CONCLUSION.

That evening Dora was kneeling at Mrs. Holt's feet, in the privacy of that lady's bed-room. She had evidently heard all, for sobs of passionate grief filled the room; and the poor girl cried out in the sudden anguish that had come upon her.

"Oh! tell me, tell me, what can I do? She will be here; have some mercy, and tell me how to bear all this?"

Mrs. Holt knew how futile any efforts of consolation would be just then, so she gently smoothed the young creature's hair, and only said, in her sweet way,

"Have patience, darling—a little patience."

Dora lifted her lovely face, all wet with tears.

"Does he love her? Will he ever love her again," she said.

"My dear, she is dying."

"Oh! God forgive me! How wicked I have been; but it was so sudden. Tell me, please—where is he now?"

"He wandered off alone at nightfall, darling, quite alone; the poor boy had no courage to meet any one."

"Poor fellow! poor fellow! Tell him, please, how sorry I am. No, you must not say that; tell him nothing, only that I will try to bear it."

Dora arose from the floor, and turned to go away, but she hesitated, and went back to Mrs. Holt's chair.

"Must I tell any one, Mrs. Holt?"

"Not yet, darling. My son must do that when it becomes needful."

"Oh! thank you! It would have been so hard for me! You will not forget to tell him how strong I am, and how well I—I——Oh, Mrs. Holt! I believe my heart is breaking!"

Again Mrs. Holt took the unhappy girl in her arms, and strove by gentle caresses to quiet her. At last Dora went home and stole up to her room, afraid that some one of the household should guess at her sorrow.

The next morning, Sterling, who had been wandering about the prairies all night, appeared at the shanty, prepared to take Constance home to his mother. But the travelers had gone. They had left the house before daylight; construction trains were passing each way continually, but no one could tell what direction they had taken. As Sterling was going out, old Mr. Weeks stole after him, mysteriously, and placed a note in his hand, whispering, "I saw them safe off."

"Where? Which way?"

"They told me not to tell, and I won't—so don't ask me."

Sterling opened the note.

"We have gone forward toward the mission, which God has awarded to me. Do not attempt to follow us, but leave my child alone to His infinite mercies. She goes away peaceful though sad, knowing that you have forgiven her. When she is at rest you will hear from me again.

HUDSON."

* * * * *

Was this letter a relief? Did Sterling breathe more freely when he found that he might yet be silent, save where he was bound in honor to speak of the unhappy woman who had crossed his path only to disappear from it like the ghost she seemed? Be this as it may, he went within the week to another section of the road, only coming home once a fortnight, and never asking to see Dora.

One day, when he returned home, after an absence of two weeks, Mrs. Holt placed a letter in his hand, which had been left at the shanty by a traveler coming across the plains. The young man knew what it contained, and turned cold as marble when he broke the seal.

"She is gone," he said, handing the note to his mother. "My poor, poor wife!"

The next day Sterling returned to the distant station again, quiet and sad, but thankful for all that had been spared him.

The shock of Constance's appearance and death had broken into the happy tranquillity of those two families for a brief space, but no real evil sprung out of it—and with them the dead past was left to bury the past.

* * * * *

Months went by—tranquil, uneventful months, which brought Sterling home again, and renewed the intercourse of those two families in all its cordiality. The probation which was to test the young man's endurance and ability was drawing to a close. Energy, manhood, and industry had wrought out their usual work, and the proudest man among all those who carried their wealth and energies into that new region, would have welcomed Sterling into his family; for he had developed what was better than station or wealth, an abundant power to create and seize upon both.

If there had been anything worthy of record in the papers Mrs. Holt had given him, it seemed to have passed from his mind, for he had only renewed all his exertions, and performed his promise of inducing Dora's father to accept him at his own worth.

Still the mother had been less patient. For herself ambition had failed long ago; but with women like her, it casts vigorous shoots for the next generation; and she was sometimes disturbed with a proud longing for something higher and grander than that prairie life for her son. Still it was a subject which she never spoke of to the young man however much it might fill her own mind.

