"
The hot tears were rolling down my cheeks during this latter part of
my mother's love-story, and when cousin Bessie looked and saw them,
she buried her own face in her hands, and wept silently for few
moments.
"And how did it end?" I asked through my sobs, impatient to know every
detail.
"Sadly enough," said cousin Bessie, wiping her eyes with a little
linen handkerchief, and folding her hands on her knees. "The truth
came out when it was too late. Young Dalton's actions had been
misconstrued by a malicious rumor, as many a good person's are. He had
interested himself somewhat in Mlle. Campuzano at the request of the
very man who, it was said, had determined to murder him, being a
devoted and earnest friend to him all along. He waited patiently for a
little while, thinking it would all come right in time; at length, he
wrote such a pleading letter to your mother, urging her to renew her
old trust in him, and to do him the justice, if not the kindness, of
believing his solemn assurances, before the careless gossip of their
mutual enemies. This letter reached our house on her wedding-day after
she had left for her honey-moon trip.
"Shortly after her return, her aunt Liddy died, and as she was left
sole heiress to the money and property, she was obliged to go to the
funeral: there, she met Ernest Dalton once again. I believe their
interview was heart-rending. She had her dignity as the wife of
another man to sustain, and he had that dignity to respect, but he
cleared himself in her eyes, and they bade one another a long farewell
in the stillness of the death-chamber, with only the peaceful
slumberer, who lay with the eternal sleep upon her cold drooped lids,
as their witness and their safe-guard.
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