"
* * * * *
"No, subtle snake!
It is the baseness of thy selfish mind,
Full of all guile, and cunning, and deceit,
That severs us so far, and shall do _ever_."
* * * * *
"Despair shall give me strength--where is the door?
Mine eyes are dark! I cannot find it now.
O God! protect me in this awful pass!"
JOANNA BAILLIE, _Tragedy of "Orra."_
PART III.
_SEA AND SHORE_.
CHAPTER I.
It was a calm and hazy morning of Southern summer that on which I turned
my face seaward from the "keep" of Beauseincourt, never, I knew, to see
its time-stained walls again, save through the mirage of memory. There
is an awe almost as solemn to me in a consciousness like this as that
which attends the death-bed parting, and my straining eye takes in its
last look of a familiar scene as it might do the ever-to-be-averted face
of friendship.
The refrain of Poe's even then celebrated poem was ringing through my
brain on that sultry August day, I remember, like a tolling bell, as I
looked my last on the gloomy abode of the La Vignes; but I only said
aloud, in answer to the sympathizing glances of one who sat before
me--the gentle and quiet Marion--who had suddenly determined to
accompany me to Savannah, nerved with unwonted impulse:
"Madame de Stael was right when she said that 'nevermore' was the
saddest and most expressive word in the English tongue" (so harsh to her
ears, usually).
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