The Wildfire Club - The Emma Hardinge Britten Archive

OR TORN LEA. YES FROM LIFE lUSTORY. 195
an artiste. Reposing on a velvet couch, with lofty dome
above and stately statues round her, we find her now the
mistress of Ravensworth Castle. Gabrielle, Countess of
Ravensworth, we now must greet her. But 0, how changed!
Her form is still as graceful, her brow is still as fair; but
her eye has lost its lustre, and her cheek its rose. Her
sweet, glad voice now speaks in cold, imperious tone; her
buoyant step is stately, proud, and measured.
The story of the change is quickly told. When first she
parted from her heart's young love, she watched for his career,
and marked its rise with secret joy and pride. She
heard his name and read its mention in the journals of the
time wi t\l honor, praise, and promotion ever associated;
and in her deep, wild passion, she strengthened herself
by such accounts against the fulfilment of her pledge with
Ravensworth.
At length came the death tale, and with it came the story
of the breach, the loss, the capture. Sick at heart, bend- .
ing beneath the blight that thus unexpectedly fell upon her,
the sounds of music became distasteful to her ear, her profession
unendurable. The applause of the crowd seemed
to mock her misery; and to fly from herself, her grief, and
the odious thrall of serving a public with smiles alld winning
ways, whilst her secret heart was breaking, she determined
to ,vithdraw from public life, and seek seclusion to
indulge her grief. Gabrielle fled from the world, but not
from herself. Her grief pursued her; with it too, ambition,
the proud, deep craving for command and splendor, more
restless in her solitude than in her grief. She did not find
the balm within herself, and nothing but the world could
drown the sorrow she could not kill. 'N e only do her justice
when we admit she did love Ernest; and had that love
had sway, not been divided with the splendid world, but