That subject was
tacitly avoided by both. There was a pain too intense, a memory too
dark, associated with the events of that period.
And so the story ends. There is no sound of pleasant wedding bells to
close my record with their merry, jangling chorus. Is it not the fate
of the innocent to suffer in this life for the sins of the wicked? Lady
Eversleigh's widowhood, Douglas Dale's lonely life, are the work of
Victor Carrington--a work not to be undone upon this earth. If he has
failed in all else, he has succeeded at least in this: he has ruined
the happiness of two lives. For both his victims time brings peace--a
sober gladness that is not without its charm. For one a child's
affection--a child's growing grace of mind and form, bring a happiness
on, clouded at intervals by the dark shadows of past sorrow. But in the
heart of Douglas Dale there is an empty place which can never be filled
upon earth.
"Will the Eternal and all-seeing One forgive her for her reckless,
useless life, and shall I meet her among the blest in heaven?" he asks
himself sometimes, and then he remembers the holy words of comfort
unspeakable: "Come unto me, ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I
will give you rest."
Had not Paulina been "weary, and heavy laden," bowed down by the burden
of a false accusation, friendless, hopeless, from her very cradle?
He thought of the illimitable Mercy, and he dared to hope for the day
in which he should meet her he loved "Beyond the Veil.
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