The days and the weeks and the months moved on. The golden autumn
gave way to the majesty of winter, winter softened beneath the kiss of spring,
like a hard old king in the embrace of his girlish bride; spring ripened into the
trancéd glow of summer, and Neria's widowed heart mourned day by day more
passionately, and more remorsefully. Remorsefully, for upon that delicate conscience
lay the burden of a noble life sacrificed to her ingratitude. Not one of
the weary days, not one of the fearsome nights since the news of Vaughn s
death, but she had told herself that it was for love of her, for sorrow at her coldness,
and remorse at the bonds he had placed upon her, that he had gone to his
death so resolutely—that death and he could not fail to meet. Day and night she
bowed herself before God and before His spirit for pardon and comfort, and day
and night she rose uncomforted, for as the flow of Heavenly love warmed and
expanded her heart, came with it the fresh consciousness of the earthly passion
sprung full-grown to life within her soul, and clamoring aloud for the food she
could not give it.

And Francia, the bright, the loving, the joyous Francia mourned also.
Mourned the father she had adored, the joy that had passed from her life and
from her home; mourned her own wasted youth and wasted heart; for this is
the cruel nature of a great sorrow, that it does not absorb and negative the
other sorrows preoccupying the heart where it comes to dwell, but rather stings
and quickens them to new life, inhabiting with them not in peace or in harmony,
but with a bitter fellowship.

To these two in their seclusion came occasionally Fergus or his father, with
news of the great world, its battles, its progress, its interests, or its gossip.
Thus they knew, or might, if they had cared to listen, how the elections went;
how England and France stood waiting, one at either hand, to side with the
stronger against the weaker party, so soon as victory should clearly declare itself
in the family quarrel they so eagerly watched; how gold, and with it bread,
and fuel, and clothes, rose day by day out of the reach of those who most needed
them.

Heard, too, how Claudia, the gayest of the gay, shone starlike at all the festivities
of not only her own city but the other great capitals of the country, and

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how, while her husband buried himself to the lips in the gold the misfortunes
of the land was pouring into his coffers, Queen Claudia was forever surrounded
by a cloud of courtiers and slaves whom she managed so well that rumor found
no one among them to honor with the preference. And the hard old man, her
father, in whose heart a certain admiration for this brilliant and evil child replaced
all other emotions of tenderness to his kind, rubbed his dry white hands,
smiled a covert smile and said,

“Claudia is a clever girl, a very clever girl. She enjoys herself and spends
Livingstone's money after her own fashion, but the world finds nothing to take
hold of. A cool head, and a cool heart, too, has Mrs. Livingstone.”

But of all these, one subject alone had interest for Neria, and this was the
war. Since Vaughn's death the only link holding her to earth had seemed to
be the cause in which he died. She read all the news, listened to all the details
brought her by the Murrays, traced through the desolate southern land the
progress of our armies, but more especially the corps containing Vaughn's regiment,
whispering to herself,

“He would have been here now,” or “They need not have made this retreat
had he been with them,” and so, half persuading herself that he was still identified
with the great struggle, she identified herself with it not only in interest,
but by contributing of the means at her command, so liberally as to call down
the censure of her advisers, and a recommendation on more than one occasion
from Mr. Murray to regulate her donations somewhat upon the scale of those
of other and wealthier patriots. But Neria, gentle and yielding in most matters
of business, was here inexorable, saying, with serene decision,

“We need but little here at Bonniemeer, and all the rest goes to help his
armies and his fellow-soldiers.”