Ethel Churchill/Chapter 115
CHAPTER XXXIX.
PARTING.
That is love
Which chooseth from a thousand only one
To be the object of that tenderness
Natural to every heart; which can resign
Its own best happiness for one dear sake;
Can bear with absence; hath no part in hope,
For hope is somewhat selfish: love is not,
And doth prefer another to itself.
"Do not," whispered Walter, as he watched Ethel's eyes glance round the room, and then turn mournfully on himself, "do not pity the poverty which surrounds me; but for that I should have lost the greatest happiness life has known. It is to your gentle charity that I owe this visit, that my last look will fall on the face which has to me been, through life, my most sweet and sacred dream. Fairest and dearest, if I leave behind me aught of passionate feeling, and of true emotion, it is to your inspiration that I owe it."
Another visitor disturbed them; and softly, but hastily, Norbourne Courtenaye entered the room.
"Oh, Walter!" exclaimed he, "did our true friendship deserve that you should let me find you thus? I have found you, too, with such difficulty"
He broke off abruptly, for he caught sight of Ethel. There was, however, no time for indulgence of individual feeling; for, overcome by the exertion just made, Walter had sunk back in his chair fainting. In a few moments he revived, but a change had passed over his countenance—death was in every feature. Once more his large dark eyes lighted with transient lustre, as he gazed earnestly on Ethel and Norbourne, who stood before him.
"Do you remember," said he, in a voice so hollow and so low, that the accents were scarce audible, "the last evening that we spent beside the little fountain? Why should coldness have taken the place of that love which I then believed was so happy, so perfect? What could have parted you? At this moment, though your looks are averted, there is love in them, that love which nothing else can supply. I pray of you, let no worldly motive, no false pride, no vanity, come between your affection!"
He was holding a hand of each; and, feebly, he put them together. Norbourne started, for he felt that Ethel did not withdraw hers. He looked at her for a moment; her eyes dropped, but in that sweet and conscious look he read a new world of hope and love.
"God bless you!" said Walter. "Lavinia! my kind, my generous nurse!" added he, in accents more and more broken, "may your kindness to me be requited tenfold! Ah! if my dying words might in aught avail, you would leave"
But his words died in a strange gurgling in the throat; the eyes suddenly became fixed; the mouth fell; once he stretched out his hands convulsively, but they instantly relaxed, and his head sunk on Norbourne's arm. They raised him; and, carrying him to the bed, laid him there. Pale, tranquil, and sweet, his face looked sleep, not death. They knelt by the bedside, at first too awe-struck for sorrow; prayers, not tears, seemed fitted to the scene: they felt as if around them were the presence of Heaven.
And so perished, in the flower of his age, in the promise of his mind, the high-minded and gifted Walter Maynard. He died poor, surrounded by the presence of life's harsh and evil allotment, but the faithful and affectionate spirit kept its own to the last. Depressed, sorrowful, he might be, as he went on a hard path wearily; but he died hopeful and loving. His poet's heart clung to this world, but to leave it a rich legacy of feelings and of thoughts; his spirit welcomed death, the eternal guide to the mighty world beyond the grave.
How many beautiful creations, how many glorious dreams went with him to the tomb! but the unfulfilled destiny of genius is a mystery whose solution is not of earth. It is but one of those many voices wandering in this wilderness of ours that tell us, not here is our lot appointed to finish. We are here but for a space and a season; for a task and a trial, and of the end no man knoweth. The earthly immortality of the mind is but a type of the heavenly immortality of the soul. Peace be to the beating heart and the worn spirit that had just departed, "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest!"