The Story of an Untold Love. Ford Paul Leicester
great a strain. The day after he sent the manuscript to Paris, as he sat conning the sheets of the concluding chapter of my history, he laid them down without a word, and, leaning forward, quietly rested his head upon the table. I was by his side and had him on the sofa in an instant, where he lay unconscious till the doctor came. We were told that it was a slight stroke, and by the next day he seemed quite well. But slowly he lost the use of one side, and within a week was helpless. I like to remember that I was well enough to tend him as he had tended me. He lingered for a month, sweet and gentle as always; then, one evening, as I sat beside him, he opened his eyes and said, "Good-night, Don. Good-night, Maizie." And with those words his loving soul went back to its Creator.
I found about his neck a ribbon to which was attached a locket containing the long tress you cut off for him that day in the Bois, one of my mother's curls, and a little tow-colored lock which I suppose was my own hair before it darkened, – a locket I have since worn unchanged, because, sadly discordant though such association has become, I cannot bring myself to separate what he tied together. It seems to symbolize his love for all of us.
The kindness of my friends I can never forget. I was so broken down as really to be unfit for thought, and their generous foresight did everything possible to spare me trouble or pain. Especially to Professor and Frau Jastrow do I owe an unpayable debt, for they made me feel that there was still some one in whose love I stood first; and had I been the child who had never come to them, I question if they could have done more for me than they did.
One thing that I had to do myself was to notify my mother of my father's death. From the time she had quitted us my father and I had avoided mention of her; but during his illness he asked me to write in case of his death, and gave me her New York address, from which I inferred that in some way he had kept himself informed concerning her, though I feel very certain that she had never written him. That I had never tried to learn anything myself was due to the estrangement, but still more to my interest in my studies and work. Now I wrote her, as I had promised, telling her briefly the circumstances of my father's illness and death, and offering to write fuller details if she wished to know them. I would not feign love for her, but I wrote tenderly of him and without coldness to her. She never replied.
Kind as were all my intimates, I craved more than friendship, however loving it might be. One of the two great loves of my life had gone out from it, and, in the gap it left, the other became doubly dear to me. The wish to see you grew and strengthened each day, until at last it shaped my plans, and I announced my intention to visit America; making the specious explanation that, after my long invalidism and grief, the change would be the best specific for me.
At this time I received the offer of appointment as professor extraordinarius of philology and ethnology under Jastrow, another manifestation of his love; but till I had seen you I would not bind myself by accepting, and through his influence I was given three months to consider my answer. I seem doomed never to requite the services of those I love the most, but I am glad that in the nine months which I passed under his roof my knowledge of the Eastern dialects had pushed his work so much nearer completion.
Leaving all my possessions behind except the manuscript of my history, I started on my voyage of love. For two days I tarried in Paris, settling my little property. I had long known that the flotsam of my father's fortune, wrecked in Wall Street, was a few bonds deposited with Paris bankers; and when I called upon the firm it was merely to continue the old arrangement, by which they cut the coupons and placed them to my bank credit. It was in this visit that I searched out our old pension, and sat dreaming in the park. How could I imagine, remembering those days of closest love and sympathy, and knowing too your kindness to one you thought a mere Eastern stroller, that you could have changed so to your former friend?
The most curious fact to me, in looking back upon that time, is that the idea never occurred to me that you were a married woman. It never entered my thoughts that a beauty which fascinated and drew me so far from my natural orbit must be an equally powerful charm to other men. As for Mr. Blodgett, I never gave him a second thought, not even accounting for his relations with you. My foolishness, I suppose, is typical of the scholar's abstraction and impracticality.
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