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American Sunday Monthly Magazine Section
ii
Guinevere’s Lovei\
Chapter XXII
O-DAY is Hugh’s wedding-day.
It is full of angry showers with
a high wind—-the 3rd of August.
Letitia has written to me what
she thinks I ought to know and
nothing further. She has the
family pride and will not admit
1 am crushed with pain over this,
any more than I will admit it to myself. The en
gagement was very brief—just over a month—and
most of the time Lady Kathleen was in Paris getting
her trousseau, and Hugh was seeing to his affairs
and up at Bransdale, where he has decided to rebuild
the house that was burned down a mile or two further
off from the town. Letitia, commenting upon these
events, said in a letter:
“Hugh is behaving decently and like a gentleman,
isn’t he? He is arranging not to have to live always
at Minton Dremont. But he looks defiant. Ido
not know if he is happy or not. He was for the
first few days, I expect, while Kathleen kept up the
sweetly demure role—but Hilda says when she felt
perfectly sure of him she dropped it a little, and
played again with Tommy Burleigh (the boy in the
Guards) and that they (she and Hugh) had a'fright
ful row'—and that is why Hugh went off up to Brans
dale, he could not cope with her, and did not wish
to be tantalized. It is pitifully undignified, and
simply scorches us who know him. Ada is too
mordantly entertaining over it. They are all wild,
as you can imagine, though they predict it W'on’t
last two years. The most curious thing abrtut it is,
that there is really some mystery concerning Kath
leen’s mother—an awfully nice American man from
Virginia took me in to dinner the other night at
a party—just after the engagement was announced—
and we chanced to talk of very old families and
their continuance in England, and he mentioned
Hugh’s—he was extremely interested in pedigrees
and heredity and those things, and I said that here
was a case of two very old families going to be united,
as Lord Catesby’s was simply a sort of thing from
the ark. And his jaw' dropped—and he said, ab
solutely flabbergasted: ‘I)o you mean’to tell me
Sir Hugh Dremont is going to marry Bella Billwood’s
daughter—Good Lord!’—and then, when I asked
him why he was so startled, and what it all meant,
he changed the conversation rapidly and would not
answ’er that, but seemed most anxious to know when
the wedding was to be. I felt frightfully interested,
as you may think.” . .
I did not go to the wedding. I have had to act
many things during these weeks of anguish, and I
made all semblance of joy and interest. Of what
use would my sacrifice of two years ago have been
if I had now, from my own hideous suffering, be
trayed the situation and again aroused suspicion in
Algernon’s heart. He has no illusions upon life
generally, I fear, and would most certainly' have
drawn some undesirable inference from any sign
of shrinking on my part. So I made a pretence of
gladness, and talked of my dress in these three days
my son has been back from Eton—and then this
morning, when we were ready to start, I allowed
myself to fall down the last three steps of the great
stairs and feigned a wrenched ankle, and with seem
ingly great reluctance made the two depart for
London without me—and now I am standing alone
here in my turret room—and the angry showers
beat against the east window and drop in fizzing
drops dowm the wide chimney upon the sullen logs
which have just been lit. For I am again cold as
deal'’.
Synopsis of Preceding Chapters —Guinevere,
the young wife of the aged and selfish General
Bohun, in spite of her youth and beauty has led a
lonely and narrow married life. Her little son, Al
gernon, is much like his father, and both neglect
her. They have just moved into the ancestral
country seat of the Bohuns when Guinevere’s
elder sister, Letitia, arrives and tells her about
Sir Hugh Dremont, a neighbor, whom they soon
meet. Guinevere feels a powerful attraction for
Sir Hugh, which has developed into love on both
sides when Guinevere obtains permission from
her crabbed husband to visit her sister in London.
Sir Hugh devotes himself to Guinevere as much
as is possible without causing comment. In this
they are aided by Letitia. At last the short
period of bliss is over and Guinevere is compel
led to return to her home. General Bohun is
unexpectedly sent away on a long diplomatic
mission, which permits Sir Hugh to visit Guin
evere daily and the perilous intimacy to fur
ther ripen. The lovers fight with what seems
to be the inevitable and Guinevere sends Sir
Hugh away time and again only to have him
come back bound closer to her than ever.
At Cowes, Guinevere spends an evening with
Sir Hugh on his racing schooner the Hermione.
but upon her return to her husband’s yacht
is received by Algernon with open suspicion.
Guinevere tells Sir Hugh he must never see
her again. The next news is that Sir Hugh
has married in a fit of passion or pique the
youthful Lady Kathleen Catesby. Guinevere
faints as she receives the word.
and with all these interests they can
heal them of their hurts. But for such
as I am—who love one man only and
for ever, supremely and above all
other things, the day he is wedded to
another woman must contain all of
torture there is on thisearth toknow
I heard the carriage come into
the courtyard from the station a
while ago, and now there is a
second sound of arrival—what
can it mean—? Humphrey and
Algernon stayed the night in
London, and were to have re
turned by the five-forty-two
train. They must be in the li
brary—1 wonder why Algernon,
at least, does not come up to see
me and tell me all the news.
What can he be delaying for? I
think I will get up from my bed
room sofa and go down and find
out. My ankle does not hurt in
the least, really—I must look in
terested and anxious to hear. To
all the neighborhood this mar
riage is of vital, thrilling import
ance and excitement. What is
that noise of whispering beyond
the. screen?—Hartington’s voice
and Parton’s— Ah! Heaven,
what has happened!—I must see.
It has overtaken us at last—-
the haunting terror of this house
-—It has caught them, these last
Bohuns, in the horror of its grasp,
and choked the life out of one
of them—
Humphrey is dead his death
caused by passionate rage against
his son.
Oh! for days and weeks, I have not been able to
face the thought or realize the frightful sequence
of events. Grief and horror have had the mastery
of me.
I am standing alone here, in my turret room for I am again cold as death
met him in the hall and picking up a riding whip—
when Algernon would not answer him went in his
rage, to strike him—there just in front of the suits
of armor with the visors lowered, that seem always
Do men ever suffer as women do? I think not,
for they are free and can be up and doing. They can
fly far from the scene of their pain and have diver
sions. And their natures are different, too; for
them, the swift movement of horses and the slaying
of beasts, gives satisfaction—or to have their ambi
tions excited about politics or any other combat in
the arena of life. And their senses can be pleased
by the beauty of women that they even do not know,
And of what use now to put down how my poor
Humphrey discovered in London that Algernon had
been betting heavily upon all races that he could,
and had lost over a thousand pounds. Or of
Humphrey’s furious passion in the train, which
Algernon missed, leaving him to come down alone.
All these things are details in a tragedy that we can
never forget.
Then of how, when the boy did arrive, his father
to watch in sinister mocking the ways of the modern
world. Algernon’s passion rose, too, perhaps natur
ally, and he cried aloud:
“If you strike me, father, I warn you, I will kill
you—keep away.”
But Humphrey came on, and as he raised the
whip Algernon seized it madly in his strong grasp.
Then that same awful convulsion overcame Hum
phrey, as once before when he was angry with the