in that manner, and in no other, madeline rose from the grave.
when the first shock of meeting was over, and calmer speech was possible, forster told his wife of the duel on boulogne sands and the death of her persecutor at the hands of edgar sutherland; thus assuring her that, whether the marriage with gavrolles was real or a delusion, she was then a free woman. she listened sadly, and seemed little comforted, until forster assured her of his intention, with her consent, to quit england, and seek some country where the story of their sorrows was unknown, and where the viperous journal of the period has not yet begun to crawl. then she again laid her head upon his breast, and promised to go with him, anywhere out of the old world of scandal, cruelty, and shame.
so she lived, who had died. by her own lips the mystery of her resurrection was explained. she told him how, while flying in despair, she had encountered the poor waif of the streets, and in some wild impulse of dread, fearing pursuit, and wishing to destroy all traces of identity, she had taken the shawl from her shoulders, bracelets from her wrists, and given them to her outcast sister. the rest was clear. mad with drink and misery, the outcast must have yielded to death’s fascination, and cast herself away into the river—whence, long afterwards, her disfigured body was taken to be identified by forster and buried, as the reader is aware.
madeline lived again. she still lives, but far away from the scene of her martyrdom. sometimes in the course of his wanderings (for he is still a wanderer and unmarried) edgar sutherland visits a pleasant home on the bank of a great american river, where a happy wife and husband are growing old together among their children. there he is ever an honoured guest, certain of having attentive auditors while he discourses, more garrulously as years creep on, on his pet theme—the purification of manhood and the regeneration of womankind.
uncle luke is yonder, too. at madeline’s strong entreaty, he accompanied her from england; and now, very old and feeble, but still bright and simple as ever, he goes hand in hand through the woods and fields, with another ‘little madlin,’ the very image of the little girl he used to love so well. for a long time he hardly seemed to recognise in the gentle woman who took him to her home the pretty madeline of other years; but when the child came, he, a child himself, found his happiness in her, and recognised the vision of his old playmate, re-risen to delight his declining days.
and now, what remains to be told? the human shadows that have arisen throughout our story fade one by one away. of only one of these, adèle lambert, will the reader care to hear a last record. she died in the springtime at mount eden, passing away, in perfect peace and faith: her spirit purified; her hand in that of the man who had pointed her upward to a holier life, her eyes on the face she had learned to regard as that of an angel, sent to succour sinners in this dark world.
this world remains as most men find it; a tomb, save for those superb spirits who come to bless the wretcheder dwellers in it, with deeds of beautiful self-sacrifice and words of divine love. in the depth of its darker recesses, still the snake-like seducer slimes his victim, and the slanderer spits his venom, and the literature of the liar still festers like a feverish sore, spreading moral sickness and contamination all around. thence, and thence only, comes the voice which would fain proclaim to the unhappy that there is no god, and but one gospel—‘eat and drink, for tomorrow you die.’ but god is, as sure as love is, or hope, or heavenly purity and light. therefore let no man despair, though now, as ever, ‘the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not.’
