,
One still strong man in a blatant land,
Whatever they call him, what care I,
Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat—one
Who can rule and dare not lie."—Tennyson.
Never had Mrs. Courtenay been quite in sympathy with her husband's enterprise. Now that he was gone, however, her one aim was to conserve the interests of his people.
The advances of Elms she regarded with detestation. Never could she unite herself with him. The hallucinations of her friend, Mrs. Dowling, haunted her. Nightly she dreamed of his return, and awoke to know it impossible. She could not marry another; least of all this man she loathed.
But the poor women and children who clung to her, while the men implored her intervention! They knew,
