Infelice Part 94

Dusky shadows under the melancholy brown eyes made them appear darker, deeper, almost prophetic, and over her lips drifted a fragment from "Regret"

"Oh that word Regret!

There have been nights and morns, when we have sighed, 'Let us alone Regret! We are content To throw thee all our past, so thou wilt sleep For aye.' But it is patient, and it wakes; It hath not learned to cry itself to sleep, But plaineth on the bed that it is bard."...

"Ahyes. In the room of revenge reigns regret. Where is my revenge? It gleamed like nectar, and when I drained it consuming poison clung to my lips. To revenge is to regret--for ever! To-day how utterly widowed; to-morrow--childless. Oh, stranded life! Infelice!

Infelice!"

Upon the stone steps stood the man whom her eyes, turned toward the distant hill-tops, had not yet seen, but when the pa.s.sionate pathos of that voice which had so often charmed and swayed its audiences died away in a sob, a musical yet very tremulous tone fell on the evening air:

"Minnie,--my wife! After almost twenty years of neglect, injustice, and wrong, can the husband of your youth, and the father of your child, hope for pardon?"

"There is no ruined life beyond the smile of heaven, And compensating grace for every loss is given, The Coliseum's sh.e.l.l is loved of flower and vine, And through its shattered rents the peaceful planets s.h.i.+ne."