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The Book Of Memory
by
“As I said, Edith, I love you as I could love a pure and gentle sister. Will you accept this love? Will you be to me a friend–a sister?”
Again there passed upon the countenance of Edith a deadly palor; while her lips quivered, and her eyes had a strange expression. This soon passed away, and again something of its former repose was in her face. At the first few words of Florence, Edith withdrew the hand he had taken. He now sought it again, but she avoided the contact.
“You do not answer me, Edith,” said the young man.
“Do you wish an answer?” This was uttered in a scarcely audible voice.
“I do, Edith,” was the earnest reply. “Let there be no separation between us. You are to me what you have ever been, a dearly prized friend. I never meet you that my heart does not know an impulse for good–I never think of you but–“
“Let us be as strangers!” said Edith, rising abruptly. And turning away, she fled from the room.
Slowly did the young man leave the apartment in which they were sitting, and without seeing any member of the family, departed from the house. There was a record on his memory that time would have no power to efface. It was engraved too deeply for the dust of years to obliterate. As he went, musing away, the pale face of Edith was before him; and the anguish of her voice, as she said, “Let us be as strangers,” was in his ears. He tried not to see the one, nor hear the other. But that was impossible. They had impressed themselves into the very substance of his mind.
Edwin Florence had an engagement for that very evening. It was with one of the most brilliant, beautiful, and fascinating women he had ever met. A few months before, she had crossed his path, and from that time he was changed towards Edith. Her name was Catharine Linmore. The earnest attentions of Florence pleased her, and as she let the pleasure she felt be seen, she was not long in winning his heart entirely from his first love. In this, she was innocent; for she knew nothing of the former state of his affections towards Edith.
After parting with Edith, Edwin had no heart to fulfill his engagement with Miss Linmore. He could think of nothing but the maiden he had so cruelly deserted; and more than half repented of what he had done. When the hour for the appointment came, his mind struggled awhile in the effort to obtain a consent to go, and then decided against meeting, at least on that occasion, the woman whose charms had led him to do so great a wrong to a loving and confiding heart. No excuse but that of indisposition could be made, under the circumstances; and, attempting to screen himself, in his own estimation, from falsehood, he assumed, in his own thoughts, a mental indisposition, while, in the billet he dispatched, he gave the idea of bodily indisposition. The night that followed was, perhaps, the most unhappy one the young man had ever spent. Days passed, and he heard nothing from Edith. He could not call to see her, for she had interdicted that. Henceforth they must be as strangers. The effect produced by his words had been far more painful than was anticipated; and he felt troubled when he thought about what might be their ultimate effects.
On the fifth day, as the young man was walking with Catharine Linmore, he came suddenly face to face with Edith. There was a change in her that startled him. She looked at him, in passing, but gave no signs of recognition.
“Wasn’t that Miss Walter?” inquired the companion of Edwin, in a tone of surprise.
“Yes,” replied Florence.
“What’s the matter with her? Has she been sick? How dreadful she looks!”
“I never saw her look so bad,” remarked the young man. As they walked along, Miss Linmore kept alluding to Edith, whose changed appearance had excited her sympathies.