Tears sprang again to the eyes of the countess as she caught up and
murmured the last two lines: "'But the wearie never win back
To their ain countrie.'"
Phoebe, for it was she who was singing, hushed her song as she reached
her lady's door, and knocked softly. The countess unlocked the door to
admit her.
"It is only the mail bag, my lady, that old Jovial has just brought from
the post office," said the girl.
Lady Hurstmonceux listlessly looked over its contents. Several years of
disappointment had worn out all expectation of hearing from the only one
of whom she cared to receive news. There were home and foreign
newspapers that she threw carelessly out. And there was one letter at
the bottom of all the rest that she lifted up and looked at with languid
curiosity. But as soon as her eyes fell upon the handwriting of the
superscription the letter dropped from her hand and she sank back in her
chair and quietly fainted away.
Phoebe hastened to apply restoratives, and after a few minutes the
lady recovered consciousness and rallied her faculties.
"The letter! the letter, girl! give me the letter!" she gasped in eager
tones.
Phoebe picked it up from the carpet, upon which it had fallen, and
handed it to her mistress.
Berenice, with trembling fingers, broke the seal and read the letter. It
was from Herman Brudenell, and ran as follows: "London, December 1, 18-"Lady Hurstmonceux: If there is one element of saving comfort in
my lost, unhappy life, it is the reflection that, though in an evil
hour I made you my wife, you are not called by my name; but that
the courtesy of custom continues to you the title won by your first
marriage with the late Earl of Hurstmonceux; and that you cannot
therefore so deeply dishonor my family.
"Madam, it would give me great pain to write to any other woman,
however guilty, as I am forced to write to you; because on any
woman I should feel that I was inflicting suffering, which you know
too well I have not--never had the nerve to do; but you, I know,
cannot be hurt; you are callous. If your early youth had not shown
you to be so, the last few years of your life would have proved it.
If you had not been so insensible to shame as you are to remorse,
how could you, after your great crime, take possession of my house
and, by so doing, turn my mother and sisters from their home and
banish me from my country? For well you know that, while you live
at Brudenell Hall, my family cannot re-enter its walls! Nay,
more--while you choose to reside in America, I must remain an exile
in Europe. The same hemisphere is not broad enough to contain the
Countess of Hurstmonceux and Herman Brudenell.