One day, some months before that appointed for his marriage, Sterling brought home a package of newspapers from the depot, which his mother, who was a craving reader seized upon with smiling avidity. All at once she uttered a sharp cry, and the young man, turning quickly, saw that she sat upright in her chair, white as snow, with the paper grasped tightly in a hand far too unsteady for reading.

Sterling gently forced the paper from her grasp, for she was holding it out to him, and his eyes fell upon this paragraph.

"Died at Nashton Castle, Lincolnshire, Nelson Sterling, eleventh Earl of Marsborough, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. Lord Marsborough has been a long time excluded from the world. Although one of the richest peers in England, it will be remembered that he was made the object of a social romance, some years ago, by a divorce from his wife, a beautiful and highly accomplished lady, whom many persons refuse to believe was ever really guilty of the wrong charged upon her. The scandal of that time has been painfully renewed by the earl's death, as it leaves a singular doubt in connection with the succession. Immediately after the divorce, the Countess of Marsborough disappeared, and with her the only child and heir, then a boy five years of age. It is supposed that she went to Australia or America, under a changed name; but from that day to this all efforts to find the lady or her child have been unavailing.

"At one time there was a rumor that the Countess had married again, and settled in New York; but years brought no confirmation of this, and it is now supposed that both mother and son are dead. In that case the title and estates will fall to a remote branch of the family."

Mrs. Holt sat in perfect silence while her son read the paragraph; then she held out her hand and made a sad effort to smile.

"You will go at once," she said; "the proofs are unbroken—there can be no impediment."

"And you, mother? The good fortune which comes to me will be nothing if you cannot share it."

Mrs. Holt shook her head. "No, my son, I shall never see old England again. Do not look upon me, William, as if you doubted it. You will not believe that shame keeps me back. No wife ever lived, more innocent of wrong to a husband than I was; yet I was driven forth from that court a branded woman. The memory of that undeserved shame makes me shudder even now. After loading me with infamy they would have robbed me of my child; but I would not allow them to wrong me so much. Before they could force you away from me I fled—one great blessing God has permitted to me; through it all, even in my errors, you have clung to me, William."

"To me, mother, you have no errors."

Mrs. Holt shook her head. "It is for these I must suffer; though divorced by the law, and free by the law, I wronged you myself, and the unhappy man who is my Nemesis, by a second marriage. But I loved him; and, God forgive me! I had never loved before. Even now I would rather stay here with him, than share all the great fortune that falls upon you."

"My dear mother, I do not ask you to forsake Mr. Holt. Heaven forbid. I cannot forget how kind he was to us both when we most needed kindness, or how liberal he was with his fortune. Come with me, and your husband. I never thought of any other arrangement. Nashton, surely, will be large enough for us all."

"No," said the lady, smiling in her gentle sadness, "the prairie is best for him, and pleasantest for me. Dora shall take my old place at Nashton. She will make a lovely Countess."

"But, mother!"

"No, no, you must not urge me, William. When I married Mr. Holt, the Countess of Marsborough died. Some day, you and your wife will come to us. Indeed, I think you are too thoroughly a frontiersman to be content even on that grand old estate. We shall have you with us half the time, I hope."

"Indeed you will—but now shall I tell Dora."

"Not yet."

"Well, well, but the time must be shortened now, for if you will not go, mother, I must take her with me. I would not leave her behind, for the best earldom in England."

"Say as much to her father, William, but only as a Sterling; when Dora becomes your wife she must not know that the ceremony puts a coronet on her head."

"Nor must the father; he has taken me at my own worth; after a while, we can throw in the old earldom as a sort of make weight, ha, mother!"

The young man took his hat, and went directly over to Mr. Foster's dwelling; in an hour he came back again, stepping lightly as a young Apollo.

"It is all settled, mother; a week from today we are to start on our wedding-trip, it is arranged that the ceremony will be over by that time. Rather singular, isn't it, Mr. Foster wishes us to go over to England on some railroad business, and promises that the commissioners shall recommend me as a promising young fellow, well acquainted with the business of the road. It is a great step, he says. I wonder what he will think when we come back?"

Mrs. Holt smiled, wiped a few bright tears from her eyes, and called Little Rhoda from the kitchen, to tell her that William would be married that week, and was going to England for his wedding trip.

THE END.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.