The Shadow of a Sin

Charlotte Brame

Bertha M. Clay, Charlotte M. Brame

The Shadow of a Sin

CHAPTER I

"She is coming – my own, my sweet;

Were it ever so airy a tread,

My heart would hear her and beat

Had it lain for a century dead."

A rich musical voice trolled out the words, not once, but many times over – carelessly at first, and then the full sense of them seemed to strike the singer.

"'Had it lain for a century dead,'" he repeated slowly. "Ah, me! the difference between poetry and fact – when I have lain for a century dead, the light footfalls of a fair woman will not awaken me. 'Beyond the sun, woman's beauty and woman's love are of small account;' yet here – ah, when will she come?"

The singer, who was growing impatient, was an exceedingly handsome young man – of not more than twenty – with a face that challenged all criticism – bright, careless, defiant, full of humor, yet with a gleam of poetry – a face that girls and women judge instantly, and always like. He did not look capable of wrong, this young lover, who sung his love-song so cheerily, neither did he look capable of wicked thoughts.

"'You really must come, for I said

I would show the bright flowers their queen.'

That is the way to talk to women," he soliloquized, as the words of the song dropped from his lips. "They can not resist a little flattery judiciously mixed with poetry. I hope I have made no mistake. Cynthy certainly said by the brook in the wood. Here is the brook – but where is my love?"

He grew tired of walking and singing – the evening was warm – and he sat down on the bank where the wild thyme and heather grew, to wait for the young girl who had promised to meet him when the heat of the day had passed.

He had been singing sweet love-songs; the richest poetry man's hand ever penned or heart imagined had been falling in wild snatches from his lips. Did this great poem of nature touch him – the grand song that echoes through all creation, which began in the faint, gray chaos, when the sea was bounded and the dry land made, and which will go on until it ends in the full harmony of heaven?

He looked very handsome and young and eager; his hair was tinged with gold, his mouth was frank and red; yet he was not quite trustworthy. There was no great depth in his heart or soul, no great chivalry, no grand treasure of manly truth, no touch of heroism.

He took his watch from his pocket and looked at it. "Ten minutes past seven – and she promised to be here at six. I shall not wait much longer."

He spoke the words aloud, and a breath of wind seemed to move the trees to respond; it was as though they said, "He is no true knight to say that."

A hush fell over them, the bees rested on the thyme, the butterflies nestled close to the blue-bells, the little brook ran on as though it were wild with joy. Presently a footstep was heard, and then the long expected one appeared. With something between a sigh and a smile she held out one little white hand to him. "I hardly thought you would wait for me, Claude. You are very patient."

"I would wait twice seven years for only one look at your face," he rejoined.

"Would you?" interrogated the girl wearily. "I would not wait so long even for a fairy prince."

She sat down on the heather-covered bank, and took off her hat. She fanned herself with it for a few minutes, and then flung it carelessly among the flowers.

"You do not seem very enraptured at seeing me, Hyacinth," said the young lover reproachfully. The girl sighed wearily.

"I do not believe I could go into a rapture over any thing in the world," she broke out. "I am so tired of my life – so tired of it, Claude, that I do not believe I could get up an interest in a single thing."

"I hope you feel some little interest in me," he said.

"I – I – I cannot tell. I think even bitterest pain would be better than the dead monotony that is killing me."

She remembered those words in after years, and repented of them when repentance was in vain.

"Surely you might smile now," said Claude. "I hope you do not fi